In February 2019 a trail runner named Travis Kauffman killed a mountain lion outside Fort Collins with a rock and his bare hands. Within about four days of that story going round, the internet had turned it into a caliber argument.

So let me settle the easy half in the first two minutes. A 9mm is enough gun for a mountain lion. It is more than enough. A mature cat runs 115 to 160 pounds with a thin skull, a shallow chest and no shoulder shield, and a modern hollow point reaches everything that matters from any angle. Anybody telling you that you need a magnum revolver for this animal is selling you something.

That is not the debate.

The debate nobody is ready for is what happens to that pistol in the four seconds where it would matter. These are ambush predators. There is no warning phase, no bluff charge, no stand-off. The attack begins at contact, from behind, with both of your hands already doing the only thing keeping you alive. There is no draw and there is no shot.

Covered here: the honest ballistics, why hard cast is the wrong call on a cat even though it is the right call on a bear, what the documented survival accounts actually show stops these animals, carry position and why it matters ten times more than caliber, and the one scenario where the handgun is exactly the right answer.

The Smart Money Gun Manual is linked in the description.

Tell me what you carry in lion country, and where it sits when you have a pack on.

9mm, mountain lion, cougar attack, caliber debate, hiking self defense, concealed carry, trail safety, bear spray, hard cast, predator defense