> it's very difficult .... [to] shoot the life out of a wild creature. As others have noted, it depends on a lot of things, but most of all the energy of the c

> it's very difficult .... [to] shoot the life out of a wild creature. As others have noted, it depends on a lot of things, but most of all the energy of the cartridge in question. While farming in rural Missouri, I found myself needed to end the lives of a number of animals over the years. In that pursuit, I always used this cartridge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.30-06_Springfield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.30-06_Springfield This is suitable to kill any creature found in North America, except for perhaps the largest of bears. Unfortunately, it is exceptionally loud and not something to be used outside of very rural environments. Disclaimer: some people will find the following story very uncomfortable to read. (It's rather uncomfortable to write) I relay it only to emphasize the fact that in all matters related to bullets and damage, there's an enormous amount of random chance involved. A friend of ours was retired, but she raised a fair number of goats for milk and profit. Her financial well being waxed and wained over time, but she happened to find herself with no extra money, and a very sick and dying goat. She could not bring herself to shoot the goat herself, so she asked me to do it as a very unpleasant but needful favor, since she (at that point in time) lacked the money to take it to a vet to have it put down. (That's a rather expensive thing, even in rural areas, including disposal.) She also didn't have a large enough property to leave a carcass out for natural consumption. I had plenty of isolated, forested acres. She lived about 10 miles away, so I took my pickup over there. The goat was laying on the ground, writhing and screaming. Goat screams are awful. I put the goat into my pickup as gently as I could and drove back home. It was already a pretty unhappy set of circumstances, but it was going get worse. I drove to the back side of my property, in the woods, and gently laid the poor beast on the ground. Chambering a big .30-06, I put my foot firmly on her neck, took careful aim right at her head, and fired. To the uninitiated: this is a big, powerful round. Fired into the ground, it will leave a good sized pit behind. It passes right through 1/4 inch steel. I expected a big mess and a completely dead goat. Somehow, it had blasted away most of the goat's skull above and including her right eye, but it left her brain completely intact. She twisted, directed her remaining eye at me, and screamed again. The second shot went directly into her exposed brain and that was that. I'm not sure why I'm sharing this sordid story, except that, once again, when dealing with objects at high energies, almost anything can happen.