Have a .357 any suggestions on bullet weight and type of bullet for mountain lions and for bobcats

If I was using jacketed bullet I go with a mid weight 140gr or so.

If using a cast bullet a hard 158gr or so well work just fine.

Two fairly different sized critters.

Any of them place into the vitals well kill them well.

Sierra 158 gr. JHC. Used it for 35+ years on groundhogs, turkeys, deer. Opens up well, decent wound cavity, very good shock effect. It's so good I've never searched for another bullet.

Both are thin skinned and easy to kill, just about anything from a .357 will work. My preference would be a 125gr hollowpoint.

Tom,

On the bobcat use a non expanding bullet. An expanding bullet will blow the crap out of the off side.

Mark

Bobcat or Lion are you purposely hunting, targets of opportunity or you are loading for defensive purposes.
Open country, forest, treed cats?

My dad was an expert on Lions, well recognized as was my Uncle Jack..They lived out their lives in the highest population of Lions in the USA, as did I to a lesser extent....

As professional lion hunters, they used a 22 L.R. rifle or pistol..They shot the Lion behind the shoulder with a regular hard lead bullet, let him rock around on a limb until he fell out of the tree dead, they never lost a dog that way..shooting a big caliber will create a reverse reaction and either knock them out of the tree or make them jump into your dogs with fight left in them, lots of lost or wounded dogs resulted...I have shot many Lions in a trap and in a tree, again with a .22...I doubt that lion hunting on foot like you would hunt deer would be very productive as I lived in Lion country on a big ranch of high Lion population and only saw a couple of Lions by chance in a large number of years, and I was horse back all the time..They are mostly nocturnal, and a very shy animal. Easy to trap and fun to hunt horse back behind a pack of good hounds.

Apparantly only in California do they come to town and kill pets, runners, and kids, because they have lost their fear of man over many years of non hunting..

But if one must hunt them on fair chase, I would recommend any or firearm caliber capable of killing deer.