Monday, August 25, 2008

rexHunt

One of the posts I had fun with a while back was the one about hunting a T. rex. In it, we discussed a letter published in GUNS Magazine that was inspired by the choices of armaments in Jurassic Park, and a rebuttal letter that kept the conversation going.

A new comment entered last week tells us to check out rexGun by Dr. Stephen W. Templar.

Interesting--I haven't read it (yet) but I'm intrigued, and the Amazon site allows you to preview some of the book's contents, which include considerations a hunter would need to assess for any large dangerous game animal tailored to what we know/assume about T. rex.

I bring this up now because it dovetails nicely with an idea I had a few weeks back watching The History Channel's very cool series, "Jurassic Fight Club." My thoughts immediately went back to our prior discussion.

Tell me "rexHunt" wouldn't be a fascinating show.

You could interview world-renowned big game hunters, perhaps experts who write for gun magazines--I'd think they'd jump at the publicity--who would propose what they'd use and their preferred tactics. You could show ballistics/cavitation results. You could interview world-renowned dinosaur experts, who could provide the information about the creatures' capabilities, habitat, probable behaviors, etc. And then you could show the CGI results of combining known and best estimate factors together--perhaps determined by putting the hunters into a computer-generated scenario simulator that would compute where they hit the beast, if they did, and what effect that would theoretically have--and having it all acted out like a movie scene. Perhaps some of them would not "survive," and perhaps the one(s) who did would have crowing rights.

I think it would be a hell of a show, assuming, of course, it didn't overly horrify the antis into stirring up enough PR heat to strangle the idea in its crib.

And why limit it to T. rex? We could see hunts planned and carried out for a Velociraptor, factoring in the added dynamics of a presumed pack animal, or Triceratops, with its armored skull and massive bulk...

Not that I have any real hope of seeing this actualized. Ah well...it's not the first time I've indulged in a televised fantasy...

[And no, I'm not endorsing attempting a headshot with my graphic--it's just an illustration for cryin' out loud...]

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

.458 Lott
Three Seven Five
and a Ten Gauge goose gun.

Wonder if they taste like gator meat. Gator meat is good.

Anonymous said...

There is a classic L Sprague DeCamp short story, "A Gun for Dinosaur". He later updated it and wrote several more with the same protaganist for a collection from Baen titled "Rivers of Time".

Ken said...

Cen't believe no one recommended a Solothurn in the original thread. In Jurassic Park III, the mercenaries were shown field-testing an "Einhorn 20mm" (portrayed by a Barrett M82A2 Bullpup) in an aircraft scrapyard in the desert.

The 'raptor hunt would be pretty dramatic, if that's the word...hunting a pack of something that is hunting you. You think cape buffalo are ill-tempered? ;-)

Anonymous said...

How can you forget the 1977 movie starring Richard Boone, The Last Dinosaur?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Dinosaur

Mike Gallo said...

I thought this matter was already settled by Lara Croft. You simply have to find a large clearing with four ancient spiked wheels in it, shoot it with dual .45 ACP 1911-A1s, or Dual .45 ACP USP Expert Match handguns, to enrage it. Run towards one of the wheels, and when it charges, use your special "bullet time" ability (like in John Woo movies) to stun it with a single headshot, and it will slam into the wheel. Do this with three of the four spiked wheels, and the beast will fall.

David Goodyear said...

12 Gauge shooting 1 oz slugs. Fast, powerful, quick to reload, manageable recoil.

1600 fps
2900 ft/lbs

8)

Anonymous said...

As someone who actually studied dinosaurs in college, I have to point out that velociraptors were about 4 feet tall. You might as well be hunting angry turkeys. The velociraptors we saw in Jurassic Park were closer to Deinonychus (who are also 11 feet tall). It would be like hunting an entire pack of hungry lions. I'd definitely pay to see it!

The_Chef said...

You might as well be hunting angry turkeys. The velociraptors we saw in Jurassic Park were closer to Deinonychus (who are also 11 feet tall). It would be like hunting an entire pack of hungry lions. I'd definitely pay to see it!

To quote the great Burt Gummer from Tremors 2 "...we should be packing full-auto, preferably belt-fed!"

hunting a pack of angry turkeys or lions ... *shudders*

Anonymous said...

.30-06 for the t. rex, taking full advantage of the 600yd distance advantage I would have with my Remington for as many follow-up shots as necessary.

I would only hunt a pack of 'raptors/Deinonychus with the 30mm chain gun attached to an AH-64d Apache Longbow. :)

Anonymous said...

I would only hunt a pack of 'raptors/Deinonychus with the 30mm chain gun attached to an AH-64d Apache Longbow.

Very, very wise!

Using the Apache on T-Rex isn't a bad idea either.

Unknown said...

Since the T. rex is approximately the size of the elephant, I would go with the classic 6.5x54mm Mannlicher-Schoenauer.