No I use the 270 for deer and 416 Rem for buff/scrub bulls.
A 270/416 would be a hell of a cartridge. Barrel life 400-600 shots I guess.
Maybe someone would like to experiment with that???
You have a great combination there Dr Ray, I have a similar idea, but have the .270's parent, the old .30/06 and a .416 Rigby
All of the cartridges mentioned, and more are good at putting cats down with one shot, though I do recall hitting a poor cat with my Ruger .44 Rem Magnum, the cat was totally dead after that, but it still ran a fair way before realizing it was dead, I honestly felt so sorry for it. The bullet took it in the chest and tore/traveled right through all it's vitals and out it's rear. It was totally gutted, but it still ran. I suppose getting away was the last thing on it's mind!
God, they are a tough animal. In all honesty, I do have a lot of respect for cats, I really like them, but, yes, they are also the ultimate killing machine, and should not be released into the wild, as they have a hell of an appetite for all manner of helpless native wildlife. One of my pet cats used to bring small copperhead snakes back to me to show how good a hunter he was. Yes, Australian copper head snakes are poisonous, and I have been told the American copperheads are poisonous too, different species but have the same thing in common.
During my teen years, the first animal that I ever shot and killed was a big black short-haired Tom. A one shot kill through the heart, in the dark whilst hanging out my bedroom window. I was using my first ever rifle a Czech made Slavia 620, .177 air rifle (break open action). To this day I don't know how I could have seen my open sight, let alone against a black cat, in the dark. Of course the cat leapt in the air and jumped the neighbors fence and died as it hit the ground. I honestly thought I had wounded it, until the next morning when my neighbors kids knocked on my door and asked if it was our cat which lay dead in their backyard.
If I have had to shoot cats in my yard, it was always due to them being stray Toms which were injuring my pet cats, and/or preventing my cats from feeding. I must admit, I did get good at stalking them in bare feet. After a period I started to feel sorry for the strays, it was getting too easy, and I didn't feel like digging more holes in the dark to to bury them. There was one little stray girl cat, who fiercely attacked and bluffed my cats after I fed them. So I decided to just give her a scare, and sneaked up on her when her head was in the bowl feeding. I grabbed the back of her neck with my right hand, stupidly thinking that she wouldn't get me from that angle, but boy, did she prove me wrong
Somehow she twisted her whole body around and dug all 4 paws into my lower arm, her rear legs ripping in to me and downwards, like a leopard. During this fierce display I was in shock, a real novice, as I slightly released the pressure from her neck, and then her head cam around and she started biting into my hand and fingers. I yelled out in horror when all I could see was blood and meat, so my instant reaction was to rip her off and throw her a mile. She never did come back again. As for me, I called my for my mother, who went pale at the appearance of my fingers, but, after rinsing all the blood away, the meat was not the flesh from my fingers, it was cat food stuck on my fingers, together with my oozing blood, it was only a flesh wound.
I still had to treat the deep bite marks and scratches, but I will not be doing that again.
By the way, if you just want to scare a cat off without giving it a major injury, I found that Chicken Layers Pellets from farms produce stores are the perfect fit for a .177 calibre air rifle. The pellet will break up on a cats skin, to leave a bit of a welt, which is better than killing it, especially if the cat may belong to your neighbors.
Regards
Rob
