Originally Posted by rcamuglia
What were charging bears shot with and stopped prior to 1985, the year the TSX was invented?

I'm sure someone other than JohnBurns has smoked a grizz with Bergers in a dangerous sitch with good results.

Rick,

Funny you should ask that in the �Ask the Gunwriters� forum. One rather famous early proponent of the Hollow Point Boat Tail was Outdoor Life writer Jack O�Connor. In fact the bullet that really �made� the .270 Win was the Western 130gr open tip boat tail.

In his last book O�Connor wrote that Hosea Sarber, whom he called �one of the most experienced brown bear hunters that ever lived�, considered the Western bullet to be his favorite brown bear bullet.

In the chapter titled �The Big-Bore Boys� Jack repeated mentions this bullet as a very reliable game killer in modest rifles.

In 1943 Jack went on a pack trip to the Yukon and killed a big grizzly that he wrote �scared the hell out of me�. He used the .270 Win with the 130gr bullet.

So while not a Berger, per say, it was a cup and core hollow point boat tail. Same construction as the modern VLD. No bonding, no partitions, no mono construction.

Funny how what is new turns out to be not so new.

Also noted in this thread is a lot of pictures of Brown Bear skulls and bones. I went back and re-read the OP and he was asking about Grizzlies that live in deer and elk country.

Not sure if posted pictures qualify as hyperbole but Brown Bears from SE Alaska and interior AK/ lower 48 Grizzlies Bears ain�t the same sized creature. Any bullet sufficient for general elk hunting is more than sufficient for face shooting an unwounded charging GRIZZLY bear.

Originally Posted by 458Win
Are you calling me a big bore ? grin

Like everyone here I have opinions and most have been developed over the years by experience.

I do know that there are no bad bullets - but there certainly are wrong applications for each of them. Berger makes some fantastic bullets for accuracy and in certain situations they work well on game. But no projectile does all things well. You are not going to brain a bull elephant with a Berger and a Woodleigh solid is not likely to win any Olympic events or vaporize a prairie rat.
I have posted this photo before on discussion like this before but the same arguments keep popping up. It is a bear that one of my clients wounded and that I had to follow up in very thick pucker brush. I was carrying my 30-06 stuffed with 220 gr Nosler partitions at the time and knew from experience that they would penetrate every bit as well as my 375 or 458 ( which I was wishing I had when he charged ). There is no way that I would have even attempted following it up if I had been using Bergers !!! And if I had I probably would not have survived.

A wise person chooses the best tool for the job.

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Phil,

As I said above the premise of the OP was Grizzly Defense while hunting deer and elk. Following a wounded Brown Bear into the brush is a whole different discussion. Here in the lower 48 a hunter is facing much smaller bears and the odds of it being wounded prior to the encounter are astronomically small.

Here in Wyoming following a wounded Grizzly into the brush, as a hunter or guide, will get you a hefty fine and possible jail time. The FWS and Wyos game and Fish consider such activity bear hunting, not bear defense.

I would ask you how many times you have seen an unwounded bear follow through with a charge after being well hit with a rifle?

I would also like to know what your personal experience has been with the Berger VLD?

John Burns

I have all the sources.
They can't stop the signal.