The Perfect Shot for Dinosaurs
16 August 2025 11:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dime_novel_heroKnowing of my previous experience with antediluvian beasts, an associate of mine provided me a copy of Phil Massaro’s big game hunting book “The Perfect Shot for Dinosaurs” so as to receive my views on the text. Although I share those opinions now in this public format, know that I am not a journalist or professional critic and so you may not receive the conventional “review” you might expect.
The book itself is a smallish volume of under 200 pages and of a size that could easily be carried in a small satchel or even a large pocket. The brevity of such a small text suggests either that of a quick reference for more experienced hunters or a shallow overview, more for entertainment than utility. Each chapter consists of only 8 pages or so and focuses on a single species of dinosaur. After a general illustration, the author presents an anecdote of his (or a colleague’s) encounter with the specified creature. He then speaks to the regions where it is to be found and a few of its habits. There is then another illustration indicating where bone, lungs, heart, and brain are located and, thus, where the best place to apply a bullet to end the creature’s life quickly and efficiently. Finally, he details specific firearms and cartridges that he favors for the stopping power necessary to bring the encounter to its conclusion.
I am not a big game hunter. Big game hunters setting out with the pith helmets on safari, a score of porters carrying a literal ton of supplies, native guides and gunbearers to advise on whether to use a wood driver or 9 iron, fully stocked glamorous tent complexes with brandy and cigars by the campfire, all for the goal of placing a trophy on a wall. This has not been my experience. While I have hunted and been hunted by any number of creatures, it is for me not a recreational endeavor. I have been forced to make due with whatever is on hand.
I choose a versatile weapon and ammunition combination out of the assortment of firearms I have on hand. As big game in general and dinosaurs specifically might be literally the least likely things I might encounter that need killing, any choice I make is likely to be insufficient.
So, when it comes to choice of weapon or ammunition, the author is knowledgeable and provides factual details. In fact, his biographical indicates this understanding is foundational to his his profession as contributor and editor to various firearms publications. In this information, I would defer to his experience.
Additionally, the illustrations detailing the internal disposition of vital organs so as to obtain the “Perfect Shot” seem reasoned, reasonable, and accurate. Brain, heart, lungs, and ribs are, in general, consistent across all vertebrates so a hunter familiar with mammalian anatomy should be able to correlate a similar placement in dinosauria, thought I think the author could have added additional details on how dinosaur bones are more fragile than those of mammals, making shots through the shoulder blade more reasonable
Head shots are uncommon when hunting mammals as the heart and lungs are a much larger target and the smaller size means that a hit there bleeds out much more quickly. For the larger mammals, such as elephants, and for sauropods and the largest theropod, there is a lot of flesh and muscle around the heart and lungs requiring deep penetrating bullets or head shots to quickly end the encounter. As a general rule of thumb, shooting a mammal between the eyes or midway between the eye and the back of the skull when in profile will hit the brain and put it down but, for a dinosaur, will only hit a lot of jaw muscle within the skull scaffolding. One will find the brain of a dinosaur much smaller and shot placement will need to be much closer to where the skull meets the spine.
It would all seem as expected to anyone experienced with conventional big game safaris and even reasonable to those who have encountered one of the more exotic creatures, Again, anatomy across genera are not all that different. Meat is meat and the same rules of terminal ballistics apply. But a few things the author wrote about had me think that perhaps he was not as widely experienced as he claimed.
First, was his suggestions for tackling a Mosasaur. For those that are not familiar with the term, a Mosasaur is a very large carnivorous marine reptile. Image, if you will, a crocodile crossed with a shark and more than 50 feet in length. To land this leviathan, the author recommend John Moses Browning’s masterwork machine gun, hurling 10 finger-sized iron bullets every second.
It seems absurd to assault such a creature with such a rate of fire and expect to recover the carcass as the reptile lacks the blubber of the whales and, once the lungs and swim bladder were thoroughly perforated with the hail of steel, it would quickly sink into the depths. I thought one of the goals of performative hunters was to take a trophy.
Ask whalers how such a beast is to be taken and they will unanimously say NOT with any sort of machine gun.
The author’s second dubious recommendation is concerning the Brachiosaurus. As massive as a literal herd of elephants with longs necks placing their almost comically small heads some 50 feet off the ground, killing such a thing requires some very precise placement of a bullet into the very small brain. And while the author’s plan for accomplishing this is not unreasonable (though I would say overly complex) it is the dressing and butchery of the carcass that I find unbelievable.
“Chainsaws for butchering are a welcome addition to you gear list.”
Good gods, man. Have you never actually used a chain saw? Never experienced its mechanical teeth chew out countless slivers of wood and throw them back upon you such that, having felled only a medium sized tree, you find sawdust in your hair, mouth, ears, and other unmentionable places? Imagine then, this was not wood but instead a fine spray of blood, flesh, and viscera and, instead of a small tree, this was a behemoth carcass the size of a small house.
Again, ask whalers how such a beast is to be rendered and they will unanimously say NOT with a chainsaw.
I then looked more closely as to where the author says various dinosaurs are to be found and hunted. It seems odd that South America is not mentioned at all when Maple-White Land and the tepui of northern Brazil are things that exist. That Ragosu-shima in the Marshall Islands is not listed. No reference to the Sierra Pinacate in Mexico. The Bassin du Congo in Central Africa. Caprona in the Pacific Antarctic. Places where the presence of prehistoric beasts are well documented, but completely unknown to the author
Yet, the Eastern slopes of the American Rocky Mountains is veritably thriving with herds of dinosaurs, a situation almost entirely lost on the residents (at least, those that I have spoken to in my numerous travels there). I don’t think it is a coincidence that the author’s details correspond to the locations where bone sharps have discovered fossils, representing where the dinosaurs lived millions of years ago, and not their contemporary, and much more limited, home ranges.
And so I am unable to recommend “The Perfect Shot for Dinosaurs” for any but the most casual reader. While his commentary on firearms and ammo seems reasonable enough, the bulk of his observations and advice concerning big game seems based on assumption and speculation. Relying on such a thing when hunting something as dangerous as a carnivorous theropod is likely to get someone, dare I say a lot of someones, horribly mauled, killed, and subsequently consumed.
The book itself is a smallish volume of under 200 pages and of a size that could easily be carried in a small satchel or even a large pocket. The brevity of such a small text suggests either that of a quick reference for more experienced hunters or a shallow overview, more for entertainment than utility. Each chapter consists of only 8 pages or so and focuses on a single species of dinosaur. After a general illustration, the author presents an anecdote of his (or a colleague’s) encounter with the specified creature. He then speaks to the regions where it is to be found and a few of its habits. There is then another illustration indicating where bone, lungs, heart, and brain are located and, thus, where the best place to apply a bullet to end the creature’s life quickly and efficiently. Finally, he details specific firearms and cartridges that he favors for the stopping power necessary to bring the encounter to its conclusion.I am not a big game hunter. Big game hunters setting out with the pith helmets on safari, a score of porters carrying a literal ton of supplies, native guides and gunbearers to advise on whether to use a wood driver or 9 iron, fully stocked glamorous tent complexes with brandy and cigars by the campfire, all for the goal of placing a trophy on a wall. This has not been my experience. While I have hunted and been hunted by any number of creatures, it is for me not a recreational endeavor. I have been forced to make due with whatever is on hand.
I choose a versatile weapon and ammunition combination out of the assortment of firearms I have on hand. As big game in general and dinosaurs specifically might be literally the least likely things I might encounter that need killing, any choice I make is likely to be insufficient.
So, when it comes to choice of weapon or ammunition, the author is knowledgeable and provides factual details. In fact, his biographical indicates this understanding is foundational to his his profession as contributor and editor to various firearms publications. In this information, I would defer to his experience.
Additionally, the illustrations detailing the internal disposition of vital organs so as to obtain the “Perfect Shot” seem reasoned, reasonable, and accurate. Brain, heart, lungs, and ribs are, in general, consistent across all vertebrates so a hunter familiar with mammalian anatomy should be able to correlate a similar placement in dinosauria, thought I think the author could have added additional details on how dinosaur bones are more fragile than those of mammals, making shots through the shoulder blade more reasonable
Head shots are uncommon when hunting mammals as the heart and lungs are a much larger target and the smaller size means that a hit there bleeds out much more quickly. For the larger mammals, such as elephants, and for sauropods and the largest theropod, there is a lot of flesh and muscle around the heart and lungs requiring deep penetrating bullets or head shots to quickly end the encounter. As a general rule of thumb, shooting a mammal between the eyes or midway between the eye and the back of the skull when in profile will hit the brain and put it down but, for a dinosaur, will only hit a lot of jaw muscle within the skull scaffolding. One will find the brain of a dinosaur much smaller and shot placement will need to be much closer to where the skull meets the spine.
It would all seem as expected to anyone experienced with conventional big game safaris and even reasonable to those who have encountered one of the more exotic creatures, Again, anatomy across genera are not all that different. Meat is meat and the same rules of terminal ballistics apply. But a few things the author wrote about had me think that perhaps he was not as widely experienced as he claimed.
First, was his suggestions for tackling a Mosasaur. For those that are not familiar with the term, a Mosasaur is a very large carnivorous marine reptile. Image, if you will, a crocodile crossed with a shark and more than 50 feet in length. To land this leviathan, the author recommend John Moses Browning’s masterwork machine gun, hurling 10 finger-sized iron bullets every second.
It seems absurd to assault such a creature with such a rate of fire and expect to recover the carcass as the reptile lacks the blubber of the whales and, once the lungs and swim bladder were thoroughly perforated with the hail of steel, it would quickly sink into the depths. I thought one of the goals of performative hunters was to take a trophy.
Ask whalers how such a beast is to be taken and they will unanimously say NOT with any sort of machine gun.
The author’s second dubious recommendation is concerning the Brachiosaurus. As massive as a literal herd of elephants with longs necks placing their almost comically small heads some 50 feet off the ground, killing such a thing requires some very precise placement of a bullet into the very small brain. And while the author’s plan for accomplishing this is not unreasonable (though I would say overly complex) it is the dressing and butchery of the carcass that I find unbelievable.
“Chainsaws for butchering are a welcome addition to you gear list.”
Good gods, man. Have you never actually used a chain saw? Never experienced its mechanical teeth chew out countless slivers of wood and throw them back upon you such that, having felled only a medium sized tree, you find sawdust in your hair, mouth, ears, and other unmentionable places? Imagine then, this was not wood but instead a fine spray of blood, flesh, and viscera and, instead of a small tree, this was a behemoth carcass the size of a small house.
Again, ask whalers how such a beast is to be rendered and they will unanimously say NOT with a chainsaw.
I then looked more closely as to where the author says various dinosaurs are to be found and hunted. It seems odd that South America is not mentioned at all when Maple-White Land and the tepui of northern Brazil are things that exist. That Ragosu-shima in the Marshall Islands is not listed. No reference to the Sierra Pinacate in Mexico. The Bassin du Congo in Central Africa. Caprona in the Pacific Antarctic. Places where the presence of prehistoric beasts are well documented, but completely unknown to the author
Yet, the Eastern slopes of the American Rocky Mountains is veritably thriving with herds of dinosaurs, a situation almost entirely lost on the residents (at least, those that I have spoken to in my numerous travels there). I don’t think it is a coincidence that the author’s details correspond to the locations where bone sharps have discovered fossils, representing where the dinosaurs lived millions of years ago, and not their contemporary, and much more limited, home ranges.
And so I am unable to recommend “The Perfect Shot for Dinosaurs” for any but the most casual reader. While his commentary on firearms and ammo seems reasonable enough, the bulk of his observations and advice concerning big game seems based on assumption and speculation. Relying on such a thing when hunting something as dangerous as a carnivorous theropod is likely to get someone, dare I say a lot of someones, horribly mauled, killed, and subsequently consumed.
