Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Deer hunting in Brown Bear country with a 338-06

Garandimal,

Have you ever read the book OF BENCH AND BEARS: ALASKA'S BEAR HUNTING JUDGE, by Richard Folda. I suspect you might like, since Folda took a lot of bears (black, grizzly and brown) in his life, and guided fellow hunters to quite a few more. He started with a Remington Model 8 in .35 Remington, but eventually started using a Garand, both of which he liked due their quick repeat shots.

Would work exceptionally well

I've lost track, was it decided what bullet the OP should use out of a .338-06 or is he using something different now because it's not big enough?

I owned three 338-06 rifles in the past and I have made a few dozen of them for customers. I like the cartridge a LOT. I sold my last one because the man didn't value $100 bills as much as he valued the rifle and kept laying them down until I said yes. I said I'd make another for myself, but so far I have not. Still, the 338-06 is a shell I have a great deal of respect for. Because I now have a 9.3X62 I have not felt any "need" to replace the 338-06, but I still may just because the shell works so well and is easy to load for, and easy on the shoulder in comparison to the power it give me.

Because I live and hunt in Wyoming and big bears are common I also find much of my deer and elk hunting is done in the bears "back-yard". So I load "Elk/Bear bullets" for my guns and just shoot deer with them if I have a deer tag. Even if a tough bullet that only opened up half-way it still kills deer fine. Some run 20-30 years, but are easy to find with the blood trails they leave. In my 338-06 I found the 210 grain Nosler partitions and the 225 Grain Partitions did an excellent job on all the game I shot with them, and at ranges of 200 and under they opened very well on deer (Antelope too) Yet the ability to break big bones and still go deep and exit elk was common. I never shot a grizzly with one, but I would have if the need was thrust upon me and I carried that ammo with full confidence in it, knowing what I had seen it do on elk and in one case, on a moose. (with a 225 grain Nosler Partition.)

The 180-210 grain ranges are thought of as "light" for the 338 bore size, but the 200 and 220 gain bullets are large in the 30-06 and the honest truth is that the 30-06 was and often still is the most commonly used cartridge for killing grizzlies.

I do not feel under-armed around grizzlies when I carry one of my 30-06s or my 8X57 as long as I have the correct bullets in the ammo. If you carry a gun for defending yourself against a bear you must acknowledge that no bear is dangerous until it can touch you, and the part that comes first is the front of the bear. So the parts that you need to hit are close and also close to the skin of the target. I do like full pentation, but to break the skull, neck, spine or shoulders of an aggressive bear you don't have to make the bullet go through 4 feet of meat and bone first. It hits the part that needs to be hit first. Destroying the vitals and then having the bullet break through the pelvis after the front is his it never a bad thing, but the front of the bear is what you hit first, and if the bullet don't break up on hair, hide muscle and bone, you can kill bears fine with "only" 20-24 inches of penetration. More never hurts, but the largest part of the damage is done up front and it's going to be close, (25 yards and less, sometimes a lot less) or you are not actually defending yourself.

Back in the days when grizzlies were common in the Rockies and big magnums were not, men who understood used bullets that "went deep" because they did not break up. Not just in the Rockies of American either but in Africa and India and Australia too. Look at the use of the 6.5X54 M/S, the 7X57, 8X57, 30-40 Krag, 303 British 35 Winchester, 333 Jeffery, 318 W/R 45-70 and the 30-06 with it's wonderful 220 grain bullets. Extreme velocity was not the focus, but bullet construction was, to all that understood.

Coming back to the 338-06, I see it as an American modern version of the 333 Jeffery and the 318 Westly Richards, both of which were very well received and respected in Africa in the 20s through the 50s, and to be an equal to those old shells is a very good place to be. The 333 was available with 300 grain bullets and was very popular for close shots at game up to 2000 pounds with that bullet. Yet the 250 grain bullets were more popular overall. The 318 W.R. also shot 250s.

Still taking the 338-06 this year.

If I draw an elk tag, I will be using one of my 338-06's.

Dennis,

Good to know you have so much experience stopping charging brown bears. Which is what this thread started out about.

Sorry, but I couldn't help it. But I have the advantage of talking a lot with Phil Shoemaker, who has as much experience in that particular discipline as any Alaskan outfitter I know of today. (Also hunted and fished with him a few years ago, when we encountered many brown bears, one of which was pushed within 15 feet of us by a nitwit fisher-person. Oh, and have also killed a "brown bear" in Alaska, according to the B&C area definitions, though they disagree with B&C's.)

I also happen to be friends will a well-known gun writer who hunted deer on Kodiak some years ago. He used a .300 Weatherby Magnum, just in case a bear came in on him. He used two different loads, a 150 Partition for deer, and a "back-up" load with the 200 Partition in case of an encounter with the brown bear. He killed a deer--and a BIG brown bear did try to claim it. The 150 Partitons did NOT penetrate the bear's shoulder--but the guide's bigger rifle did.

Have shot quite a few bigger animals in both North America and Africa, and there is a real difference between shooting them broadside or angling away, and through the heavier bones in their front ends--which is generally where charging animals have to be shot.

This has been discussed numerous times on this forum. If you want to stop anything, shot placement is critical.

Yeah, shot placement it critical--but in the case of a charging animal the bullet must be able to penetrate to the vitals, often with less-than-perfect shot placement, because by definition the animal is moving. Phil Shoemaker did this on a big brown bear with a 9mm handgun and 147-grain Buffalo Bore hard-cast bullets--but it took every shot the little handgun held, and even Phil said he would have rather used his .44 Magnum revolver--or better yet his .458 Winchester Magnum. But probably the major point is that Phil has stopped many charging bears, and not only knows where to hit them, but what's required for penetration. He thoroughly tested the 9mm load for penetration before carrying it in the field, instead of guessing how it might perform.

As I mentioned earlier, I have seen the 210-grain Partition stop inside an average whitetail--on a rear-quartering shot at "woods" range. It entered the buck (which weighed about 150 pounds field-dressed) at the rear of the ribcage on one side, and was recovered from under the hide on the front of the chest on the other side. No heavy bone was hit, if deer bones can be called "heavy" compared to an elk's or big bear's.

I also haven't found the 225 .338 Partition to penetrate much deeper than the 210--but the 250 does, the reason it was the Partition I used it on all but one of the animals I've taken with the .338 that weighed over 500 pounds, on up to an eland weighing well over 1000 pounds.

If I was going to carry my .338 to hunt deer in brown bear country (or even Montana's grizzly country, which expands ever year) and a 210-grain bullet it would be the Barnes TTSX--which penetrates deeper than the 210 Partition.

I seem to recall the whole point of this is the OP will be hunting deer amongst brown bears, and so he wants to equip himself with the ability to "STOP" them in case of a worst case scenario while also not destroying a bunch of meat. Both of these prerequisites yell out for a 250gr partition or A frame. A 250 will dig deeper and ruin less meat.

Yaddio, what island are you hunting?