Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Shotgun slugs vs bears

I'll go along with Phil in his above picture and post, I am pretty darn sure he has shot more bear than those unnamed individuals posting on this thread..I have not shot a lot of bear, but I sure have shot a lot big mean DG in Africa and I have seen the shotgun used on Leopard and Lion, its fine up close in the face of a Leopard but not on Lion IMO...and even on a Leopard they use buckshot over slugs..I have absolutly no use for a shotgun on anything but birds.

How is it at 250 yards in case a wounded bear runs out of the alders into another patch?
They do look like they should do the job.

A shotgun is more a close range weapon IMHO. The reported accuracy at 100 yards with Terminator with a fixed barrel can be 1 1/2" or so. For those that use a shotgun for bear protection it is the only slug that I have ever seen that I would feel comfortable with. It is the same principle as the old Holland & Holland Paradox slugs and they took some impresively large animals with them.

Never said that the slug would replace a rifle

I've looked at that Dixie slug, and wish I could use it. I believe it is for rifles barrels though? Also, they don't ship to Canada,so I'm SOL.
That grizz posted a back there is HUGE! I don't think I'd feel comfortable with any hand held weapon facing that thing. Still, if I had to I'd probably pick a .458 or similar, not a shotgun.
However, the odds of me running into something like that in Alberta are about zero. Most likely is a black bear. The grizzly up here are big, but not usually the size of the Alaskan bears. At least, that;s what I've been told, and the ones I've seen weren't terribly large.
Still, all this talk has got me wondering and questioning my decision. Being that there is nothing I like more than research I have decided that as soon as the weather allows I shall embark on penetration and damage testing of all the firearms at my disposal. I am currently figuring out what I'm going to use as a medium,how to set it up and how to do the testing.
It'll be a few months till it warms up enough to do this, so I'm going to try to collect as many phone books as possible. I'll figure out something to simulate hide,bone muscle etc and try to make it as consistent as possible.

Thinking you could save yourself some time with that. Phone books aren't going to tell you much about what bullets do in flesh and bone. You will find out which bullets will kill a phone book deader.

There's been some good thoughts presented here; your only burden is to separate wheat from chaff. Primary point I'd suggest you reconsider is your initial choice of gun configuration. Probably you can find a more suitable firearm than a shotgun with a 12.5" barrel.

"Primary point I'd suggest you reconsider is your initial choice of gun configuration. Probably you can find a more suitable firearm than a shotgun with a 12.5" barrel."

The "Co-pilot" which is a modified Marlin Guide Gun comes to mind.

Te 730 grain Terminator slug is foe rifled barrels only , bt they make an 870 grain hard ast slug for smooth bores that is intended to be shot in cylinder bores. the IXL slug at 870 grains has good accuracy to 50 yards are so and is also loaed to 1200 FPS in a 20" barrel

Making a dangerous game rifle out of a shotgun is about like making a silk purse out of a sows ear IMO, but notice I say that is my opinnion only...

I wonder how many would feel comfortable hunting Cape Buffalo, Hippo or even Lion with a slug gun, if not comfortable with that I wouldn't hunt the big Alaskan bears with it either, and I'm not comfortable with it..I would much prefer even a light rifle such as a 30-06 with 220 gr. Noslers to a shotgun.

Again only my personal approach to DG hunting, based soley on my personal experience.

Figured as much, but learned something today!

Something of that order comes to mind, no?

You mean, of course, A non-expanding bullet, large, lead, or not?

1942? 10 years older than me? 1952?
"I'm an old man
I got them old man blues."

How interesting to find this thread toady about shotgun slugs for stopping "problem" or charging bears in North America.

I have some 3in Remington 1 3/8 oz BUCKHAMMER slugs I bought for use against problem bears (in CONUS) if it was ever necessary ..... These BuckHammer's weigh a few grains over 600 and generate 3200+ foot pounds of muzzle energy .....

Today I am replacing them with some special ordered Winchester 3inch PARTITION GOLD slugs that weigh 385 grains and generate 3400+ foot pounds of muzzle energy (and 2000fps MV).

I have never killed a bear, and never [yet] visited Alaska or the more wild Canadian lands ....., and certainly respect any Alaskan, Canadian and African big game slayers ..... (hard to knock real experience and successes!)

Black bears and a possible grizzly is what I want to be prepared for. Heck 750#-plus grizzles inhabit those parts of Idaho and Montana I want to hunt or fish or camp.

I have a hard time believing a Nosler Partition of any kind, 50-55-60 caliber and weighing as much as a .375 boolit and generating more than 1 1/2 tons of muzzle energy would NOT do damage to a marauding bruin that was being belegerant!

Once saw on one the "canned teleBision" hunting shows (World of Beretta) a hunter and his guide each shoot a 12-14hundred pound brown bear 2times each with .375H&H's loaded with Federal softpoints (Partition's or other BG boolit) generating 4300+ pounds of muzzle energy. Yes I'm certain about the muzzle energy as it was mentioned on the show and I looked it up on the NET .....

That brownine was killed outside of Anchorage, called on a bear trail with a hand-blown varmint call. Action was indeed fast!!! Bear took less than 3-4minutes to respond to the call, and was shot closer than 40feet as soon as it showed itself, as fast as both men could work the bolts on their .375's.

Bear was dead after shots 3 and 4.

Hevi-Shot makes some slugs out of @Hevi-Steel, and if those projectiles are propelled with enough velocity, should rival any Brenneke slug, or even the other slugs I listed.

Hevi-Shot (Environ-Metal) also loads 00Buck loads in HS, and if they ever offered some 000B "dangerous game loads" in @Hevi-Shot I'd be all over them!

BTW, those "Terminator" slugs definitely sound awsome and should be considered ..... methinks.

But will have to add though ..... in bear country (lower 48 for me) where I'd carry my shottie, I would also be packing a .44M wheelgun for backup.

But in Canada? I'd not hesitate to carry one of those short shotguns if the bbl was long enough to generate the necessary muzzle velocities to drive fast enough any of those heavy shotgun slugs.

However would rather pack a Guide Gun in .45/70, if a bear sighting was inevitable - and even a 20in .375 or .416 or .458 might be better!

OK, understand, the closest I've ever been to any bear is in the Great Smokey Mountain Nat Park. Don't ever plan to stop a charging grizzly in his tracks. But it seems to me there is a need here for a product that doesn't exist. For those wanting to pack a short barreled 12 ga for bear defense I propose one or more of the ammo companies introduce a sabot .50 cal Cast Performance WFN of 400 gr or better. Should be able to get 1600 fps or better out of a 3" version. Bet it would work pretty good on deer & elk type critters too.

Would you settle for 600 gr. at 1500 fps?
Distance (yards) Velocity (feet/sec.) Energy (ft. lbs.)
Muzzle .............1502 ......................3014

Funny that folks want heavy/hard cast "slugs" for their revolver, but shotgun slugs are inadequate at spitting distance.

Brenneke Black Magic

I get your point. RE: A .35 Rem is a hammer in a single shot pistol but marginal in a rifle. All I'm saying is a heavy, wide meplate, hard cast projectile at 45/70 type velocities should address the issues of immediate effect and penetration. Purely speculation.

From what I've seen of the Brenneke slugs, the closer the better, because they shed stability very fast, simply because they are barely stable to begin with.

Most guys don't preach 200 gr. 45's or 180 44's from handguns for penetration.

A 1 1/8 oz. Brenneke Mag of old is wider than it is long/tall (so is the 1 3/8 3"In version now known as the Black Magic), once the fiber wad is removed. What was sheer hell at 25 yds. did goofy things at close to 100 for me, depending on where it hit a deer. Collecting slugs on shoulder shots past 50 yards was common.

Collecting them up close, at almost any angle, was rare.

TIFWIW

A rifle is the best bet, but the OP stated:


For that purpose, there are no flies on 12 guage Brenneke slugs.

For that purpose, leave the pistolas and buckshot at home.

IMO.

As long as one also acknowledges and remembers that there is no magic pixie dust on Brennekes or any similar shotgun fodder. As desirable as a big old 70+ caliber hunk of metal may seem, that also is a limiting factor in their penetration. The Brenneke slugs have pretty much run neck and neck with 405 Woodleigh bullets at 1900 fps in my 45-70 when run through various testing media. I do not find it highly reassuring that a small bear can trap one of the seemingly formidable Brennekes though on a fairly simple shot.

Any decent projectile can work if it can be driven fast enough to penetrate well. The magic, of course, all depends on the barrel's pointer.

Seems to me I read something... somewhere... recently about some agency going away from shotguns and slugs due to bad experiences in the field with Mr. Bruin. Wish I could remember where I saw that. Hate it when that happens.