24hourcampfire.com
24hourcampfire.com
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Hop To
Joined: May 2009
Posts: 2,402
C
Campfire Regular
OP Offline
Campfire Regular
C
Joined: May 2009
Posts: 2,402
Anyone hunt black bear with the 50 cal round ball? My Hawken loves them.

BP-B2

Joined: Sep 2004
Posts: 7,437
T
Campfire Tracker
Offline
Campfire Tracker
T
Joined: Sep 2004
Posts: 7,437
If you put the PRB where it belongs, the .50 will work fine. If you don't, no caliber will. I prefer the .54, but the .50 will do.


μολὼν λαβέ
Joined: May 2007
Posts: 1,867
S
Campfire Regular
Offline
Campfire Regular
S
Joined: May 2007
Posts: 1,867
The 50 cal rb works fine for black bear. A buddy of mine took one with his 50 flinter. I have taken two black bear with a patched round ball and black powder, one with a 58 and the other with a 62. The 58 worked better.

Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 6,901
R
Campfire Tracker
Offline
Campfire Tracker
R
Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 6,901
I understand that the Pennsylvania wildlife personel tagged a 1,000 pound black bear in, I believe, 2008 less than 50 miles north of the state capital (Harrisburg).

As I recall in reading the article concerning this large bear, this is the 2nd 1,000 pound blackie tagged in the past few years. THAT kinda makes me wonder how many other 1,000 pounders there are out there that they haven't tagged yet.

I'd feel a whole lot more "confidence" in at least a .54 or even a larger caliber shooting a heavier patched round ball if I were to run into any black bear even HALF that size... especially when shooting what amounts to a single-shot rifle at what could be a very large, powerful animal sporting lotsa big teeth and long, heavy claws that could alter you or me from "hunter" to "hunted".

While "most" black bears try to avoid humans and aren't nearly as aggressive as a grizzly bear... occasionally we hear of an individual blackie that has a "bad attitude" and might resent you or I being on "their mountain"!

Any hunter who has spent much time in the woods has had the experience of having a big game animal suddenly "materilize" out of the brush with surprising suddeness where, before, there was nothing.

A savy hunter doesn't depend on any potentially dangerous, wild animal to "perform-as-expected", but rather we must always be prepared to deal with a wild animal who acts as "UN-expected". Thus my preference for a larger-than-.50-caliber muzzle-loading, black powder rifle for bears.

Many years ago when we were Boy Scouts, we learned to "Be Prepared"... that's still good advice and that "rule" still applies.

I'm not "knocking" what some fellas think... everyone has a right to their own view-point in these matters. BTW, I hunt deer with a .50 caliber flinter... so I'm not "against" a .50 caliber rifle, but a deer isn't a bear, is it?

Jus' my 2�... smile


Strength & Honor...

Ron T.


It's smart to hang around old guys 'cause they know lotsa stuff...

Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 7,150
D
Campfire Tracker
Offline
Campfire Tracker
D
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 7,150
Bear, by their very biological design, tend to put on a lot of fat leading up to winter. This fat tends to close around bullet holes and make blood trailing a difficult proposition. I don't know about spring time bear hunting if that's what you are intending, but if I were to be hunting a fall bear, I'd want something that gives me both deep penetration and decent expansion. The .50 round ball will kill a bear, but will it give you a good hole to allow blood to leak out?

I'm not asking rhetorical questions, as I've never taken a bear. I love round ball for deer hunting, but I've heard a lot of horror stories about bear not giving good blood trails for following up.

Dan


"It's a source of great pride, that when I google my name, I find book titles and not mug shots." Daniel C. Chamberlain
IC B2

Joined: Nov 2008
Posts: 2,535
Campfire Regular
Offline
Campfire Regular
Joined: Nov 2008
Posts: 2,535
my friend took the state record black bear in NYS with a patched round ball,about 20 years ago.

Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 1,624
C
Campfire Regular
Offline
Campfire Regular
C
Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 1,624
I have taken BB with a 50 and found no issues . Just place the ball just like an archer would an arrow .

I would als agree the BB can get rather big .
A few years back a friend and I picked up a skull we found while grouse hunting here in Idaho .
It was so big I thought it must be a real bear .
I took it into the IF&G region 3 office and the Biologist there agreed even though shape wasn�t quite right.
He sated that when black bears get that big they are hard to differentiate . He then had me take the skull down to the main state biologist who looked it over , gave an un office score of 21 5/8 .
He also thought it was a grizzly .
While having a cup of coffee and talking it over and showing him on a map where I found it , he said , let me check something .
He measured the back molar. It was under 5/8 .
He then changed his mind and said it defiantly was a black bear . Seems when that molar drops in grizzlies , its always 5/8 or bigger . With black bears that molar doesn�t get bigger then 5/8 .

It did not really mater all that much to me . The bear when alive was bigger then I would want to have come face to face with while climbing through a brush thicket

Here is the skull .

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]


[Linked Image]
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 9,921
B
Campfire Outfitter
Offline
Campfire Outfitter
B
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 9,921
That is an awesome find. Very cool.

Joined: Dec 2005
Posts: 9,562
Campfire Outfitter
Offline
Campfire Outfitter
Joined: Dec 2005
Posts: 9,562
just make sure your bear is dead before you go lookin for him. don't make the same mistake a guy near me did a few years ago and walk into a thicket and get attacked by a wounded 500lb plus bear. he shot it in the neck and followed ,he wasn't dead and it took 3 more muzzleloader shots to kill it after it tore him to pieces. i think he went thru 14 operations after that attack.

he doesn't hunt bear much these days.

Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 6,133
C
Campfire Tracker
Offline
Campfire Tracker
C
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 6,133
A year or 2 ago DFGW tagged an 800 pound black bear in north NJ (watershed property, westmilford, thereabouts)

We dont hunt them by us, but some residents have farm/cull/damage permits of some kind.

Local farmer shot 3 this year, 2 "small" ones, one 598 pounds.

I asked him if the 600 pounder was the "bigger one" that I/we had seen in prior years and he was pretty sure it wasnt.


We see them regularly, and in the past I have seen a few that I considered to be "quite large". This year I have seen a lot of small ones. I have no frame of reference for what weight the "large" ones are really, other than one 400 pound bear in PA I saw and then saw dead & weighed. My mental image is that it was big, not huge. I have also seen a 200 pound BB in at the butchers and I'd consider that to look little by comparison.

Based on this, I'd have to assume that some of the "BIG" bear I've seen are in the 400-600 pound range easily.

They get big around here... plenty of food, good habitat, not a lot of pressure, and one hunting season in 30+ years.

We've never had any issues whatsoever, but they get annoying sometimes when they wont leave and your in the treestand. One followed me in the snow while I dragged out a dead deer once, but I cant blame her for being interested in 100 pounds of fresh bloody meat in the January!



Originally Posted by Archerhunter

Quit giving in inch by inch then looking back to lament the mile behind ya and wonder how to preserve those few feet left in front of ya. They'll never stop until they're stopped. That's a fact.
IC B3

Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 4,080
Q
Campfire Tracker
Offline
Campfire Tracker
Q
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 4,080
Crockett,

My brother lives in West Milford and had a tagged one in his driveway that was a monster. He read the tag(collar) with his binos and called it in. Weighed close to 600 when tagged. A week before his son was married, my nephews future father-in-law was mauled in his own driveway at night. A local beauty tech voluteered to make him look presentable for the ceremony.

Qtip
Soli Deo Gloria!


"It's not a matter of legislating morality; it's a question of whose morality gets legislated"

Moderated by  RickBin 

Link Copied to Clipboard
YB23

Who's Online Now
103 members (160user, 10Glocks, 35, 308ld, 338reddog, 257_X_50, 13 invisible), 1,693 guests, and 758 robots.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Forum Statistics
Forums81
Topics1,187,728
Posts18,400,775
Members73,822
Most Online11,491
Jul 7th, 2023


 







Fish & Game Departments | Solunar Tables | Mission Statement | Privacy Policy | Contact Us | DMCA
Hunting | Fishing | Camping | Backpacking | Reloading | Campfire Forums | Gear Shop
Copyright © 2000-2024 24hourcampfire.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5
(Release build 20201027)
Responsive Width:

PHP: 7.3.33 Page Time: 0.142s Queries: 14 (0.003s) Memory: 0.8400 MB (Peak: 0.9336 MB) Data Comp: Zlib Server Time: 2024-03-29 09:23:50 UTC
Valid HTML 5 and Valid CSS