[Double Naught Spy]

You can kill most big game with a typical kitchen icepick, not that you would want to, but you can and it can be done with a singular puncture.

As a general rule of thumb consideration, the bigger the animal, the fewer the areas you can shoot it and expect it to be humanely killed or killed while you stalk it unless you have a lot of time, maybe several days. The San or !Kung bushmen will stick a giraffe with a fairly small pointed spear tipped it in poison and then trail the giraffe for several days waiting for it to die. Some people have a lot of time. The Inuit have been documented shooting a polar bear with a bow and arrow (early 1900s) and tracking the wounded animal until it died which could take several days. So that they might do that with a .22 lr or .22 mag does not surprise me, but most would rather have larger, better gear, but that is quite expensive.

If not a CNS shot, I would not want to track the game over a long distance and period of time. Art indicated there being some ethics issues an as most of us aren't subsistence hunters, the idea of a quick kill is much preferred.

It certainly can and has been done all over the world. Current in several southern states, the taking of aligator with .22 lr is legal and guys will take 1200 gaters that way. It is big game, but the preferred shot is a brain shot at very close range.

Various poachers will take big game with .22s. They aren't concerned with a wounded animal running away. If the animal drops, then they have gotten their illegal animal without much noise.