Originally Posted by simonkenton7
Originally Posted by ironbender
Originally Posted by simonkenton7
Don't go for the head shot. Classic rookie mistake. The skull is pointed, towards the nose, and the bullets will glance off. You need a chest shot. Good luck.

Sounds like you have a lot of experience with Brown bears.




OK, Jose. No, I have no experience with the grizzly I am from Georgia.
But, I spent the summer of 1973 up in the wilderness of British Columbia, near Fort Nelson and Manson Creek. I was staying with outfitters, guys who guide hunters on big game hunts. They kill a lot of moose, mountain goats, and grizzly.
Americans cannot hunt in Canada without being in the presence of a paid guide, at least, they could not back then.

These guys go out with a goofball American hunter, he screws up the shot on the grizzly, then the guide has to kill the grizzly. Or, they shoot a big moose at sunset, and they have to go back to the camp, and they arrive the next morning with the pack horses to get the meat and the rack, and a grizzly has staked out the moose. And you better be ready to kill a charging grizzly or you will die. This is what these guys did for a living.
I was working with and living with two of these guides that summer and talked to the guys who worked for them who are also grizzly killers.

And they all told me the same thing. Never shoot a grizzly in the head for the reason I posted above.
Now, to y'all who don't hunt grizzly for a living this sounds wild, but every one of these men told me the same thing and most of them had done it. When a grizzly is charging, he is on all fours and does not present a good target. Hold your fire.

When he is ten feet away, he will stand up and walk in, and swat you in the head. A griz can kill a horse with one swat to the neck.
When he stands up, the chest is exposed and you fire into the chest.

All these hunts are set out on, via horse back and these guy's lives depend on having a good saddle rifle. Thus they use the lever action because the bolt on a bolt action just gets in your way. Most of these guys used the Marlin .30-30. Never saw a Winchester. They loved the Marlin because it was very reliable, and you could get off a quick second shot and third shot. I talked to two guys who got off 3 shots from the Marlin .30-30 on a standing, charging griz, killed the big bear on the spot. Knew a couple of these guys who used the Savage in .308

I never heard of an American who went griz hunting with a .30-30, but, that is what the experts use.
In fact, the one guide I spent 6 weeks with is Larry Erickson of Alpine Outfitters in Manson Creek BC, I think he is still up and kicking, the other guy was Don Peck I think he was in Ft. Nelson.

I have killed lots of deer and hogs but I have never seen a grizzly. But I lived and worked with professional grizzly hunters for 3 months and I am telling you what they told me.

Bears that are stopped are hit in the head. Regardless of the shape of the head. Fairly simple actually. I'm not saying a bullet won't skid but you have to hit more than the chest. The chest will help, but you may well be dead by the time it helps. Aiming at the CNS, the stray shots should still help but....

I can see the point of the bolt being in the way on a scabbard, but you can run a bolt as fast as a lever... you simply have to practice... The bolt gunners we shot against in service rifle matches used to harass us because we shot M1A and AR15 platforms, and in rapid fire they used to joke that they were faster as we had to wait for the action to cycle... LOL, but they were not far off.

In the meantime a lot of things I heard from respected folks in the 70s of my youth have since been proven wrong and simply the only way they knew back then, and it just carried on from generation to generation. Even if it was not the best information.

Lastly, I will never be stupid enough to not carry enough ammo, such that I"m afraid to waste shots on a charging bear in the hope that he stops the charge at the end, stands up and strolls in... nope, I'm shooting all the way.... I tend to like that I have 16 rounds of 10mm for that situation.


We can keep Larry Root and all his idiotic blabber and user names on here, but we can't get Ralph back..... Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over....