Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Brown Bear with a 7 Rem Mag questions

I've seen this thread for a while now and I keep pushing past it. I just used my best self discipline to walk away.

However this morning It got the best of me. I've worked in this business with the big costal brownies for a part of my early hunting career and my life. There are a few things that I learned with this "recreational" pursuit that were life changing, and likely helped me survive the next part of my future has a Professional hunter in Africa.

To start off, realize that the 7mm is almost 17% smaller in surface area then a 30/06 so when the references are made that if a 30/06 is good so is a 7mm. Would you take a nearly 17% pay cut? Like to be 17% shorter? maybe add 17% more fat to your frame? Pay 17% more taxes?

Also there should be an understanding of what the design intent is of a generally light weight bullet at very high velocity. This is a long range, medium game, flat shooting open country design intent. The 7mm is all this in spades!

What is the requirement of a Brown bear bullet/ cartridge combination? The shooting distance or range will very likely be under or around 100 yards. The animal weight will be likely pushing 800-1000lbs.

So simply from a design perspective this is a mismatch. The cost of this hunt for a non-resident is well in excess of 10,000 USD today.

As far as just some basic ethics and etiquette where cartridge selection is concerned. Everyone wants to go home to their families when the fun and accomplishment of the hunt is over. Nobody is hoping for a military type middle eastern survival, life and death situation. There is an element when you voluntarily walk into this type of hunt that has some life threatening element involved.

Remember though that this hunt with the associated costs, is not simply about killing a bear. The ultimate goal is killing a bear, returning home safe, and actually finding the bear you shoot. Deliberately going into this with a set of options and choosing the one that will most likely get a single .284 diameter hole into an 800-1000 pound animal. The bear could have 3-4" of fat under the skin, and 2-3" long thick hair to soak up the blood. All while hunting in the rain soaked bush for an animal that rarely leaves tracks you can follow in all but the best conditions.

While I was only in my mid 20's and early 30's working in this business in Alaska, Those years were very much a part of my formable youth. The comments I listen to from the then " old timers" were some of the things that still echo in the back of my mind today. Most if not all of the hunting lore they imparted on me are as true right now as they were in the 1960's.

There is no catch and release in hunting. The Brown bear is not a cartoon creature that plays nice with others. This is not a video game where you can start over when you run out of lives. It's a real situation that requires a serious level of good decisions along the way, to ensure you get home safe! I close with the soap box rant by saying that you can haul a good deal of firewood in a camero, but that does not make it the right tool for the job.