Raccoon/Possum Removal

[edporch]

What would be your firearm of choice to handle sick or injured critters of this size?

I saw a neighbor try to take down an injured raccoon and it was painful to watch. There was no reason he couldn't get a clean shot, but he ended up putting a dozen .22 rounds into the poor critter before it expired. I'd like to be a little more humane than that.. but I also don't want to go crazy. What would you use in this situation? I'd like to be able to put them down AQAP but without making a mess any more than I need to.. plus I don't want to scare any children-types with large scary firearms or wide-ranging splatters of animal bits..

Thoughts?

Racoons are surprisingly tough.

I had a big one in my garage a few years ago that had tried to move into my attic.

I cleared with a local police officer not to bring the SWAT team down if they heard any gunshots in my garage.

I had a .22 Buckmark pistol with 10 rounds of Subsonic .22 HP ammo in the magazine.

It was cornered up on a shelf, and when it saw me attempted to jump me.

As it jumped I hit it with one shot, and then it began trying to escape.

I fired all 10 shots of the subsonic .22 HP into it as it was running around, missing with only 1 shot.

That raccoon was shot 9 times with Subsonic .22 HP and it kicked for about 30 seconds before it died.
Granted, I likely didn't get a good well placed shot due to it running all around my garage as I was shooting at it.

I told this to the police officer who told me to call him when i got it.

He told me that a few weeks before, he had shot a raccoon in the head with his .40 SW service pistol, and it kicked for almost 5 minutes before it died.

 

[gunman41mag]

just find a guy that eats them

 

[BoilerWes]

Coon hunter for 25 years...point blank 22 to head, game over. Period.

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

Had one take up residence in my garage once. All I had at the time was a 1911, so, you know. I was stumbling around out there with no shoes and no glasses, and a bum knee, and all I had were FMJs. Had to shoot the poor thing 4 times for a kill. Felt bad about that. Demised a pair of possums in the attic some years later with one .223 varmint HP each. Shot placement is most important, but the projectile can make up for a lot.

 

[winstonsmith84]

I normally use a .22, but once there was a sick Raccoon slobbering at the mouth in the middle of the day in the back yard and my 8mm Mauser was all I could grab fast. Whoa. What a mess.

 

[David]

I have an ongoing problem trying to keep groundhogs out from under my porch. I've killed them with a 38/357 lever gun, a .17hmr, and a .223. Never had to chase one down.

 

[Mackey]

Why waste ammo? Just strap the coon on to a [thread=187380]buck[/thread].

 

[ghuns]

.45 Speer Gold Dot works like a champ but .22 is adequate.
Came home from deer hunting one night to find a possum in my garage curled up around the base of a 1942 vintage toilet. We were redoing the bathroom and now way was I buy a new water saver crapper when I had this high flow bad boy that could flush a small dog. I poked him for a while with a broom handle and he wasn't comin out for nothin. My little brother said I'll run home and get my bow and a blunt tipped arrow and shoot him with that. I said OK, you're the archery pro, just don't f-up my john. Long story short, he shot it, experienced some over penetration and busted right through the porcelain base of my commode. On his next Canadian fishing trip he stopped at a Home Depot and smuggled me in a shiny new 3.5 gallon/flush bad boy.

 

[Yeah]

If you want a mess on your hands, try to choke one out.

 

[Mgderf]

Ive made a living as wildlife control operator, trapped thousands of coons in my 43 years. (not to mention 20 years of coon hunting...nobody uses anything but a 22 on them) a 22 to the head will kill them on the spot. their skulls are not that thick. A sharp smack on the back of the head with a stick or hammer will kill them dead too.[/QUOTE]


Yeah! A sharp smack on the back of the head with a hammer will kill a human too!

 

[ThrottleJockey]

This past summer I put 8 rounds .25acp clean through the head at the brain stem of an opossum from about 6 inches away before it died, that sucked. I also split a raccoon in half with the .357mag from about 30 ft, one shot one kill. Later in the summer I took two more coons with a 12g using low brass #7, one shot each from about 40-50 ft.

I think the .25 would have served me better with HPs, as they all went clean through and I was able to recover the smashed bullets. I suspect it was powerful enough just had the wrong bullets to utilize the energy effectively....

 

[buckstopshere]

(as odd as it may sound) the live, healthy ones don't bother me so much. It's the ones that are half-dead, injured, sick, etc that I'm going to be dealing with..

Their scat can be full of roundworm hat can cause blindness and even death in humans, mostly toddlers.

I have small kids and take no chances. If I can, I'll put them down regardless of their health. But that's me.