On the relative dangers of dinosaur attacks

[Hauldren Collider]

Thanks, I'll take 1500 rounds a minute of 800 grams at a kilometer a second over some ****ty buckshot any day of the week.

Who says you're firing buckshot from that shotgun? You can get slugs too, I think. Although I guess those wouldn't be rifled...

[Felch]

Felch, you could probably take down just about anything with a 30-06 right?

30-06 is fine for North American game, but it's not appropriate for African big game. That's where you want something like a .470 Nitro Express, which is a big slow bullet with almost twice the energy of the 30-06.

As far as the T-Rex goes, you'd need even more than that.

[Zoetstofzoetje]

let me add that dinosaur DNA has indeed been found. not in amber - but in bones.

it happened by freak accident. some dinosaur bone was forgotten while in some preparation solution. the remains were casually analyzed, and the scientist was surprised to find actual DNA.

of course, it was chopped up and incomplete. they did run a DNA comparison though to see what that dino was most similar to. guess what? ostrich.

[Elok]

I stumbled across a mention of that on Wiki while doing important research for this thread. I think the dino in question was T-Rex. Can't be arsed to look it up again, though.

[SlowwHand]

Too much depends on circumstances

[DaShi]

What circumstance? You heard Andy Dufresne in the movie. The raptors will eat you alive. If the T-rex gets you at least it will be over quick.

[Felch]

I think you're mixing up Tim Robbins with Samuel L. Jackson. It's a common mistake.

[Hauldren Collider]

I'm frankly terrified of the bananaraptor.

Felch: Further gun question. I think I read somewhere that shotgun slugs can be rifled themselves, so they are precise even in a shotgun which is smoothbore. Also, slugs are enormous. a) is this true and b) could they kill something huge like a T-rex?

[SlowwHand]

You didn't ask me, but I'll answer anyway. I'm a buttinski. A) A shotgun shell can't be rifled. There is no rate of twist to a shotgun. B) Unless you were incredibly fortunate in your area of impact, I doubt that a single shotgun blast, even with a slug, would do much more than piss it off; and I wouldn't count on getting off more than a shot.
You might, but I'd be hauling ass.

[Felch]

There are rifled slugs, and rifled shotgun barrels. It's pretty simple to change out barrels, at least on my Mossberg 500. Rifled shotguns slugs are slow and heavy, and they are sometimes used in hunting where rifles are prohibited. They tend to be less likely to overpenetrate, since they're big slow slugs instead of tiny fast bullets. It would not be a reliable way to take out a T-Rex.

Here are some charts to give you an idea.

Rifled slug

30-06

If you look at those, you'll note that they both start with ~2500 ft-lbs, but after 100 yards the 30-06 has nearly twice the energy.

EDIT: One more thing. If the barrel is smoothbore, than the rifled slug won't help accuracy. The rifling on the slugs has something to do with barrel wear.

[DinoDoc]

I love this thread.

[KrazyHorse]

KH, you're assuming that there are enough RPGs and heavy machine guns to go around. This does not necessarily apply in a...dinosaur apocalypse scenario. Under such circumstances, the price of massive firepower will go up substantially, and in a densely populated, already pricey neighborhood like NYC, it's unlikely that your income would buy enough (assuming no gov't. regulation of dinocidal implements). And if you're planning to procure them without money by one means or another...there are going to be a number of people ahead of you.

Also, *somebody* has to be the poor bugger who discovers the dinos are back. Maybe the dinos suddenly reincarnated at your place of work because they felt it was a good spot for aggressive and hyper-dominant animals to be.

A few points here:

1) Dinosaur defense is a public good. Having neighbors who are armed to the teeth is good for me
2) Selection effects. By construction I am still alive to fight dinosaurs. Assuming any kind of shortage of weaponry, people will kill each other to steal it or die trying. Within a relatively short period of time, this will have shaken itself out and thus I will have weapons sufficient to fight dinosaurs (duh).

You need to learn economics and Bayes' theorem.

The Ma Deuce is the only reliable way to survive a T-Rex attack.

[Hauldren Collider]

We need mathematical models for this, KH. Create some Monte Carlo simulations for dinosaur survival and weapon purchases. Also, would we have T-Rex claw futures? What sorts of financial instruments would be traded on the Flintstones Stock Exchange?

If I go up against dinosaurs, I want to be prepared with science and math.

[Hauldren Collider]

No one's suggested homemade flamethrowers yet, by the way. I've heard you can put gas in a super soaker and a lighter on the end and get a decent one that way.

[Felch]

Because the ATF doesn't care about muzzle loading black powder weapons, it's also pretty simple to get a hold of some Civil War era artillery.

Steen Cannons Price List

A six-pounder should be enough to take down a T-Rex. Yours for less than 10k.