Buckshot for Bear Defense

[scotjute]

12 gage shotgun slugs over buckshot for brown bears. Those things are really big, anything whose mouth could completely ingulf a man's head is not to be take lightly. Browns tend to be bigger than grizzlies.
Just finished reading my 3rd book of journals from various mountain men. While it is true that they killed many a grizzly with 50 cal. black powder rifles, sometimes the bears killed them. In one story, the trapper was talking about the fact that of the 100 men he had started out with 2 years ago, about half were dead from either Indian or grizzly bear attack.

[Field-dressed]

Besides underpenetration, the other reason I never carry buckshot is that I'm often not alone in the field. You can't cover a family member, collegue or dog with buckshot if they aren't at your side. With slugs or rifle you have the ability to extend your coverage a bit. Also, let's say you wound a charging bear with the first shot and it bolts for the high country. If you get lucky and the fleeing bear pops into view for a quick shot at 50 or 100 yards, there's no use even trying to shoot it with buckshot. At least with slugs or a rifle you have the option of follow-up shots to slow the beast down. Beats the heck out of tracking down wounded brownies! (Where's the soiled pants smiley?)

[H&H,hunter]

Blain,
This has really become an obsession with you man. If you want to carry buckshot in AK go for it chances are you'll never have to use it on an angry bear anyway. Why do you need anybodys approval? It's ok man go for it. I wouldn't feel insecure using a good shot gun with good buckshot because I've spent enough time in the back country of AK to know that chances are your not going to get into a close range gun battle with a Brownie much less see one.
I was thinking about you last week in Tanzania. The government game scout was carrying an ancient Green & Co 12 ga single shot falling block and3 00buck rounds in his pocket. So there you have it carry what your comfortable with. Shabu Myumana the game scout had no compuction what so ever about following a wounded Buff in the thick stuff with his relic. Of course he was surrounded by heavy rifles as well. I've included a picture of the worlds best Buff gun below, Cheers And when are you coming hog hunting?

[Mannlicher]

Buckshot for everything is a one trick pony. For bear, I would NOT limit my range to point blank, which is what you get with buckshot. A slug is much more likely to give you a kill or cripple chance out beyond 25 yards. If you dont think a bear can cover 25 yards real quick, then you probably should not go where they play.

[Keith Rogan]

>>>>>Buckshot for everything is a one trick pony. For bear, I would NOT limit my range to point blank, which is what you get with buckshot. A slug is much more likely to give you a kill or cripple chance out beyond 25 yards. If you dont think a bear can cover 25 yards real quick, then you probably should not go where they play.<<<<<

Mannlicher,

The problem is that shooting a bear at 25 yards is probably going to earn you a felony conviction. In some locales where bears are very common (like 1 per square mile in parts of SW Alaska), shooting every bear that came close to you, or even every bear that acted "aggessively" (it puffed up, pounded the ground, roared, etc) would mean leaving a trail of dead bears everywhere you went. Brown/grizzly bears in particular will make some sort of threat display fairly often. Anyone who has spent any time around these critters will tell you that when you see that activity, it means you are relatively safe. It means that the bear has seen you and that you are far enough way that he doesn't feel immediately threatened - basically, he's just alerting YOU to his presence and as long as you don't proceed any closer (or run away and identify yourself as "prey") he'll back off and leave. I guess it's like hearing a rattlesnake buzzing - the same rules apply. Or, an even better analogy might be the one about the barking dog never being the one that bites you.

The typical mauling happens when you surprise a bear by entering his safety envelope - something like ten yards. There's no warning, the bear simply lunges at the intruder.

And trust me, completely aside from the legal entanglements, you do not want to shoot a grizzly bear unless you absolutely have to. Over in the General Discussion forum is a thread about a bear mauling that happened here a week or so ago. A guy shot an inland grizzly (these are small, like lower 48 grizzlies, not one of the big coastal grizzlies) with a .458. In fact he shot it twice, once in the shoulder and once in the leg. He didn't kill it and returned the next day to track it down and instead, it got him. His wife shot it three more times in the chest with a .375 H&H before it dropped the husband and died.

[Shodan]

Keith,

I see your point about 25 yds not being self defense. I don't know what Mannlicher had in mind, but I could maybe see shooting a bear at 25 yds if he was dragging a loved-one away. (Although if that was the case I would probably close the distance to a lot closer than 25 yards to save someone else).

Regardless of the circumstances, I think slugs are a much better choice than buckshot.

Shodan

[Field-dressed]

I took a statement yesterday from an old gentleman in the hospital that illustrates Keith's points nicely. The guy was moose hunting with a friend in an area heaving with brownies. Because of a bad crick in his neck his buddy was carrying the only rifle and they got separated. You can see where this is going.

The old guy jumped a large boar off his fishing hole at close range. He had time to wave his large-caliber walking stick at the bear before he was on top of him. The bear grabbed the guy by the leg just above the knee, shook him like a hanky and dropped him. The man knew the drill and assumed the position. The bear stood over him growling for about a minute before moving off, but he could still hear the bear nearby. He played dead for another 5 minutes, trying to keep from shaking. He finally got up and started heading carefully down stream... and came face to face with the big old boy again, only this time it was at 20 yards rather than point blank. The bear let him retreat and the man worked his way back upstream and around the bear. He was soaking wet by this time, badly injured, near panic, and then realized he had gotton lost while trying to avoid the bear. He finally recognized an old eagle nest tree that he had climbed years before, got his bearings and gimped his way down to meet his partner.

Meantime, his partner had a run in with a sow and cubs at 30 yards. She popped her teeth, pounded, growled and roared, but he held his ground with rifle ready and she backed off and bolted upstream to where the old guy was having his nightmare. Fortunatly, they didn't meet.

The man got bit at 5:00 pm and didn't get back to camp until 9:30 that night. Spent the night recovering from hypothermia and was flown to town yesterday. He showed me his bear bite, which is pretty severe and gruesome. I'm astonished that he hiked over 4 hours on that leg and was jokingly complaining that coming to the hospital for treatment was the worst part of the ordeal. Another tough and gnarly old Alaskan. I told him he probably gave the bear a severe case of indigestion.

[Keith Rogan]

I don't disagree with anyone that slugs are likely a better choice than buckshot in most situations.
I would also say that a .45/70 with Garrett Hammerheads is an even better choice than a shotgun slug.

BUT, if a shotgun is the weapon with which you are most familiar, then it's probably the best choice for you. If you have adustable sights, then by all means use slugs. If you don't, then the choice of slugs or buckshot is probably best decided by whichever shoots closest to point of aim at close range. In my opinion (and it's just my opinion), it's better to have an adequate weapon that shoulders quickly and hits point of aim, than worrying too much about terminal ballistics.

Look at this way. A .458 certainly has better terminal ballistics than any of the choices above. But, if that .458 weighs 10 pounds, has a 26 inch barrel and a telescopic sight, it's probably a lousy choice to drag around in thick brush where you're most likely to have a close range encounter with a bear.

The goal is to shoulder and fire your weapon and hit a charging bears brain when you may only have a second or two to do it. Simply hitting the bear is not likely to prevent a mauling, no matter what artillery you are carrying. The only sure way to stop a bear is to hit it right on the nose and turn its brain into jelly, and you don't need a howitzer to do that.

Speed and accuracy trump ballistics in *my* opinion.

[Art Eatman]

For those folks who may not know, Keith is a fella who's seen that particular elephant.

When he speaks, I quite happily keep my fat mouth shut and just listen.

, Art

[eroyd]

In reference to buckshot, and it's use in HUNTING, is there any particular chokes that keep the paterns tighter? We have shotguns with shot only areas in these parts.

As for slugs. I've shot a lot of small blacktail deer with the soft foster type slugs. My observations are: Knocks 'em down like a ton of bricks but doesn't kill them right-away. The slugs if they hit ANY major bone mass, even in these smallish animals, never penetrate all the way through. My unscientific observation - Penetration is actually better out at 80 yards than at point blank.

If you shoot a bear outside of 10 yards you might have a hard time convincing the authorities it was in self defense. It's the law in B.C. that you must report such things.

[Mannlicher]

Keith responds to my comments, without reading what I said:

Mannlicher,

The problem is that shooting a bear at 25 yards is probably going to earn you a felony conviction. In some locales where bears are very common (like 1 per square mile in parts of SW Alaska), shooting every bear that came close to you, or even every bear that acted "aggessively" (it puffed up, pounded the ground, roared, etc) would mean leaving a trail of dead bears everywhere you went.

What I was saying, is that I would not limit my ability to choose at what range I decide to do something about the bear. Note, I did not say SHOOT THE BEAR NO MATTER WHAT. I stand by what I remarked about the ability of bears to cover distance rapidly.

Now ole Keith may have 'seen an elephant', and that is all well and good. However, that point, however salient, does not diminish my thoughts.

As I close, I see here the same ideas that some express when thinking of what weapon/load one would choose for self defense By that, I mean being more in fear of a jury than an aggressive person embarking on career enhancement at the expense of your property or life. I will take my chance in court, rather than die in an attack that I could have prevented, be the attacker human or Ursus arctos horribilis.

[Art Eatman]

There is an ancient saying to which I subscribe: "It is not your duty to understand me. It is my duty to make myself understood."

Which is why we sorta back and forth, trying to make our points, here at TFL.

And it's why we don't get our bloomin' feathers ruffled without doing some thinking about what we've said, earlier, whether it might be taken differently than intended.

It's why we always give a respondent the benefit of the doubt, absent obvious doofusness.

Once again, I advise: Since we don't have facial expressions and body language to help convey our meanings, we gotta be judicious about how we phrase stuff.

Hokay?

, Art

[Jamie Young]

Didn't Bill Cosby's Dad use a loose leaf not book to kill a bear?

*Soda go away*

[scotjute]

eroyd,
Full choke will keep pattern tighter. I have seen guns with a poly-choke that had a setting labeled "xtra-full" choke which might be even better, but I know of no one who has ever used it.
Using a 28" barrell and full choke, good shot gun range will be about 60 yards (this will vary slightly w/specific gun/ammo) for most 12 gage 2 3/4" buckshot rounds (on deer). Biggest critter I've ever killed was ~400 lb. boar. Took 4 shots to stop him at 25 yds. using buckshot (probably #4 buck, but don't reallly remember).

[Keith Rogan]

Mannlicher,

I didn't mean to diminish your point, which was a good one. Slugs or a rifle do indeed you give you more range, and more versatility than buckshot.
What I was trying to point out (and perhaps not very well), was that in MOST cases, shooting a bear at distance is not justified and will have to be defended in court.
When you shoot a grizzly bear here in Alaska, you are looking at a situation which is going to cost the state thousands of dollars. People are going to fly in to look at the scene, or to track the bear down, if possible, because they're almost never killed outright in these situations. A wounded bear is bad situation for anyone who enters the area and indeed are responsible for many, if not most maulings.
Shooting a bear puts a lot of people to a lot of trouble, including yourself, because your fishing or camping trip is over at that point.
And this happens all to often around here. Somebody is fishing one of the remote rivers and a bear comes near camp and begins making a threat display hoping that everyone will run away and leave the coolers behind (I guess that's what they're thinking), and somebody shoots it. Then all the fun and games begin, the state is sending aircraft out to find the bear while the guy that shot it is explaining his reasoning to a judge. And frankly, because the bear was behaving in standard bear fashion, there's not much of a defense for these types of shootings.

I'm sure that there could be many good reasons for shooting a bear at distance, like maybe it's threatening a 3rd party. I'm just trying to point out that there is a difference between a "threat display" and an actual attack and that there are consequences for not recognizing that fact.

[Zorro]

Power + Speed + a gun I shoot fast as hell = 12 Gauge Pump Shotgun full of Brenneke slugs.

Like I said AIM FOR THE NOSE! Or jam it down the throat and start shooting.

[Sundance]

I'm just trying to point out that there is a difference between a "threat display" and an actual attack and that there are consequences for not recognizing that fact.

I appreciate your experience and the fact that you know a lot more about bears and Alaska than I do. And I mean this sincerely...

But, what a load of crap...

You are telling me that I as a plain ole ordinary, non bear expert, human being do not have the right to shoot a bear that threatens me. And I am supposed to know the difference between whether or not the bear is serious or just kidding.

Law enforcement officers are taught the 21 foot rule. It says basically that if a human being is 21 feet away from you and holding a knife and charges you and your gun is holstered, you will at the very least get cut if not killed before you can get your gun out and stop the threat.

Now back to bears...

A bear is faster than a human being. A bear has multiple knives on each paw and some more in his mouth. (we call them claws and teeth)

If a human with a knife threatens a human with a gun at 21 feet, the human with the gun is fully justified in shooting the subject dead in his tracks.

Now what makes the bear any different?

Who is at the top of the food chain anyway.

To hell with the bear's and all of the animal rights nut's touchy feely feelings, I am going home alive from my fishing or camping trip.

Disclaimer...I love bears and think they are one of God's most awesome creatures. I have great respect for them and would not hunt one because of this respect. But if it is me or the bear...I am going home, and the bear is going to be a rug. And I don't have time to have a shrink flown in to the wilderness to analyze the bear's intentions.

[Keith Rogan]

>>>>>You are telling me that I as a plain ole ordinary, non bear expert, human being do not have the right to shoot a bear that threatens me. And I am supposed to know the difference between whether or not the bear is serious or just kidding.<<<<<

Yes, you are supposed to know the difference. Bears that attack don't make any display, they just attack. You'll know.

>>>>>If a human with a knife threatens a human with a gun at 21 feet, the human with the gun is fully justified in shooting the subject dead in his tracks. Now what makes the bear any different?<<<<<

Nothing, any bear within 21 feet and acting aggressively is clearly a danger, so shoot. The threat displays I'm describing are generally taking place 25 to 100 yards away. If you come to Kodiak some summer and float the Karluk river to catch kings, you'll no doubt see these displays. Typically, a bear might show up on the opposite side of the river and try and scare you away from a prime fishing spot. It would be a shame to spend several thousand dollars for the fishing trip of your life and end it on the first day because you shoot a bear who is just trying to take over a fishing hole. It would be more of a shame to wound some bear and set up a stranger for a fatal actual mauling because you don't familiarize yourself with the local conditions.

[lilbiggun]

Now Keith, you know as well as I do, most bears during the salmon season could care less about fisherman. Thank goodness they have something better on there minds

As to attacks or attacking bears. If you feel threatened shoot it. Lets be reasonable though. If you see a brownie 50yards from you while your fishing and you shoot it. Your gonna spend some time in court.

Now you surprise a bear at 20yards while hiking, you better be ready. Most of the times its gonna run but...... I'm pretty sure if you shoot a bear at 20yards fins and feathers is gonna be interrogating the hell out of you.

You have to have your reasonable comfort zone and if the bear comes into it you have to be ready. Although if you see the bear advancing, thats half the battle. I have my zone and I will always have my co-pilot or 458Lott to defend it.

[QuadOughtBuck]

H&H,hunter, check your PM.

[stinger]

If you see a brownie 50yards from you while your fishing and you shoot it. Your gonna spend some time in court.

You fellas familiar with the phrase "shoot, shovel, shut-up?"

I don't mean this literally, I wouldn't really bury it. But keep your darn mouth shut. If you are out in the middle of nowhere who in the heck is gonna know about it anyways, until I am long gone?

If they do find out about it, and the bear might possibly have been in the "go-to-court" range, then it was at least 15 yards closer, foaming at the mouth, with red eyes, etc.

I would not go out and kill anything that I was not intending to unless I absolutely had to. My definition and somebody else's definition of "threat" and "attack" might be different. But I'm not gonna let linguistics cost me or a family member my life.

Stinger

[QuadOughtBuck]

Amen to that, brother.

[Keith Rogan]

>>>>>You fellas familiar with the phrase "shoot, shovel, shut-up?"<<<<<<

Yeah, except we are talking about a bear that may weigh 1500 pounds. The odds are that you won't kill it, you'll just wound it and set up some poor fools death a week later who happens on to this angry wounded bear.
Or just as bad, turn an otherwise interesting wildlife experience into your own mauling.

You have no idea how hard it is to kill an adrenalized grizzly. Just a few weeks ago, a guy shot an inland grizzly sow twice with a .458 (one a solid chest shot), and came back the following day only to be bushwhacked by the bear. It was shot three more times with a .375 before it ceased hostilities and died. This was a small inland grizzly that probably didn't go over 400 pounds. A coastal bear might weigh three or four times that and take even more punishment.

The sow that got me on Kodiak took two hits from a .300 mag, one a good frontal chest shot. It attacked another party a week later who only escaped because they were on a beach next to a skiff. The following year it killed a guy on the same spot I was mauled - this guy shot it twice more (they think) before it got him. These latter two attacks might never have happened if the bear hadn't been wounded.
Now, I don't feel guilty because we wounded that bear, it was an actual mauling after all. But, if we'd crippled up that bear under doubtful circumstances we'd be responsible for that mans death.

Please understand, I'm not suggesting you should risk your life to give a bear the benefit of a doubt. I'm just saying that like in all things, you have to apply common sense. In some areas of SW Alaska (for example) you will run into grizzlies every single day. You can not come in like a cowboy and start popping away at every bear that growls at you. You'll just create a terribly dangerous situation for yourself, and for everyone else who enters that area for a long time to come.

[Keith Rogan]

Lilbiggun,

We live with this all summer and fall out here. Tourists (and sometimes locals too...) shoot bears that "threaten them" and they almost never kill them outright. The worst areas for this are along the Karluk and Ayakukulik rivers where you've got these crippled up, starving bears raiding camps and coming into the villages to break into smoke houses. It's a dangerous mess some summers and it doesn't have to happen.
Then in the fall you get bears coming in to challenge hunters for deer kills and instead of just giving up the deer, they panick and shoot and create a danger for everyone else in the area. It's freaking nuts!
Keerist!! I've lost several deer to bears. I don't even cut my tags any more until I get the meat back to the beach or camp, I figure if a bear takes a deer, then that deer still belongs to the state.

If a bear wants your deer, fishing hole or fish, just let him have it.

[stinger]

If a bear wants your deer, fishing hole or fish, just let him have it.

Keith, I respect your opinions and experiences. I even understand what you are saying. What I am about to say is half truth/half joke, so take it with a grain of salt.

But HUMANS are at the top of the food chain, not bears. They got their for a reason. Those who are at the top of the food chain did not get there by backing down from those who tried to take their position.

There are times that it is good to fight, and there are times that you just have to tuck your tail in between your legs and skidaddle. As the ultimate predator, it is up to you to decide when.

BTW, what would be the state's response to standing up for your kill/fish/location?

Stinger