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

Well, guilty as charged. I have spent a lot more time on the toilet than I have in Africa and Alaska combined. I hunted Africa with a borrowed 7mm Mauser and Alaska with my beloved 35 Whelen and 225 gr Partitions. My bookshelves are sagging with books written by Bob Hagel and Peter Capstick and others like Elmer Keith and Jack O Connor.
I am hoping that Phil will write a book someday. I would love to read it.
whelennut

Would you let a hunter take a 300 yard poke at a bear? That magazine clipping says that is how long the shot was. I suppose they are big targets, but if I showed up for a BB hunt and my guide said nothing past 150 yards I'd say no problem.

Bob Chatfield-Taylor did a LOT of hunting.....far more than our average CF member,and on a few continents. He was an experienced guy.

Ralph Young was a legend in SE Alaska. Doubt he would have allowed a great deal of risk.

RCT shot constantly. I doubt there was any "poking" involved"...

Pretty sure he killed grizzly with the 284 Winchester and 270 Winchester as well

His early stuff on the 30-338 was always interesting reading...as was about anything he wrote. Not your average boob.

That article showing the bear was a good one!

AND

Originally Posted By 458Win
"It is the bullet, not the size of the bore or name on the barrel, that kills..."

Just for a Reminder.....


IMO Phil has been gracious, patient, & kind in responding during this thread.


AND he is Qualified to answer....no?


Thanks

Jerry

What I want to know is why are these threads always about Brown Bear and not Grizzly? Don't sports go to Alaska for Grizz anymore? Growing up it seemed like the old writers mostly went after Grizzly when they bear hunted the Last Frontier. Now everything is Brownies.

Brown is a fish fed grizzly with a longer growing season than a grizzly.

Also bigger.

This thread sure didn't need to be 15 pages long....could have been shortened to Phils post....

But has Interior Grizzly hunting gone out of vogue? A big Silvertip used to be the stuff of dreams, at least among the 20 th century writers and adventurers.

Oh great, now someone asks a question more difficult than the difference between arctic char and dolly varden.

Which side of the Yukon River you're on when you pull the trigger has sometimes been used to answer the browny/grizzly question, BTW. IMO, they might as well use 'length of hibernation' in the equation also. The coastal grizzlies can get very large, and many of them are more blonde than grizzled. Nothing hard and fast; all the same species.

Boone and Crockett even has an arbitrary, perfectly straight line across a large part of southern Alaska. Below the line B&C considers the bears brown, even if they're 150+ miles from the nearest coast.
Safari Club International considers them grizzlies in much of the same area.

Yeah, it could but what we'd miss the fun of conversing, arguing, criticizing, et.al.

Jerry

If you read African Rifles and Cartridges by John Taylor he says "Is it going to be of much satisfaction to you to know that you have killed a charging lion with a low powered rifle if he has first succeeded in killing you?
I very much doubt it."
whelennut

W nut -

I do hear ya!! In my mind low powered rifle would be LESS than an 06 >> SINCE many have used them effectively on LARGE Browns.

In your quote - the lion/bear would be much more satisfied than I would be. grin


Jerry

Jerry,
I have told this story before but for my tenth wedding anniversary I convinced my wife we should go to Alaska and hunt caribou. The first day in camp I noticed that there was meat piled on a wooden pallet just a few feet from our tent.
I had read a book that suggested you should never argue with a guide because it would ruin the trip.
I decided to bite my tongue.
That night I was awakened by some noise like walking on gravel. I thought my wife was grinding her teeth and I said something to her about it.
I heard a loud woof and realized it was time to Lock and Load.
There was a sow and two very large cubs right outside having a caribou buffet.
My wife peeked out of her sleeping bag and asked if I was going outside but I replied that they might want to come inside and it was about to get noisy.
Eventually I decided to take a picture and when the flash went off it looked like the Kentucky derby. I thought my 35 Whelen was overkill for caribou, but for three bears just a few feet away it seemed pretty pathetic.
I wish I had a 400 Whelen that night.
whelennut

I can pretty well guarantee you that it would still have felt too small ! Unexpected Bears in the dark have that effect on people .

whelennut & 458 -

That's my first time to read that story and it sounds very exciting in a horror flick kinda way.

I certainly don't know but seems RIGHT that at times like that a...

458 Win would be consoling !!

Jerry

I hate it when the porcupines start rummaging around in the dark; the feeble flashlight beam doesn't always provide the right perspective.

Speaking of bears in the dark, that kind of reminds me of an evening years ago with my 6 year-old son. We were coming down out of the hills on an ATV with the first load of moose meat. It was evident that the second load would involve darkness both ways, about 7-8 miles round trip with a couple mud wallows to negotiate. I asked my young companion if he wanted to put the tent up on the beach (the bear tracks on the sand looked old....at least 24 hours. ), or try to push the boat out at low tide and run 4-5 miles back along the coast to our cabin. I knew I had a smart kid when he opted for the cabin, a comforting boat ride even in virtual blackness. (I could have made soup with my pants for a week. )

Apparently no one caught my drift......

THE consoling 458 W would be NO LESS than Mr. Phil!...

Jerry

Question for Phil.
Do you keep statistics on how many shots it takes to anchor a brown bear?
It would be interesting to know if caliber made any difference. If the hunter was flinching it actually might make it worse to use the big rifle.
Years ago I had two businessmen who were customers in the gunshop I worked for. One used a 375 H&H
and the other used a 458 Magnum.
They were after elephants.
They told me that the elephant shot with the 375 died a lot faster than the elephant who was shot seven or eight times with the .458.
The owner had a huge black and blue mark on his shoulder.

Nothing helps the movement of a morning constitution quite like waking up and finding grizz tracks down a streambed, circled around your tent, and then on down the streambed.....