The optical limiting caused by nonlinear scattering in the photorefractive Zr-doped LiNbO3 crystals was studied for lower-power laser beams with wavelengths of 514.5 and 532 nm. The measurements of speckle evolution indicate that the samples with 0.625 ≤ [Zr] ≤ 1.25 mol% exhibit the very large gain factor for holographic amplification of noise gratings. Based on the direct measurements of the output power depending on the input one, we conclude that these samples behaved as hard optical limiters for the laser beams with a low incident power. Thus, these crystals find their potential application in the optical limiting devices.