Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Minimum 'caliber' for Kodiak Brown Bear?

I was considering joining a friend on his Kodiak hunt two years ago. His guide said that his 300 ultra mag was okay but recommend some discontinued swift or Sierra bullet. Said that two shots were common and a 300 was not as likely to knock the bear down on the first shot as a bigger gun like a .375 h&h. Friend bought a Dakota .375 h&h and missed his bear @ 200y. Not trying to make a point with this story, I will likely never hunt a BB. If I did, I would want a decently big gun. I was a fly out guide in Bristol Bay. Always wondered what a fmj 44 mag round would do to a bear in the short term. Carried some overloaded loads that I bought at Gary King's.

No one said that.

I am more convinced by either a hardcast wide meplat-type bullet, or a tough, limited expansion jacketed bullet. Jacketed bullets which come to mind are the Sierra 300 grain SP or the 300 Speer Uni-Cor. Mostly, full jacketed type handgun bullets seem to be too 'slippery' and less-than-ideal for creating effective holes. I don't care about finding a well-preserved bullet but I don't want the target to be left intact. I also don't want to use most handgun bullets which you can count on for decent expansion. I believe a better bullet in a handgun is one which has a decent frontal shape without expansion to begin with. If any expansion takes place I want it to be well controlled so the bullet doesn't come apart violently.

That's funny, I don't remember saying exactly that either. The quote wasn't that long, and was a joke. No need to use ellipses. Having passingly skimmed this thread I've picked up a few things, among them being you're very defensive about all of this.

Exactly. We all know the .500 Jeffery is all you need and anything more will way overpenetrate.

The 44 rounds we bought in Anchorage were called Arctic Ammo. Think they were 300+ grain and loaded very hot. They were tough to shoot out of a S&W Mountain Gun. I think I shot 2 and declared myself loaded for bear.

I Don't carry super hot loads in a handgun for a couple of reasons- Main one is that I don't want to risk having a case back out and jam up the cylinder, and secondly, I don't think an extra boost in FPS that you get from going to a hot load from a normal load is going to make a significant difference in effect.

You�re right Klikitarik based on what little I know. There is compelling data showing that the wide flat-nosed HC bullets penetrate more reliably than any other type of bullet of the same weight and velocity on large game. One reason is that the flat-nosed hard (non-deforming) bullets are less likely to yaw after impact than expanding, pointed, or round-nosed bullets. The reason that high-velocity rifle bullets don�t avail themselves of that benefit is that they are designed to fly great distances without slowing down or dropping any more than necessary. So they do the next best thing: they fly through the air with a pointed highly aerodynamic shape (i.e., high B.C.) and then expand when hitting tissue and making some kind of mushroom shape. That shape works fairly well, but does not work as well as a wide flat-nosed (nearly cylindrical) shape of a non-deforming bullet of the same weight at the same speed. So, a good rifle bullet compromises. It flies much better through the air for long distances, but, to do so, has a somewhat less-perfect expanding shape for impact, tissue destruction, and penetration as would a flat-nosed non-deforming bullet. For a handgun shooting only out to 100 yards or so, a wide flat-nosed HC bullet has a sufficient trajectory and velocity retention to take advantage of that ideal shape. It�s not trying to be able to go hundreds of yards without slowing way down or dropping feet from the line of sight; so it�s better to keep the better-penetrating and more-destructive wide flat-nosed shape for closer-in work.

The wide flat-nosed bullet entering at reasonable speed on an animal keeps going. By doing that, the tissue in front of the bullet must move (is pushed, splattered (hydrodynamic pressure)) out of the way. That creates significant destruction outside of the linear path of the bullet�creating a wider range of carnage outside of the bullet path. As above, that type of bullet also tends to stay online, which makes it penetrate more than a bullet that tilts/yaws after impact.

IMO, there�s a lot of good information and testing data on that here (but it�s pretty lengthy): http://www.rathcoombe.net/sci-tech/ballistics/wounding.html

If you don�t find that helpful, please ignore. I just thought I would offer.

MarineHAwk you JUST need a BROOM in your camp.... with a such mess.... look at it !!!!

That would make me a bit nervous.

I saw a documentary a long time ago on an older gentleman that was a resident caretaker at McNeil. He used a long stick for incidents with bears. This guy was not a nut job like Timothy Treadwell.

When I was a kid the 30-06 was fine for bears, now, suddenly it wont work, and that's with todays solid copper bullets, etc that we didnt have 50 years ago, we did have the partition thou.

bonefish
Was it possible that the documentary you saw was about a guy named Andy Russell, and that is was in Kamchatka Russia?
He is an old guy that keeps bears in line with a stick and bear spray and a documentary was done about him a few years ago. He is the son of a Canadian guide who was well know several decades ago.

OK that might work but what caliber stick was he using??

I don't know who is saying a .30-06 won't work? a 220 grain bullet at or near 2,500 fps is pretty formidable. Still, some folks might desire more range.

Is there anything else you want to do to prove just how clueless you are?

More range than a 30-06 when talking specifically about shooting Kodiak bears? Why?

And just how much range do you gain over say the "Standard" 375H&H?

Please, the above questions are purely rhetorical and your guesses are truly not being sought!

I was thinking along these same lines, Art, and wondering if perhaps at longer distances the 30-06 and other smaller stuff might not be equally as effective in knocking the "snot" out of "big" bears, 'cause the resulting ground shrinkage one could achieve at longer distances might be just exactly what one might hope to spend their hard-earned thousands for the privilege of exacting.........or not! (Perhaps we might have some of these issues removed to another topic forum where we might contemplate "Judging bears at 1/2 mile; Should I halve the distance?")

Oh great, now we can start a minimum caliber at 100 yards and a minimum caliber at 200/300/400 yard thread.

This entire "minimum caliber" idea is a matter of personal opinion. If you are hiring a guide and he, or she ( may daughter just got her full registered guide's license), says xyz is their minimum caliber then you can be assured that they have a reason.

I can tell you from my 35 years of guiding experience that any rifle in the realm of a .270/7mm/308/30-06 with today's bullets and a competent shooter will successfully kill any bear in Alaska, at any distance from the muzzle to 300 yards.

If one can place a larger or faster bullet in the same place it might drop them a fraction of a second quicker, but it won't kill them any deader.

I am not sure judging is the hard part at distance... But ground shrinkage is a common problem among the inexperienced...

Like a typical 24HCF thread, this has been all over the canvas. Just a little perspective by reposting the OP's question.



Not legal.