Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Even Big Bears are scared of tourists

You should contact the Alaska State Troopers, the major Municiple Departments and Federal Game LEO's in Alaska to notify them that you have visited Alaska and spoke with several locals. Tell them your expert opinion from anecdotal conversations and your whitetail wounding experience with 12 gauge slugs render them unwise for bear protection. These departments have been doing it all wrong.

Black Magic Magnum- 600 grains of hardened rifled slug leaving the barrel at 1500 fps. I like those odds..........

Guy. Couple things. You may or may not agree.

Bear ammo. Generally speaking it doesn't take what folks think it takes. IE they use powerful ammo they cannot control

Read the Kenai bear attack in the NRA mag. Guy went from not ever carrying a gun to a PD 329 caring 300 grain bear ammo. IMHO he is in the same boat almost as he was. He can't use that gun. Can't control it.. Will be scared of it. Won't shoot it. Will have to wait for bear to have contact with him and then pull and use it... and hope the first shot works because he may loose that gun in recoil easily.

Also training. One needs to shoot a lot. Practice a lot. BUT the part of practice is ignored is the mental part.

While I rarely shoot as much as I used to, I continually practice accessing the gun and running controls on guns. Rather than just shoot.

I think if you produce muscle memory to get the gun working, the rest will come when the adrenalin is up. Assuming again you are a gun person. We know you are a gun person. I know I"m a wanna be gun person.

9mm 147 killed the last handgun bear I had to shoot.... I was kind of wishing I had my 10 or the 329 with reduced Keith loads... but it was what was handy.

Archie Bunker beat me by 10 minutes......... Alaska and Canadian LEO and ADFG agencies certainly have the aggregate amount of experience in this arena, and they almost universally use shotguns with the heaviest slugs. I just bought up another 75 rounds of Black Magic slugs the other day just because I think another ammo crisis will be here within a year.

Nope. Just looked for the article and found that one. Didn’t remember that incident from 2012.

Rost:
This article?

https://www.americanhunter.org/content/lessons-learned-from-a-grizzly-bear-attack-on-the-kenai/

A bunch of points in the narrative left me shaking my head... and not in a good way.

800 pound sows are all over the Kenai to start with...

Shotguns do work. Not with cheap slugs and or most Walmart type slugs. Shotguns have to be fed the correct ammo. Beyond that most big rifles work with any ammo, but the right ammo is even better and smarter.

Handguns, the ammo is critical. It has to be able to penetrate CNS at the ranges it gets used at. Has to penetrate the skull or spinal cord. Beyond that you have to be able to shoot it well.

Another post mentions someone bragging on how well his 500 or whatever shot. I'm sure it did. He simply couldn't shoot it as well as the gun did.

Thats the point.. This is a minimum of 3 fold thing. Ammo has to work. You have to be as accurate as the gun is( obviously the gun has to be sighted in and accurate enough) And finally you have to mentally be in the game.

Of all those, the mental part is going to win it. Likely even with the smallest gun the mental will have the best odds.

Misses with a cannon are still misses.

I do carry a stout knife. I hope to never use the gun or knife. The knife may get replaced with the lightest 9mm as a backup to the rifle at some point for trailing wounded bears.

down here in the lower 48 these liberals like to make a big deal about a bear shot ,so if you think someone may find out you shot a bear make sure you use pepper spray before the warden gets there ,probably a good ideal in Alaska too . the 3 - S`s works sometimes but seems everyone has a phone and to many things flying and taking pictures now days , so a small can of bear spray might save you some money and time with the law.

Nope. No legal nor logical need for condiments for protection.

Yikes BH!

I'd have to wear a pair of them Astronaut britches for a sport like that.

Heck ya!

AB, my tree stand spear might be a little more involved than the one depicted in Hunnington's tome.😉 The head is a modified, double- edged copy of the Clovis point found in New Mexico. CNC machined from 4041 chrome moly. It is attached to a ten foot copper plated steel ground rod that has had a milled joint placed into the shaft to accept it. The final eight feet is of 4041 cm tubing, which holds the main shaft via slight friction, with a stainless pin acting as a "stop" for when it is thrusted at a suspecting target. The complete spear weighs about 14 pounds. Being hollow-ground and razor sharp, penetration is easily assured!

Might have to bring it out this spring just for giggles. . . 😎