Taking a Misfit poll here, what is the smallest caliber

800-1,000lbs. for freezer meat with 41GNR#2, 44Mag, 30GNR, but all were head shots, behind the ear, aka GNR's favorite spot.

Personally, and have shot only one smaller Bison with a .51 cal., my small bore would be .375/235 gr. That would be the power level of a 375 Win. carbine and hoping to use very precise shot placement. In a revolver I'd have a little reservation of using anything under .41 and 220 gr. I've personally seen Gary bowl over a HUGE Buffalo bull, probably north of 2500 lbs. as it was closer to 6' at the back than not. He used a little .41 GNR G2 Contender Pirate barrel and a low power fixed Burris scope. I think the bullet was a 170 gr. Serria JHC or maybe the silhouette JFN. It was like you yanked the rug from under it. Perfect bullet placement.

I used a .510 GNR revolver and 410 gr. cast bullet at 1100 fps. It was all I could stand to shoot without flinching in my gun. I took a shot from maybe 30-40 yds. and his nose hit the grass. It was not dead at all, he just was incapacitated and could not stand with two broken shoulder bones. I had to shoot him in the neck point blank to finish him off. Sort of what Gary did from 50 yds. I did not trust myself with a neck shot from that distance.

Then again I read a story about Mike Ventrino that was not published. He and a buddy shot a Bison around 11 times over a several mile chase in the snow with huge period buffalo guns and ammo. One was a .50 something and I forget the other. In real world hunting stuff goes sideways many times and the Hero gets to taste humble pie.

It's all on you buddy, when the hammer drops!

.357 Remington Maximum and a 200 grain WFNHC and it penetrated his left front shoulder passing through his right ham and exiting. Do I think it would dispatch a buffalo, yes.
Would I hunt with it, no. 41 GNR for me.

My 41 GNR and 445 SM. The next biggest round I have is 45/70 Gonna keep practicing with the 41. I like taking the behind ear shots instead of going for lung/heart shots. I've seen too many animals not go down from those and have to be tracked/trailed to finish off

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with 300 gr hard cast at a 2200lb bull bison.

Fired 6 shots into the lungs on the left side then 6 more into the lungs on the right side. He just stood there.

Used 2 shots from a 300 H&H to break the front shoulders then 5 more shots to the base of the neck while standing over him with the 44 mag again.

The lung shots only penetrated to the spine. The base of the neck shots didn't penetrate enough to break the spine. I figure the shoulder shots eventually did him in.

This was before I met up with Gary. The days when I thought a 44 mag could kill anything it touched.

Since then I have harvested 12 more bison. Mostly with a 243 in the ear tag.