Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors 22 Hi-Power goes hunting

I solved all those .228” bullet problems by having my rat .22 HP lined with a true .224” bbl and rechambered.
1/10 Douglas. Pick your .224” bullet of choice and proceed.

good hunting Roy hope your 9 days are great.

norm

Smart and practical move. (But then it becomes a .219 Zipper, no?)

I'm curious what type of rifle are we talking about?

Just a side note, my BRNO shoots .224 diameter 55 grain Barnes ttsx into good groups as well as the Sisk, but they shoot 5" high at 50 yards. If I wanted to shoot them I would need to raise the front sight since the rear isn't adjustable. If the Sisk hadn't shot so well and only an inch high at 100 yards I would have figured out to get a brass bead on top of the front sight to bring those Barnes down. But the Barnes accuracy was fine. They'll be my Plan B when I run out of Sisk's.

Basically, yes.
A Linda Lovelace like .219 Zipper.

In a .224 bore I would seriously consider the 60 gr NP.

I've seen it out of a 223 Rem and it's effect on deer size animals is devastating.

NP?

Nosler Partition.

Ah, thanks. Sometimes I'm a little slow on the uptake.

That sounds just about like heaven!

Have a great trip Roy.

I stood beside a guy who shot a chest wounded bear in the head at twenty yards with a 300 sav 180gn. The bear rolled over, sat down with its back against a tree, let out a couple of growls and was finished with another chest shot. The bullet didn’t exit the head. There was a thick stranded wire snare broken off around its neck that had worn the hide to the point where you could rip it apart even though it looked fully healed.
One tough critter!

Home early. Plenty of bears about. We have a few good bear stories for you guys.

The area we hunt is burned off and in 90 degree weather nothing was on the hillsides where we normally hunt. Looks like this.





Unseasonably hot weather pushed everything down into the alder thickets and creek bottoms, and the creek bottoms aren't what I want to hunt so I said screw it, I'll come back when it cools down. Here's where everything is hiding while it's hot.




Saw a few deer including a buck but decided to just come back when the hunting is more pleasant. Season is about 4 weeks long. Couldn't hit a grouse with the BRNO O/U 22HP/12 gauge so I guess I need to go back to my favorite SxS 28 gauge.


Bears just about outnumbered deer this trip.

I set up camp in what I call the swamp. It's about 20 yards from a small mountain creek, completely choked with alders. Zero sun, deep shade, very cool, dead end road. We've always had bears close to or in camp and this year we had one bathing in the creek right next to camp on the first day at 2 oclock. Blue jays and squirrels gave him away then I heard him splashing and bathing. For the life of me I couldn't see him through the alders but he was 20 yards from camp. Moved around trying to get eyeball on him until he scented me and ambled off. Good start to the hunt!

Second day no luck.

Third day I set up covering a dark canyon that I hoped would hold the buck who's track I had found the day before. This area held a good buck last year but I never hunted him. Since I was having no luck up high I figured I'd try him on for size. I glassed from 300-550 yards, all within range of the 7mm mag, for about an hour when I hear something in the brush 75 yards to my right. I look over and see the brush moving and a bear steps out.

Didn't really want to shoot a bear so I called at him with a fawn bleat to see if he'd come in for a better look. He acted pretty disinterested at first but started meandering my way, eating acorns and sniffing around as he came across the small draw separating us. He was what I would describe as "every bear". Not big, not small, mature but just like every other bear you see. Cave entrance black.

At 50 yards he stopped behind a large burned tree. I saw his head sticking out on the right side of the tree. He had his head down and nose to the dirt. I watched him for a couple minutes wondering why he had stopped coming. I pleaded with him, "I'm dying here, come get yourself an easy meal!" Wah wah wah, blah blah blah, woe is me.

I checked him with the binoculars to see what the heck he was doing when I realized it was the flared root of that large burned tree I was looking at, not the bears nose and head as I'd thought. Now I realized I'd lost him in the brush and he was probably still coming.

After a few intense seconds of "Where's Yogi?" as I rubbernecked around the tree I was behind I spot brush moving a few yards away. I gave him the mouse squeaks by mouth and I see him at about 40'. He was coming slowly until he hit my scent. He jolted back a few inches but didn't run off. He was opening and closing his mouth picking up scent trying to pinpoint me. He reached out to an acorn bush near him and put the leaf in his mouth and pulled his head back, stripping whatever scent he could off the leaf, but leaving it intact on the bush. I've never seen a bear do this before. I gave him some of the same popping sounds he was making just to watch his reaction.

As he stood there at 35' I stood up and took a few steps toward him, making a lot of noise and climbing up on a log so he could see me clearly. I expected him to bolt as I stood full height and waved my arms and gun above my head. He literally acted like he hadn't seen me even though I was in full view. As he moved his head back and forth trying to pick me up, while I'm jumping around like a rodeo clown on the log, he finally focuses on me as if to say, "Hey, there's something on that log, wth?" Clearly this bear was nearly blind as he couldn't make me out at 30'.

He had scented me and now had apparently seen me, but wasn't leaving, until when I said "Hey bear" softly. He about turned inside out getting out of there! He stopped once to look back at about 60 yards, what for I'm not sure since he was obviously blind. I'm glad he didn't get any closer or I would have needed to fill my bear tag. It's always super cool getting close to them but I have a lot of respect for their speed and ability to shred flesh. I figure one maybe 2 shots between us is close enough! Very cool sighting.

Friend Liam showed up in camp on the second day. He already filled his bear tag




and so decided not to get another one due to freezer space limitations, wanting a deer instead. He had real reason to rethink that on day 4.


Leaving camp at daylight he walked the swamp road out hoping to catch a buck leaving the swamp headed to "the butte" for the day. After rounding the top end of the swamp he walks up the road around the other side of the swamp to his right, encircling the swamp. As he walked along he looked for tracks coming off the "south butte" towards the swamp. When he reached the SW corner of the swamp and south butte, he stopped on the edge of the road and looked down the canyon headed south. We've seen alot of bear, deer, and even elk coming from the south canyon and stopping in the swamp for a break.

This time as he stood glassing the canyon he hears noise in front of him and as he lowers his binocs spots a bear just a few yards away headed straight up the draw at him. It was another jet black bear, another "every bear". He was close when Liam first saw him so he immediately started talking to it. The bear ignored him and kept coming, so he began yelling, "Go away bear, you're going to ruin my hunting!"

The bear was 40-50' away and kept coming uninterrupted. He raised his rifle and fired right over the bears head. The bear didn't even react and kept coming. When the bear was about 40' it veered slightly to Liams left and walked around him at 40'. Liam fired another shot just inches from the bear into a tree, hoping the impact would startle the bear. He jumped but walked right around Liam slowly, looking at him as he circled around him. Liam began backing up to the gravel road to give the bear some space. The bear crossed the gravel road and went over the bank towards the swamp, and out of Liams sight.

Liam was shook up that the bear had ignored all his warnings and even two gunshots at 40'! He decided to head back to camp and settle his nerves. As he started down the road the swamp was now on his left. After a few yards he realized the bear was not far off the road, maybe 30 yards, and was looking at him. As he walked along the bear paralleled him from 20-40 yards out, watching him the entire time.

Liam was cautious but not really nervous. The bear continued following him for over 1/3 of a mile around the south road around the swamp to the intersection that led downhill into the thick brush and camp, about 1/2 mile downhill in the swamp. It was as Liam approached this intersection to camp that he lost sight of the bear in the alders. As he walked downhill towards camp his path would cross the bears if the bear continued his trajectory. Having lost sight of him now Liam was really getting jittery.

He made the turn and kept and eye out for the bear as he headed down the swamp road towards camp. He stopped several times to scour the swamp to try to relocate the bear, but the bear had apparently stopped in the alders, which were literally just a few yards off either road, and only 8-10' high, and few in number. Enough to hide a bear but why in the world would a bear act like that? He wasn't sure where the bear was so he beat feet back to camp through that thick schit as fast as he could, keeping an eye on his backtrail the whole way.


.


When he got to camp and told me the story I told him that was NOT normal bear behavior and that I think that bear was going to be a problem. Sooner or later that bear is going to end up in our camp. We cook on a grill over the fire and there's all kinds of bacon grease, sausage, bear meat, you name on that grill. What if the bear finds our whiskey?!!! I told him I would have shot that bear, tag or not before I'd have had that experience.

After thinking about it, he realized what a potentially dangerous bear that could be and that I was right, he probably should have shot it.

A bear that ignores being yelled at, shot at, and follows a person for a 1/3 of a mile is not a normal bear. This is wild and remote country, this isn't a habituated garbage bear.

After his and my encounter we started hashing alot of information over from past experiences and we both wonder if perhaps bear have a behavioral mode that "triggers" in a bear that shuts off normal behavior and another script kicks in. Hard to explain but something happens in a bear that turns off "normal" and turns on some alternate pattern of acting. One or any number of other modes of behavior.

Anyway, now every time we hunt the area we'll have in the back of our mind that there could be a bear close by that has zero normal fear of humans.


He should have shot that bear.

I forgot to mention in both our cases the bears were so close we both threw rocks at them. I threw two and Liam threw three. Neither of us were able to hit the bear but I came close, landing just past the bears butt in a bush. He looked back to see what the noise was.

Excellent tale, Roy!! I would've laid in my sleeping bag wide awake all night, clutching my rifle.

On second thought, no. I would've slept in the truck!

My neighbor Robert is so scared of this campsite he slept in the back seat of my wifes Toyota truck! Windows up, doors locked! LOL

I added a woodstove to a retired work trailer and set it up for hunting.

I did carry the 22HP a lot while hunting but only used it to miss grouse.

Need a day off then I'll be back at it.

Well, I'm sure the grouse were scared at least 🤣

That's a lot of bears... I'm not overly of them, either, so I'd also be in the car sleeping group 😮

Hopefully you get a good shot at something soon.

Carved on a tree somewhere in the Oregon Outback: "D.Fireball kilt a b'ar on this tree, 2022 AD"

Among bear, like people, have a lot of different personalities. That one needs to be eliminated.