Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters bear gun?

If it's all going to be perfect, then almost anything can be made to do the job. The new Savage and Ruger machine rifles routinely shoot sub-half-minute Creedmoor groups. You can theoretically slip one right down the ear canal and not even put a hole in the hide. Trouble is, out in the wilderness, things are rarely, almost never, perfect. That's why I want some survivable margin for error, such as provided by a heavier rifle.

W.D.M. Bell was famous for brainshooting elephants with a small caliber Rigby, but there is a reason that's not legal in most countries in Africa any more. And it has to do as much with wounding and losing a magnificent animal as it does with the danger of Timbo turning the hunter into Bwanabutter.

So the only way I would hunt a brown bear with a 6.5 Creedmoor would be with a guide beside me who has a .375 H&H. Or maybe a .416!

I realize you were being funny there... but OlBlue from here did shoot a Kodiak brown bear exactly through the earhole without ruining even the slightest bit of hide! But (butt?) he did it the hard way. First shot went through ribs broadside and the next was a Texas heart shot. The bullet hit a butt cheek and traveled full length through the bear, exiting EXACTLY through the ear hole! His stunt rifle that day was a 375H&H with 300gr NPTs, btw.

Blue gots skeelz, man!

I'll never live it down😉 --- Mel

Not just everyone has poked a bear in the butt and the ear at the same time!

True story: I think it was Peterson's Hunting many years ago had a story about a young guy who shot a record or near record, or anyway -- a big bull, in one of the western states with a 300 Win Mag. IIRC, it was somewhere around 400 yards.

The story went on -- unbelievably so -- to note that though Cabelas bore-sighted the rifle at purchase on the way out west the young man had not had time to fire it before the hunt. 😳 😯

Yeah, I was making an attempt at humor, but about a serious subject. I am still a firm believer in using enough gun, as OlBlue obviously did, when hunting anything that bites! And he believes it too if he was willing to carry the extra weight and put up with the extra recoil of the heavier caliber rifle. Even so, he suffered an obvious bullet failure because it WAY overpenetrated, right?? (grin)

Now I have a question: Can he do it again? And where do I buy a ticket to watch that show?

I'd personally hunt them with 6.5 or 7 with a 160 if I had the chance and was hot on that particular rifle.

There is not an animal on this continent that cannot be HUNTED and cleanly dispatched with 260 or 708 a stout bullet and good placement IMHO.


Perfection in this case (Brown Bear) is a 338WM IMHO

I know Heimo Korth, who I guess is featured on some reality TV show, don't know as I have never owned one, but he is also featured in the book The Final Frontiersman. For the past nearly 40 years his hunting rifle, for moose, grizzlies and caribou has been a 22-250 ! And he has taken probably 8 or 10 grizzlies with it since I have know him.

Heimo is a hunter's hunter. One of a kind. And he feeds that 788 22-250 Federal blue box!

After seeing how a .308 win took down a 9.5' brown bear with Federal Fusions at 2450 fps and a 30-06 with Yellow/Green box 180s at 2700 fps also took a 9.5 brown bear with one shot, I would have no qualms about using a 140 A Frame at 2800 fps from a 6.5 of any sort.

I will never in the rest of my life ever go on a Brown Bear hunt and do believe any cal will kill a Bear, but it really comes down to one that will kill it really quick in a life and death situlation bear attack. So as Elmer Keith used to say, carry enough gun. One of the best light weight Bear Guns in my opinion would be a lever action heavy loaded 45-70.

Killing one and stopping one are two totally different things. FWIW.

Yet most folks carry a .44 mag or 10mm for their stopping a charging bear choice

I love reading any thread about big bears.

An interesting "bear gun" photo:

http://vilda.alaska.edu/cdm/ref/collection/cdmg21/id/99

Bruce

Based on empirical evidence, I suspect charge-stopping cartridges begin around .35 caliber--at least in handguns, like the S&W 9mm Phil Shoemaker used to stop the last brown bear that charged him.

Haha that's my point. Folks say you need a bigger gun to stop a charging bear than hunt one, yet they turn their nose up to smaller cartridges to hunt with while carrying that pistol on their hip in case one charges.

And yes everyone knows Phil stopped one with a 9mm.

I've never stopped a charging bear. But I've stared down a big porcupine. I was glad I had my .416 with me.