I picked up a 5-1/2" bull barrel, blued Ruger Mk III .22 a while back ... nice pistol; Altamonte wood grips and fiber optic front sight with an express rear. I stopped off at the farm to try it out.
It was shooting high, but accurate ... I couldn't find a screwdriver to fit the rear sight so depressed the sight body and gave it a whirl with my thumbnail (hard on my manicure, but then, so is my skill with nail clippers). This got it dialed in pretty close and I was having a good time bouncing a tin can around with some Federal bulk hollowpoints.
I had just seated a fresh magazine when a movement caught my eye in the rocks to the west ... an armadillo! He was headed for cover, so I brought the pistol up quick with a snap shot that caught him in the rear quarter panel and sent him scurrying underneath a rock formation that made a sort of tent.
I put a couple more rounds in there after him, and he poked his head out. My next round punched him in his chest, and out he came ... at a dead run, straight for me!
I had a fleeting thought of Byron's post on the charging piece of cardboard covering 21 feet in under two seconds ... remarkably (!) an armadillo can do the same thing! And in full body armor! The look in his eye would have sent a shiver up my spine if I had had time to think, but a man must know how to respond under stress and I had trained for this moment for years with many thousands of rounds of ammunition!
In the time it takes to snap your fingers (if you don't have arthritis), I put three more rounds into the charging animal, the last one launched from mid-air as I leaped to the side to avoid his clawing claws! At that, the beast flipped over with his legs moving helter skelter - not the convulsive kicks of a dying hog or deer, but more like the crazed limbs of someone trying to get a stinging bee out of his shirt.
I put my last couple rounds into the soft underbelly just to be certain, dropped the magazine, and reloaded in case he had friends.
When I had calmed a bit and regained my wits, I cautiously approached to inspect my handiwork. The tangled mess of blood, guts, and shattered armor plating was impressive ... I must have caught him with at least three of the ten rounds fired (and more likely seven, but I make a habit not to touch armadillos).
It was over ... I had seen the armadillo and lived through it.
I can see it all in my mind, playing in slow motion ... the initial perception of the threat, bringing the gun up and snicking off the safety in a fluid motion ... the panic rising in my throat as he broke into my safety zone and the more pressing concern of getting my feet out of the way before I shot them (hence the leap! sideways).
I can't say as I have ever imagined being charged by a mad armadillo, though I did recently read a science fiction book in which a lady loses her foot in a similar incident.
The lessons I take away from this incident are invaluable: shoot early, shoot often, shoot low, and watch that your front sight doesn't cover your toes.
