Caliber for cougar calling?
- Thread starter 10Bears
- Start date
Accuracy is the main thing for me, in case I need to shoot at a small piece of cougar, maybe looking at me over a log, or through a hole in the brush at a piece of cat. The few I've seen killed combined with quite a bit of talk with hound men is that cougars are one of the easier animals to kill in terms of tenacity of life. It doesn't take a lot of bullet. I.e. I consider grizzlies, elk, Rocky Mtn. goats and coyotes hard to kill. Deer, moose, black bear and cougar average on the easy end, though moose are stubborn about staying on their feet but they seldom use that stubborness to do anything other than stand, where an elk would be in the next canyon in the same amount of expiration time.
Hound men when I was a kid often used a .22 rimfire pistol so they could kill the lion without knocking it out of the tree where it might kill or cut a dog in its last moments. With a .22 it would hang on a few seconds, then fall out dead.
We've used a varmint barreled tack driving 6mm Remington and a MOA .30-06, because that's what we have at hand. If I were to buy a rifle specifically for hunting mt. lion I'd probably go with an accurized .243 or maybe a .260 tack driver. The various .22 CF rifles are probably fine for cougar. I just like a little more authority and the .24 and up give you a little more wallop along with accuracy, especially if the range starts to stretch. Sometimes you see a cat way off, like on a ledge 400 yards away, looking at the call sound. I wouldn't shoot at him at 400 but if he got within 300 I would if he gave me much to shoot at.
Hound men when I was a kid often used a .22 rimfire pistol so they could kill the lion without knocking it out of the tree where it might kill or cut a dog in its last moments. With a .22 it would hang on a few seconds, then fall out dead.
We've used a varmint barreled tack driving 6mm Remington and a MOA .30-06, because that's what we have at hand. If I were to buy a rifle specifically for hunting mt. lion I'd probably go with an accurized .243 or maybe a .260 tack driver. The various .22 CF rifles are probably fine for cougar. I just like a little more authority and the .24 and up give you a little more wallop along with accuracy, especially if the range starts to stretch. Sometimes you see a cat way off, like on a ledge 400 yards away, looking at the call sound. I wouldn't shoot at him at 400 but if he got within 300 I would if he gave me much to shoot at.
Curt Barrett
New member
Well said Okanagan. Any .22 centerfire on up will do the job. Where I hunt most shots will be fairly close so I feel pretty comfortable with .223 or 22-250. .243 would be great as well. As Okanagan said, lions are not very hard to kill. Like with any hunting, most important thing is putting the bullet where it should go. If you are hunting bear at the same time you may consider a bigger caliber.
Good hunting
Good hunting
