Texas has more than its share of interesting and sometimes dangerous indigenous wildlife (and we’re not even talking about what happens on Dirty 6th). I was asked by a Best of the West range officer to dispatch a 4+ foot long rattler that was coiled under a tree near one of their bays a few months back (I happened to have a shotgun handy).
Our feral hog population is significant and destructive enough (they do millions of dollars of damage to crops and livestock each year) that you can take them year round with a hunting license.
While Foghorn used an unidentified bolt gun to take the two above, ARs seem to be the rifle of choice for pigs in this part of the world.
Armadillo is Spanish for “little armored one” for very good reason. They’re tough little buggers whose scale-like skin is their primary defense against predation. Property owners don’t like them as they can to do a fair amount of damage to lawns and gardens. The state considers them “non-game” animals and may be hunted at any time by any lawful means on private property.
While their armor is thick, they’ve been taken with air rifles, rimfire guns and even slingshots. But as an East Texas man found out, sometimes you need something a little more powerful.
Cass County Sheriff Larry Rowe said the man, who was not identified, went outside his home in Marietta, southwest of Texarkana, at around 3 a.m. on Thursday morning. He spotted the armadillo on his property and opened fire.
“His wife was in the house. He went outside and took his .38 revolver and shot three times at the armadillo,” Rowe said.
The animal’s hard shell deflected at least one of three bullets, which then struck the man’s jaw, he said.
The Reuters report says his jaw was wired shut after he was airlifted to a local hospital, so we’re glad to hear he’ll apparently be fine (though he can look forward to a steady diet of Gatorade and milk shakes for a while).
So given that a round as stout as a .38 wasn’t enough to plug the ‘dillo that the unidentified man targeted, what caliber would you use?