Originally Posted By: woodguruCoyotes are predators that kill our animals here so I don't screw around, I want 100% for sure hit and kill ratios, I'm not doing them for fun or sport or I'd probably use a pistol.
That's actually how I got started handgunning in the first place. I always kept a (stainless) sidearm on my hip growing up around the ranch, "just in case I needed it". Thankfully, "just in case I needed it" usually just meant an opportunity shot on a coyote, rather than putting down a sick/injured animal. I suppose if I'm 100% honest, "just in case" usually meant "in case I see a rabbit or squirrel or funny looking rock" more often than anything else. The farm trucks always had rifles in them, and my dad, gpa, and uncles always carried leverguns in a scabbard when I was a kid. But I always thought 1) the rifle was ungainly on horseback for every day carry and 2) I hated what a scabbard did to a rifle's finish over time (still do, same as I hate what a holster does to a blued revolver, part of why almost ALL of my guns are stainless).
Then I had the same qualms about beating up my 22lr rifles while coon hunting (at the time, one was a hand-me-down from my granddad, the other a Christmas gift NIB), so I carried my .22lr Mark II for coons over hounds... That evolved into wheelgunning deer, as well as carrying handguns for HUNTING coyotes, not just opportunity shots...
