Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting Preferred caliber?

I have never heard this term and the current "the Koots" that one sees on some BC-Canadian gun-hunting forums is also not a real Kootenay term. The East and West KootenayS are always referred to in that plural fashion and have been as long as I can remember.

There are nearly twice as many Grizzlies now in BC as there were when I joined the BCFS in April, 1965, at Fernie, BC, in the East Kootenays. I am from Nelson, in the West Kootenays and the buggers now come right into town and quote close to the house where my family has lived for 99 of the 119 years since we moved from Vancouver to the Kootenays.

I favour an increase in both BC res. hunter's tags and more allocation for non-res. hunters, to keep them in check with the reality of our, sadly, rapidly growing human population, but, the "antis" AND all too many resident self-styled "experts" who hunt have severely screwed up BC wildlife management and so, we now have far more attacks than was formerly the case.

We never carried guns when I was young and working in some very remote parts of BC in the bush, often alone for months. Now, very few do not carry and while I agree with "Lanche" by and large on his comments concerning what will happen if one decides to grab you, I tend to carry more than I used to and a big rifle when I do....but, at 65, I am not as tough and brave as I once was and am going to take every advantage I can get!

I've got 2 favorite calibers for mtn hunting, 7mm-08 and the 270win.

Come on now Calvin I have seen atmleast one of your sheep hunting rifles in person. It's too sweet to bring your RUM instead.

Kute, not trying to compare the power of a 338 to a 308. If the were equal I would not own both. Just saying that choosing a caliber because there are bears around is silly vs. what your hunting. In now way is the 308 anywhere nearly as powerful as my 308. But in no way is my 338 as light as my 308 and my 308 is more than enough for everything including interior grizz.

What is an interior Grizzly BTW?

Are they the one with a limp wrist that say "Jesus Christ, your drapes are hideous and don't match the carpet at all, I'm so tired of living with you butch savages..."

I was not trying to single you or any specific poster here out and intended my remarks just as a general observation. I own and have owned lots of both .308Win. and .338Win. rifles and have been at the shooting death of about a dozen Grizzlies, but, never seen one killed with a .308. I have with a .270Win, .30-06 and 7mag and .300Win. plus bigger rounds.

Oddly and I have spent a fair amount of time all up and down the BC Coast and seen a few bears, the largest I have ever seen was close to my home in the West Kootenays and it was just a monster, half again as large as any other I have yet encountered. The landlocked Salmon runs, the very lush herbaceous growth and the dense populations of various rodents here contribute to the large size of these particular bears.

I prefer to watch bears to shooting them and always have, in my youth working in wilderness BC, I saw so many bears and other animals killed for "sport" and, btw, this includes Stone's Sheep and RM Goats, that it just nauseated some of we younger forestry and wildlife personnel and I lost all desire for a bear rug for my living room floor....not to mention what my Rottweilers would do to one!

Whatever, these discussions are fun and informative and we are fortunate in North America, to still enjoy the hunting and guns we now have. Given the political-demographic trends I see here in BC, I am not overly optimistic about the future of our interests, tho'..........

Makes sense, it's what you know. I get chastised for bow hunting in heavy Black Bear, Mtn. Lion and now wolf territory without a side arm. My propensity to carry a heavy weapon in Brown Bear territory would be born out of the unknown and my perception of their unpredictability. I suspect you are right, at 10 yards a surprise attack would be hard to defend with any weapon. Now, your example of the bluff charge from 100 yards, I would love to have my .338 and not my .270. Quick kill or not, I would want the heavy bullet to break the animal down....just my flavor I guess. If I were fortunate enough to be "amoung them" like yourself and others on the fire I may have a different take based on real in the field knowledge. Extra 1 1/2 lbs or not, I just hope to have the Alaskan hunting experience some day. For now I will live vicariously through your pictoral posts....keep em coming.

Interesting, we just had two Cougar attacks on dogs with humans here in BC-Alberta in the past week. This, was unheard of when I was young, but, my neighbour was the local CO, kept Cougar hounds in his back yard and killed them by the score as did many others.

I honestly feel that there is a considerably GREATER chance of an attack in BC and Alberta by Grizzlies, Black Bears and Cougars now than was the case 50-60 years ago and many highly experienced bush people I know tend to agree with this. I also think that, all things considered, a person who can shoot well and is familiar with bears is safer armed with a medium bore rifle, such as a .338, than unarmed or armed with a rifle of lesser power.

I have little use for handguns in this situation and while I did use one for certain purposes on a couple of wilderness jobs, I sold my Redhawk a couple of years ago and doubt I will buy another .44. I am just not willing to practice to the extent necessary to use one well enough to trust it and I am used to Model 70s in .338 and .375 and trust them with heavy NPs more than anything, so, that is what I feel is best for me.

I just got a call this evening from a guy from my club about taking him bear hunting in the Kootenays, for Blacks and he has never shot anything larger than a Canada Goose. So, I will and for "backup", I will carry my Brno ZG-47 9.3x62 with 286 NPs at 2500 fps-mv and this is NOT an unpleasant rifle to shoot at about 8 lbs. all up. Might as well use what I feel most comfortable with. Each to his own poison and all that.

Dan, in general interior grizz don't get the size of coastal bears. Though my younger bro took a 9.5 foot grizz in our teens 5 miles behind our house when our parents wre out of town. Ended up going #7 or 8 all time in b&c for grizz and all it took were two shot ith crappy Winchester 180 grain ammo from his 30-06 while I filmed it. So they do get big.

Kute you have spent more time in the field than many of us combined so I strongly respect our opinions. I have seen approx a dozen grizz taken myself only 3 of which were with less than a 30-06. The rest were with .338s and .375s. But that's too be expected as when bear is the target of ourse you gun up

An extra 1.5 pounds on my back could be another days worth of food to hunt with instead of a bit more metal in the rifle. Really just comes own o what you are comfortable with and lets you sleep better at night I guess.

I lived in AK from 2003-2007. I did a lot of hunting. I will share a couple of my real world experiences with caliber and grizzly/brown bear encounters.

#1 - Sep 2007--AK Range sheep hunting. Partner and I are on a 7 mile trek to get back into a drainage we hunt. Scattered along the trail is TONS of bear scat. Its very fresh as well. We later run into a caribou kill. Wind was in our face and I told my partner repeatedly I thought we might run into this bear, so keep your mind and gun ready. I don't like putting a round in the chamber for safety unless I get that 'bad' feeling. We were not there yet so I left the chamber empty but I thought we might see this bear at some point. Sure enough, about 1700, we see her on the hillside a good 400 yards away. I ask my buddy, do you want to dump her? He tells me to go kill her. I have to cross a creek drainage and up a small hill on the opposite side of the valley and I make quick work of it. Bear is feeding on her hind legs standing. I take a quick shot and she tumbles and rolls back over and disappears in the willows--not good. So I know I hit her...my buddy is kinda giving me the cool sign...I don't think this is over...I kinda rushed the shot. I am standing on a dry creek bed looking into the willows. All the sudden I see her at 20 yards walking directly at me like nothing is wrong. She has not seen me but I am getting shaky real fast. I throw another round at her immediately through all the brush--no reaction from the bear at all. I missed completely. At this point, she is about 14 yards away and still walking right to me. I reload, and put the crosshairs right on her nugget and rip another one at her. She collapses immediately and never flinches. Caliber 300 win mag/180 grain accubond bullets. Upon skinning her, first round was farther back. Third and fatal shot entered on the right side of her jaw and traveled back to her opposite rear leg and stopped in the uppper ball joint area. Here is a photo of her...



#2 - 2005 AK Penninsula Brown Bear Hunt. Partner and I walking back to camp at 0100. He shot a nice black bear at 1000 and we worked on it and had a 3 mile hike back. About 1 mile from camp, I see yellow eyes bobbing up the beachline. Looks to be about 70 yards awaya and closing distance FAST. I tell my buddy to load up and be ready. He panics. I quickly jerked my Leupold off my rifle (quick release mounts) and put one in the chamber. We begin yelling at mr bear in an attempt to get him to stop. He does, 22 paces away on the edge of the water/beach. He is barking/growling, huffing and puffing and going up on his hind legs. He drops down and begins pawing the ground. I tell my partner, "if this @#$%$! charges we are !#@$@!$@ dead!" All I remember is putting the iron sights on the full lit moon above him and slowly bringing it down over his chest and letting one rip. Fire out the muzzle and he spins and hauls arse outta there and falls over dead as a doornail 20 yards from here he stood. That one shook me up pretty good to say the least and it all happened in about 30 seconds from initial sighting. Caliber 375HH/300 gr nosler partitions. Here is a pic of him...a very young male, prolly fresh off of momma and just young and dumb. What made us more nervy was we had spotted a very large bear that tracked us a good way one evening and then made it down to your camp and circle our tent a few times. We knew we had a big bear in the area that was not scared. We saw him the next morning and could not catch up to him. I would say he was prolly 8.5' Couple pics of the lil guy...





22 paces...375HH--exit wound on far shoulder



Lessons Learned:

1 - Keep your composure...yeah right. Try saying that when one is coming your way all the sudden out of nowhere when you least expect it.
2 - Carry a big F'n Stick! Some guys feel better and enjoy their hunt more if the have a big caliber in their hands--personal preference.
3 - Biggest thing I learned from both encounters--pray...alot! God was definitely looking out for me that night out on the beach. That lil booger could hurt/killed us--he had sharp teeth and big claws.

Alaska Lanche eluded to this...if you stumble into one and he wants to get you, he more than likely will. PRAY and go hunt!

I grew up with a .308 and in Montana. I killed 5 Bull Elk, several Antelope and many Mule deer with it (a Win Model 88). I used 180 grain CoreLokts for Elk and 150 grain WW Silvertips for everything else --- until I started reloading. With all of the great bullets today, the 308 is better than ever.

Whoa...

You mean you killed things with a lever action?

You sick bastard

DELGUE,

I had the same issue last December when I was ordering my NULA. I met Melvin at his shop and handled several models and finishes. I went in thinking that I would order a 30-06 or 308 but ended up having a 300 win built. After talking it over with Melvin he said that you will never wonder if you have enough gun and that you can always load it down to a 30-06.

My gun is for western and alaska hunting. If I was hunting mostly deer I would go with the M20 in 308, light, accurate, soft recoiling rifle.

Before I ordered my NULA I spent a lot of time handling and talking to other hunters about light weight rifles. Their are some very fine rifles out there and NULA's are as good as they get.

Good luck