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Originally Posted by RockChucker30
I've read a couple of posts now that say a 12 guage slug isn't good protection....can someone explain why to me? Just thinking about it it seems like a big heavy slow moving slug would be a good stopper. I can't figure out why not, so hopefully someone will chime in and help educate me.


Originally Posted by APDDSN0864
RC,
Foster type slugs (hollow-base) are not good. They have a thin skirt, are soft lead to conform to even heavily choked shotguns, and are not very accurate.
Brenneke's ARE good. The are like a giant, stabilzed wadcutter travelling at 1200fps or so.
In my experience, they WAY over-penetrate! smile

Ed


This bear,

[Linked Image]

through the shoulder area, roughly broadside; breaking no major bones...

[Linked Image]

stopped this "over-penetrator" in the muscle of the offside shoulder. Distance was 30-something yards. I'll leave it to others to decide where it falls on the scale of "poor to adequate to excellent". (Two finishers from a 16" carbine 45 Colt penetrated 30-some inches and exited.)


Sometimes, the air you 'let in'matters less than the air you 'let out'.
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Klikitarik,

Nice bear!

I was being sarcastic so I put the smiley face after my "overpentrate" comment to point that out. While I have dispatched a number of moose and one healthy black bear with Brenneke slugs, they are NOT my choice of bear medicine.

When I have hunted brown bear I have carried a .338WM loaded with 250gr Partitions.

As pointed out earlier, it beats a sharp stick!

Thanks for sharing the bear pic!

Ed




"Not in an open forum, where truth has less value than opinions, where all opinions are equally welcome regardless of their origins, rationale, inanity, or truth, where opinions are neither of equal value nor decisive." Ken Howell



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Wish I could have kept that hide. Hopefully, F&G was able to tan and sell it. It was an awfully nice hide, especially for a July bear. The little bugger simply would not leave, or leave us alone and I was not willing to feed our two-year-old to him so I finally stopped wasting ammo toward him and directed one at him. He was one of those rare examples that simply can't be scared away with a gun.


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Unless F&G really messed up the hide, which they usually don't, I bet it brought a nice price at the Fur Rondy auction.
Too bad you didn't get it.
One of the most impressive Grizzly hides I've ever seen came from the Squirrel River drainage. A seven foot, six year old boar taken by a dear friend just after it came out in the Spring of 1994.

Can't blame you for not wanting to feed your two year old to it!

Ed


"Not in an open forum, where truth has less value than opinions, where all opinions are equally welcome regardless of their origins, rationale, inanity, or truth, where opinions are neither of equal value nor decisive." Ken Howell



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To the OP, I've never hunted bear (just getting that cleared right off). Teddy Roosevelt took a charging rhino with a .357 magnum, dropping it within feet of himself.

Ingwe swears by the .223 AI for everything under cape buffalo.

I am neither the caliber hunter of TR nor Ingwe. Most of us aren't. Use enough gun!


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Shot the biggest gun you can shoot accurately. But then again ego is important and for those of you that this fits use a 17 HMR for all game.


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Quote
But when you've been here a few days once, under guidance of an outfitter and others -- stop thinking you know what to tell people to do here. And certainly don't imply that your knowledge is somehow superior to the experience of people who live here, just because you feel superior to us.


Well friend, I only wish it worked that way with those who think they know all about CA and "most Californians". I can relate to your statement, after spending years on this site having others tell me all I need to know about CA. wink

That being said, it seems to be the consensus that it takes a well placed pressure (scared chitless) shot on a bear to put it down, can't most get more chances and quicker, to find that sweet spot with a .357 then say a .454?

I'm usually in black bear areas, and CA black bear to boot, and always figured .357 or .44, didn't much matter if I'm going to have to find his head.







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Teddy Roosevelt and a .357? Someone might want to Google the history of the .357.

Either that or someone was joking.

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Naw. Teddy was shooting the prototype of the .32 Magnum Snookumfutz. Only REAL ballisticians have found this arcane info in one of TR's private letters to Elliot Spitzer.

And a .357 is NOT enough for the black bear I ran into on the Yuba river thirty years ago while backpacking. Six rounds put it on the ground, but the seventh, after reloading, with the muzzle almost in the ear, finally finished the job. This was a small bear, maybe 200 pounds, and looked like she was starving. Perhaps that would account for her abberant behavior.

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Originally Posted by Steelhead
This one time in hunting camp.....


The only reason to use a handgun is if you don't have a rifle and there ain't much of a reason to not have a rifle.



yeah but have you ever been fishing in bear country? Oh, nvrmnd


have you ever been out cutting wood in bear country? Oh, nvrmnd


My wife has a 4" 629 with one of the sweetest triggers I've seen or used. In my youth I fancied myself as a bit of a pistolero, competed abit with .357 and shot enough with a .45 to become somewhat proficient with it as well.


true I'd rather have a handgun than nada, but my knockaround gun is a .45/70 GG, it's light and handy. But even with one of my bolt action rifles I can get it into action pdq.

Have only ever been bluff charged twice, and I've spent a fair number of days afield, often with a bloody pack.

Have had a bear drag a cooler off into the thick stuff in Valdez.

Watched a cute little black bear spring onto a picnic table and run off with neighboring campers donuts, while they were sitting at the table. Oh my god did they scramble! lmao over that one.

Have had a bear repeatedly come into camp to steal meat and hides on a oh so long night, guy I was working with lost his voice from screaming at the bear, we shot over it, under it etc. but still kept coming into camp to raid. Hungry bear I guess. Only reason it didn't float is we had a State Trooper as one of our guests and didn't want to put him in a hard spot.

one of the best training exercises I've ever heard of involves a bit of risk.

have a pard, hopefully not a close pard or an ex wife stand behind a big tree and throw an old basketball at you from around 30 ft. away, when he yells fire (hopefully when he's back behind the tree) blow that basketball to kingdom come.....if you can.

I like to carry a rifle, YMMV



I'm pretty certain when we sing our anthem and mention the land of the free, the original intent didn't mean cell phones, food stamps and birth control.
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The more grizzly's I see the larger firearm I favour. However the firearm needs to be light and handy too so that it's with me. If I could carry a handgun in Canada I'd be ok with a 44 Magnum. In fact I often carry a Ruger Carbine loaded with 250 Partitions. A large part of this faith in the 44 (at long barrel velocities) has been due to a couple of factors:

1) A number of comparative tests on wet-newsprint, water containers, bone and hardwood suggest that the 44 has a pretty good combination of penetration and wound channel.

VS the 12 Gauge Slug...With 250 Nosler partitions, the 44 out penetrates the slug on hard targets, even when using the 1 1/4 oz slugs. The .44 doesn't have the massive wound channel but isn't whistling dixie either. On soft targets matches the penetartion of the slugs.

VS the 12 gauge 000 buckshot. The 44 badly outpenetrates the buck on hard targets. Matches it on soft targets.

Vs the 450 Marlin.... The 44 falls behind a bit in penetration and the 450 creates a similar wound channel to the Slug. It's about 60% of the wound channel the big Marlin when the Marlin is fired from a 16" Barrel. That's not so bad folks.

2) The recoil is controllable by even my seven year old. Fast repeat shots are a piece of cake.

3) The Ruger has never jammed....not once...in hundreds of rounds from 200-250 grain loads.

4) It is 5 pounds light and handy and easy to tote. Fishing I forget it's with me.

A 357 would not have the wound channel that would make me minimally comfortable. Hardcasts might penetrate for a brain shot but the wound channel is very low. My own tests with the 450 and hardcasts show amazing penetration but wound channels less impressive than a heavy bullet 22 Hornet load.

A test from a few years ago....
[Linked Image]

I also like this one..12.5" barrel and legal in Canada.

[Linked Image]

Last edited by North61; 06/27/10.
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Roosevelt was long dead when the .357 was invented.

JW


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Well after reading through all this I'll throw out something.

To me, anything considered "dangerous" deserves the best you can handle. Let me say that last part again...THAT YOU CAN HANDLE. I just recently acquired a 500 S&W. It's a lot of fun. I would not, at the moment anyway, take it out for hunting or defense of anything. In my opinion I'm not yet proficient enough with it. Right now I'd carry my .44 Redhawk with 340gr hardcast bullets. I can hit what I aim at with this and could probably get off at least a couple aimed shots if given half a chance. (I'd MUCH rather have my .340 Wby doing the shooting if I could help it)

Is a .357 "enough" for bear? Well, it's a hell of a lot better than fingernails. Would I prefer bigger? Conditionally, yeah. All else being equal (I'm talking shooting proficiency here) you can't go "too" big with an angry bear IMO. Even with rifles ask most any DG guide what caliber you should bring and they'll say something to the effect of "What you can shoot?"

You want something bigger for bear defense? Sounds like a good reason to buy another gun to me. Having said that if you buy a bigger gun but you shoot the .357 better...take the .357 anyway.

JMHO


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If you have the opportunity for the precision shot placement that might make a smaller, lighter caliber sufficient, you probably aren't in a seriously threatening situation with a bear, (not that there aren't some other situations where DLP isn't also called for.) But I'd still prefer at least 220 grains on the low end - and preferably more weight- at speeds that deliver the bullet before the critter hears the shot. It's hard not to like a 44 Mag with 270 or weightier non-expanding slugs.


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I'm no expert but I'm at the ANC airport trying to make it home. Since we can't take it home we fired off our 'bear spray' today, just for the heck of it. I'm a gun guy through & through but max strength bear spray is nothing to mess with. I think I'd take it over a 357 any day.

Well, neither firearms or spay has had close to 100% effectiveness. I'd rather have something than nothing.

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Having watched two bears sprayed with huge quantities of spray, without saving either bear's life... and after careful analysis of exactly which way the wind was blowing... Bear spray is a sad joke and only inclined to make people think they have something real when they do not...


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+1 Sitka.


It is better to be judged by 12 than to be carried by 6.
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+ again.

Falsely instilled confidence, as always, is false. (I think the lesson there is to make sure you know (from some experience) how it works, and, if possible, how well.)


Sometimes, the air you 'let in'matters less than the air you 'let out'.
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Trader,

I haven't nor am I going to read through 16 pages of replies; sorry. sleep

But, years ago when on an Alaskan river, salmon fishing, packing a 6" M28 with full house 357 Mag 180 gr loads, I came across some BIG FRIKIN bear tracks. My "little" 357 suddenly felt very small!

Now, when I go up and have a 45 Colt with 335 gr WFN LBT, I feel better.

Alan

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