Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Guns for bear protection in Alaska??

I sometimes get a little peturbed at the F&G mantra harping about bird feeders, dog food and other garbage, blameing all encounters on left-outside attractants. I do realize that it is a problem many times, but for the bio to take the opportunity to blame every bear encounter on that is a little much. Twas breeding season at the time and, though J.Sellinger might think otherwise, I wonder if the quote above just might have had something to do with it? Makes me wonder...

Greg is a friend and admits he was seriously rattled by the event... But Greg is not your average dude either. He is extremely competent and serious about virtually everything he does. I suspect he was and is more than marginally competent with handguns. On closing targets the accuracy issues decline from every perspective except what the nervous mind does to you.

Having been there a number of times in situations where the bear was expected and the charge well considered ahead of time I think the fact he had little time to consider options beyond just shooting gave him the time to act very rationally under the stress.

The reverse of that would be that accuracy on a charging bear is not important... so while he does not remember what happened, he clearly did shoot plenty accurately enough. I prefer to think accuracy is important, therefore he did not spray and pray...

That's my guess, he found his front sight, he just doesn't remember doing so.

I suspect the same. My limited experience with "fight or flight" situations such as that is that people tend to either find incredible clarity of focus, or they get flustered, often into a state of panic. It doesn't sound like the latter to me, regardless of what he recalls. Memory can be rather fickle in its selectivity of what gets put into easy recall. That can be a very good thing sometimes.

I always hear people say that shotguns are worthless and then refer to buckshot and soft rifled slugs. If someone is using a properly equipped slug gun I see no reason why it wouldn't be effective. Say an 870 with rifled barrel, rifled sights and any of the proper sabot slugs available today. Winchester, Remington and Federal are the major brands that put out nice copper slugs with plenty of punch. Other smaller brands like Dixie put out heavy hardened lead slugs with incredible power. The days of only soft lead rifled slugs with mediocre accuracy and performance are over. My Browning Gold Hunter with rifled barrel and cantilever scope mount would rival alot of off the shelf rifles for accuracy and performance at 100 yds. These new sabots also hang with the 45/70 for ballistics. The Dixie Dangerous Game hangs out at around 1200 fps. but muzzle energy is almost 2800 ft. lbs. And when you're talking about a protection gun the fps is really here nor their as the Dixie 730 gr. .730" Terminator, which flies at about 1400 fps., penetrated only one inch less than a 400 gr. partition fired out of a .416 Rigby. The Terminator also blew a 3-4" wound channel. These slugs are so big that the flat mass hitting an animal is bound to tear some stuff up. An advantage of the shotgun is that more rounds can be fired off in succession than a bolt rifle. I'd imagine that a lever action would be about the same speed as a pump shotgun. My autoloader shucks out 3" slugs with ease. I feel very comfortable with my 870 over my shoulder when I'm out in bear country around here.

I'm not saying that these slugs are the be all end all for the hunting world but in protection situations and hunting situations within their usable range these slugs are giving shotguns all new life with advantages over some centerfires.

I have responded a couple of times in this thread. The response you quoted is about buckshot with the addendum about shell size which I added. If you compare a 2 3/4" M870 receiver with a 3" receiver, you will see that the port is the same. The difference is that the ejection piece is sized differently so that the rim of the shell does not hit it until the shell is further aft in the receiver. But a 3" shell still needs to make it out the same sized port. Most of the time it works just fine. If you've ever had a 3 incher hang up, however, you may have cause to reconsider the use of longer shells for defense. Reliability trumps power in DLP situations.

As for your suggestion in the use of "better" slugs. Yep, they are undoubtedly better than the soft cheap ones. Perhaps I didn't post it in this thread, or perhaps you didn't see it, but I'll post this one again.



Most people would consider a Brenneke slug of this type to be good bear medicine, and yes it was removed from a dead bear. But it was a smaller, juvenile bear taken at close range - less than 100 feet, and the shot was broadside through the shoulder area. The slug passed through most of the animal and was lodged in the muscle of the far shoulder. No major bones were broken. The bear was a summer, dry-furred animal. The animal did not drop, nor was it visibly "shocked". It was affected to the point that it began defecating as it loped, a bit more rapidly than it was moving prior to being hit. This was the seventh or eight shot I had pointed toward this animal in about a two hour period. The previous shots were all intended to drive it away without injury. Since two shots just prior to this one were used to try to drive the bear away again, the slug was the third shell in the mag, so there was only one left. Rather than reload, I grabbed another loaded weapon, a 45 Colt carbine, and went back out to make sure the animal would not cause further issues for us, especially our young kids. (From a high vantage point, we could see the bear was down and thrashing about.) Two shots from the Colt carbine - 300 grainers- penetrated the length of the animal from the shoulder through the chest and guts and out the lower belly. Both shots exited. One was a jacketed bullet, the other cast lead.

I'm confused as to the point of your story. You shot it once with the slug but didn't break any bones, probably because you didn't hit any bones. The bear runs off, though not shocked which is common with bears as they usually don't act shocked no matter what you shoot them with, and is basically a dead bear running and you shot it again with two 300 gr. somethings. Are you advocating the use of the slugs or not?

As to the shotgun reliability I've never had any problems with 3" shells out of either of my shotguns even 3 1/2" out of my 870. And I've fired all sizes of slugs.

Can a shotgun be useful? Sure. Is it the reliable weapon I want? No, it sure isn't at the top of the list.

A Brenneke is often considered a pretty decent slug, certainly not an ordinary soft slug. The example I offered suggests to me that penetration may be lacking considering it really was basically a soft tissue shot on a fairly small animal, and the slug didn't even make it to the hide on the back side of the animal.

The 870 is a fine utility pump gun. I like both of mine. The ports are the same size on both the 2 3/4" and the 3" models I have. Three inch shells do eject pretty well out of the 3" nearly all of the time.........nearly. 2 3/4" shells are a better bet reliability-wise IMO. YMMV.

I have a pretty cool 870 Clone with 12 inch barrel. It functions perfectly even with 3" loads.. Problem is when testing out penetration of even 1.25 oz slugs I was underwhelmed. 30-30 with 170 grain bullets give more reliable penetration on wet newsprint.

The other issue is when travelling with the family I like something that everyone can shoot. I started carrying a Ruger Carbine in 44 Magnum loaded with 250 grain Nosler Partitions. The recoil is low enough for my 8 year old to handle and it penetrates very well. So far it hasn't jammed after about 1000 rounds so I feel pretty good about it.

When on my own I carry a light weight bolt 358 Norma with good bullets and a low powered scope or open sights. Penetration is much better than a shotgun with slugs, it tears up more tissue and I have a lot of confidence in it. That counts for something. I also have a 450 Marlin but the 358 hits with far more authority..in my opinion..At least that's what moose think.

The only problem with rifles for bear protection, is when it's leaning against a tree 50 feet away while your fly fishing and you notice that nice grizzly 40 feet away standing up in the stream sniffing at the trout in your creel. It only has to happen once. I bought my first pistol for non government use after that. It might not have the knockdown power of a rifle, but it beats throwing a fish at him and swimming down stream.

The answer to that is, you don't do that; or if you do, you get a weapon that you won't, like this:



300 grains of .375 @ 2300

or this:



170 grains of .308 @ well...

or this:



280 grains of .358 @ 2100



320 grains of .452 @ 1550

this:



320 grains of .452 @ 1150

or this:



320 grains of .452 @ 1200

or this:


[img]http://www.hunt101.com/data/544/medium/IMG_02704.JPG[/img]

405 grains of .458 @ 1800

I've leaned (or lacking trees, laid) other rifles. These weapons are compact and nimble enough in weight to stay with me, and are chosen as desired for the conditions.

I've got a cute little rifle in 375 Weatherby too, but it sure would make fly fishing more awkward.



So if I'm wading in stream fly fishing, I just carry my 45 Super (230g Golden Sabre at 1150 fps) and take my chances.

Maybe, but, if you are too worried about bears while flyfishing, you should do it elsewhere than Alaska... Not to be mean, but there ain't a bear behind every tree. Those that are there are not waiting in wait for someone from outside to come here because they taste better.

Bears are bears. No different than any other animal. Just be prepared, if you actually shoot a DLP bear, it better have burn marks on its hide, or you are screwed...

When I was living down on the Kenai Peninsula (little town called Moose Pass) we use to do a lot of fishing and I carried an old beat up but dependable '06 loaded with Remington 220 GR CoreLokt's for Moose/Bear protection.

At shorter ranges a heavy 220 GR bullet from a 30-06 will produce a pretty good 'thump' on anything in it's path..

Can't carry a handgun in Canada,,,but this without bipod or scope is pretty handy.

250 grain Bullet at 2400fps

A 230 Golden Saber might just be a good way to have the opportunity to burn one while his wheels were still turning; not way different than using Speer Gold Dot HPs (the proverbial "flying ashtray") I think.

230 Golden Sabre's? I dunno think I'd rather have something else in the form of hardcast swc's in a backup revolver. If my rifle failed. Magnum Man

Love the notion of the backup revolver... Found mostly among the clueless. If the most common problem/fear is the gun will not be in your hands when needed, how would one expect to pack two?

Anyone worried about rifle failure needs to dump the A-Bolt, Raptor, or Mossberg and buy a little reliability... And do a lot of practicing...

Right on Art!

Along with that practice, make sure your "bear gun" fits you. I see so many guys with high mount scopes that they can't find quickly.....low power scopes, usually mounted low, or a good receiver/ghost ring sight. And please, no see-thru mounts.

Some may scoff, but I consider sporting clays shooting as a great training aid as it trains the shooter to shoulder the weapon consistently as well as gun swing for moving targets. My buddies that were/are Marines revert to their traing and get into that rediculous standing postion with their elbow on their belly etc......this might be great for off-hand stationary target shooting but lateral swing is greatly diminished.

Rossi 12 gauge SS with iron sights and a 16 inch barrel. Two brenneke 3 inch slugs will shoot left and right into three inches at 50 yards, a LOOOONNNG way for bear self defense, but comforting. Hangs on my back, muzzle down, and allows full motion but can be brought into ready to repel boarders position darn quick.

Terry