Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Going for grizzly with a 30-30

Definitely. They're kind of scary when they're suddenly low to the ground and with their nose up, coming at you like all Hell's devils from just a few yards away and while you're surrounded by dense alder brush.

A friend of mine from Arkansas hunts everything with a 30-378 WBY.Couple of years ago he went to Kodiak and that's what he used.He got a nice bear.

Bob;
I trust that this finds you and yours doing well on this foggy morning.

Our local gun club puts on a sheep count today as it has every 2nd Sunday in February for more than 60+ years and I've been an area leader for 20+ now I guess. The ceiling is really, really low this morning and unless the wind picks up we'll need to be at conversational distances from any California's before we can count them!

Oh well, February in the Okanagan can be that way.

One of my hunting mentors was a Mennonite chap who had a farm in the Ft. St. John area for years. To say I miss him would be a gross understatement. Anyway Bob, he did some market gardening as part of it and had many "bear in the garden" and "bear in the pig pen" stories to share.

His primary rifle for most of his life was a 95 in .30-40, which marked him as a little more serious about his gear than the "average" hunter.

I asked him one time how many animals he thought the 95 had accounted for and after some thought, figured that there were at least 50 moose taken with it, as well as a few caribou and sheep. He related that he really wasn't able to calculate how many deer died in front of it and when it came to bears, Jake would just wink and say something like, "Most people wouldn't believe me anyway Dwayne."

That said, I'd agree with crossfire that the various versions of .303's outnumbered the lever guns by a wide margin. Almost everyone had one - honestly they were everywhere in rural Saskatchewan.

When I was younger, I judged a fellow a "semi-serious hunter" if they had a 94 - which was most often a .30-30 but occasionally a .32 Special. We saw the odd Marlin, but not that many somehow.

The "serious hunters" in my young eyes anyway, had Winchester 88's and Savage 99's.

I suspect a couple things played into the .303 working as well as it did on the yard pests, one was that it was behind the kitchen door and two that it was likely loaded with Dominion 215gr. "Kling Kore" round nose bullets. I still can see the blue and yellow boxes sitting on a shelf or ledge near the farm house doors. Usually beside some mittens, a flashlight and perhaps a wrench or pliers. Farmers and ranchers, eh?

Speaking of bullets, a lot of animals likely died as a result of military surplus full metal jackets as well, but that's more of a guess on my part.

Anyway, that's just my recollections from the late '60's and then the '70's from a gun crazy farm kid as he was bouncing around the rural sections of a few provinces visiting farmers, ranchers, trappers and the like.

Well, I'm off to count some California's Bob.

All the best to you and yours in the upcoming week.

Dwayne

Use the Partition or Barnes bullet and the 30-30 should work just fine. Most would be surprised just how many Grizzly have been taken with the 30-30 . I would much rather have a 94 Win in 30-30 for Bear Protection in the bush than any pistol most people recommend for Bear Country.

Only the shooters who lived told friends of it! I believe some shooters never returned to tell their story!

NO offence intended here, but, I spent quite a few years working for the BC Forest Service, Alberta Forest Service and the BC Fish&Wildlife (briefly) all over BC and western-northern Alberta. I have seen about a dozen Grizzlies killed and had several dozen encounters with these bears, usually when alone.

During this time and even in the '50s and '60s, while learning from the kind of oldtimers I mentioned above, I have never seen a .30-.30 used to kill a Grizzly and never known anyone to hunt with one.

The aboriginal women mentioned earlier who killed a giant Grizzly with a .2Lr. was Bella Twin, an Albertan and I used to work for the AFS in the area where this happened and knew some of her family slightly while there. This is the region of Alberta, where the surviving members of the "Plains Grizzly" are to be found and since her encounter happened some 60 years ago, there were some huge bears there.

A good place to start with a rifle-combo. for Grizzly hunting is the old .30-06 with 180NPs and I would bet that more Grizzlies shot by BC-Alberta sportsmen have been killed by .30-06s than anything else.

A 30-30 is just a .300 Win mag...minus 300 yards.

Dwayne I guess the 303 had a good reputation up in Canada,maybe like a 318 WR in Africa..probably with similar long, bluenose softs weighing over 200 grains.I don't know....never used either.

Conversations about minimum calibers and bullets for big bears are fun, but in the end, you'd never see me with a 30-30 deliberately looking for a grizzly or brown bear....I am basically chicken hearted and both of mine have been killed with a 375

If I could shoot 30-40 more, I'd have a better idea of what works good and what doesn't...

No BS.

At one time the model 94 was the most popular rifle in the US and certainly in the Klondike area if for no other reason than there were so many Americans in the Klondike. Model 94s were relatively inexpensive, considered powerful, and ammo was cheap and plentiful.

When I moved to Montana over 30 years ago or so, I drove over the road coach and had a lot sheepherders moving from one side of a ranch to the other side or sometimes from ranch to ranch using the bus service. The rifle of most of them were model 94s in 30-30. These guys were in Grizzly country (and wolf country although FWP denied it). I thought these old timers were nuts as I had been told that even my 30-06 wasn't enough for Grizzly. These old timers just laughed and said no Griz was safe as long as they had their 30-30 and it was stoked with 170 grain bullets.

The 170 grain bullet is a big round nose bullet with a lot of lead exposed. It expands and penetrates deep.

The trouble today is that none of us shoot or hunt as much as the old timers did and we have a safe full of rifles. These old timers had one rifle to do it all. They could shoot and shoot well. They also were fearless.

Us modern day Internet hunters and shooters are not fearless, don't shoot as much, have a safe full of rifles, and we believe all the marketing hype about the newest and bestest super duper magnum and bullet that some how kills on mere contact.

Maybe if we looked at what the old timers used, had one rifle, shot a lot, why they were so successful with such privatise rifles we might all be better hunters and shooters.

Well I'll be damned, when did you get back? I hope you are doing well these days.

Good to see you back, Mister ! Your yarns made the morning coffee more fragrant.

Kute, did you ever rub elbows with Andy Russell ?

Curdog sez' "According to him the Mountain Men preferred Grizzly meat to just about any other kind "

Damn straight, BEST eating I've ever hed !

GTC

Interesting. There have been many debates here in regards to the old adage "beware of the man with one rifle". Many here scoff at the idea. Being a greenhorn and all, I stayed the hell out of it, but in my mind I always wondered how a man with one rifle and one scope, couldn't become more lethal a shot than the man who jumps between many rifles, many calibers? Drive one car, and soon you'll be able to squeeze out of her all she's got.

I get from Dwayne's post the fact of the situation here in BC-Alberta, with people living-working in Grizzly country. The fact is that VERY few people owned more than 3-4 guns, these were seldom anything special and were usually a Cooey .22, a Cooey singleshot 12 Ga. and a "sporterized" Lee-Enfield. In fact, the private forest technologist who used to stage his helo trips from my station out of Slave Lake,AB. carried one as his only bear gun.

"Gunnuts" of the type seen here on the "Campfire" were almost unknown here in rural BC until the later 1970s and are still in a minority. I had the only .338WM among my friends and colleagues in the BCFS in the '60s and '70s and none of us had or had ever shot a .375H&H. So, people just used what was available and made do as practical rural people always have and always do.

I did not get my first .375 until 1982 and have used seven rifles so chambered. I have two now, including a purpose-built P-64 "shorty" that a friend of mine here, "free-miner" started and I finished a few years ago, when I was going to return to wilderness work and wanted a specific Grizzly gun as I would be responsible for some of his prospecting camps.

Now, at 65, I know that my bush working days are behind me and I will sell this and my matched pair of P-64s in .300 and .375 as I will never carry them. It is fun to speculate, but, 40+ years of packing various rifles in BC has taught me that many combos will work just fine, it is my shooting prowess that I need to be most concerned about.

I suspect that most "dude" hunters and most "local" hunters fit into this category as well.................

According to Osbourne Russel,who was a contemporary of Bridger,as soon as berries and such fruited in the Spring,a Grizzly never touched meat until they died out in the Fall.

He also claimed that they lost no fat during hibernation IIRC.

His book is over at the fishing camp , so I can't check it.

I met Andy Russell at Selkirk College in Castlegar, BC, circa 1970 and debated him, with good humour on both sides, concerning "trophy" hunting and some other related issues. He was a colourful and "larger than life" character and he never let a story lack "vigour", shall we say.

Andy, was a controversial figure in western Canada and some revered him while others had other feelings about him and his books, films and presentations. I only met him that once and I respected him as a conservation lobbiest and entertainer "par excellence", as he did fight for Grizzly protection before it bacame "cool".

His son Charlie used to land his 185 on the driveway of a Big Irrigated spread I worked on, just outta' the Crowsnest.
Well lubricated with fine Canadian Rye and Suds, we built a nice fire on the owner's patio one night.....His wife was not amused.
The Waterton Glacier's hills and Lakes were the weekend destination of choice, I'm glad I saw that country than, as you know, it's changed a LOT.

Fine family, the Russells.

GTC

DD,THIS is the comment that 'oops called you on.Seems like our Canadian neighbors agree with him.

And...BTW.. The modern guy with a safe full of rifles very well may shoot a whole lot more than the old timer with one rifle ever did.And burned up powder leads to better shooting,regardless of the cartridge.

I have never shot anything bigger than a Whitetail with the 30-30 and would follow Elmer Keith Advice , Carry Enough Gun. If was going after the Big Bears my choice would start with the 338 cal. Preferably my 338 RUM and I would use the Nosler 250 Partition or Swift 275 GR A-Frame.

Hunting griz with a 30-30 ain't much of a stunt. I'd consider hunting coastal brown bears that are found in the Kodiak/Peninsula region with a 30-30 more of a stunt.

On big bear you don't have much room for error and i guess bullet placement would mean more that what you shoot it with