M79 firing 40mm high explosive rounds. Extremely accurate and effective against the T800 from 30-100 yards. Caution should be exercised in damaging or destroying a T800 because the later models had an inherently unstable power supply that, when damaged, could go critical resulting in a blast of approximately 1 kiloton.
I would say ask it a riddle but Terminators are equipped with paradox-absorbing crumple zones.
Not fatal, but should give you some breathing room. Douse it with a few gallons of paint heavily imbued with powdered metal. That should seriously futz the visual and EM spectra sensors. I’m not sure what sort of self cleaning/repair mechanism it has but it certainly won’t be instantaneous.
ETA: Make sure it’s the hi-temp stuff so it can’t just cook it to ash.
Despite their Hollywood reputation for indestructableness, they are just machines. The T800 in T2 got (nearly) permanently disabled by a metal spike. The original T800 got damaged and developed a limp just from the low-tech damage it received.
Titanium and stainless steel aren’t magic. (they also aren’t magnetic). Any sufficiently large weapon will damage it. .50, as noted, or 20mm, 30mm, LAWS rocket, stainless steel cable wrapped several times around it and hoisted into the air, run over by a tank. Lot’s of things will work. It was just that Sarah and Kyle didn’t have access to any of those.
I wonder what would happen if you forgo technology altogether and simply use large numbers of trained people to overwhelm them. In the first movie the T800 quickly killed humans in a couple movements who were just sitting ducks, but had to do some work and took a minute to dispatch an aggressive human actively attacking it. It was almost embarrassing how many chairs to the head and double-leg takedowns had to be absorbed before Sara’s roommate’s creepy boyfriend finally got smashed against enough mirrors and doors to finish him off. In the various hand to hand or hand to simple weapon fight scenes the terminators always seem to take on one human at a time and win by being more powerful and tough than their single attacker. You don’t see them engaging multiple people at once, so maybe that’s a weakness in their programming (they can only effectively engage one complex target at a time).
Do like police officers do; get 3-6 guys to charge in, one take the legs and hold on, and the others immobilize arms or just pile on. Have one guy access the spot on the head where the main chip just pops out and switch the fucker off. Sure the terminators are a lot stronger than people but their strength isn’t infinite, and to take advantage of that strength to disable people you usually need to use some compound movements with your arms & legs rather than just extend your leg or close your fingers really hard.
There’s plenty of videos of organized people piling onto big crocodiles and subduing them in real life. Just take the terminator off it’s feet and dog-pile him, keep tripping him up or hold him down until someone can get to the turn off button (seen in T2 when the T800 told John how to access his chip).
Heh…on that note, and if you REALLY wanted to get low-tech, you could try stampeding cattle at it. Or setting an elephant against it, from the videos I’ve seen of rampaging ones attacking people and cars.
It’s really not often that “ignoble” and “magnificent” get to meet up precisely at a moment of death—such events must be treasured and appreciated, like fine wine.
Treat it like a little brother, alternating between torturing it and friendly conversation until you convince it that it loves you.
Then shoot it in the back of the head.
There were nukes in the 80’s.
So, use a nuke.