Thread: Guns to scare off grizzleys

Originally Posted by Konrad308

Bill, i think scaring a grizzly and stopping an angry grizzly are two different things.

I have no experience with grizzlies, but if i had a grizzly charging me, and i only had a handgun, it would have to be my 44Mag.

Any one of the other mentioned noisy toys would make a noise to hopefully scare off a grizzly and not make him angry

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Black bear "usually" scare. Even an aggressive dog or house cat can run some of 'em off. They aren't "weak" nor incompetent. Simply wise enough to be cautious and "risk averse'. Smart enough to understand "time", and the difference between "hard work" and "easy pickin's" .They set themselves a note in their "day-timer" to scout yer place for food next day or once a week at times of day with less annoyance. And they will. You see a bear? Bear has seen you a LOT more often.

Brown, Grizz, Polar? Not so much in any awe of humans. Accustomed to having to compete. With other bears. And Wolves. In right NASTY organized gangs.

Fishing in-season aside, you encounter a bear, they are on their "farm".

They map-out and store a mental inventory of seasonal food sources, ready to eat or soon will be, run a regular harvesting circuit. Your presence is the same as a "home invasion" in their mind. Anybody is meant to be "scared off", you are it, not they.

Bear is smart enough to figure YOU should be as smart - and mannerly - as another bear would be and git the Hell outta Dodge without disturbing the scouting and foraging plans underway.

Bears are eating machines. Have to be. Carry a heavy load of parasites as make life hard. Bear is on the equvalent of all-day, EVERY day grocery shopping they spend most of their waking hours engaged in.

They don't have no health care, de-worming, food stamps, cafeteria meal chits, nor pizza delivered to the door.

Bears are mindful of not wasting energy. They can cover ground faster than a human, but that needs more food YET to replace, so they'd rather NOT have to, and resent the bother of it being made necessary. Pissed-off bear is far worse than not.

Bear had his way, instead of tooth and claw? He'd be wearing a sidearm with decent range to it. Bear is mindin' his own damned bizness makin' selections out of bear's version of an outdoor food market much as if it were a mobile buffet, checking over some of the vittles.. .and then... some scrawny asshole pops up shouting, banging post and pans, waving their arms, shooting off silly popguns?

Bear would draw down on the annoyance, pop a cap, nail his ill-mannered ass, first round kill, leave the remains where they dropped for the buzzards to de-clothe, sniff 'em out for desert after they ripened.

Meanwhile, go back to picking out sumthin' as tastes better than chemically f**ked-up people-meat in nuisance textile-wrap packaging that gits stuck in the teeth.

Bear don't have no dental-care plan, neither.

As to what to pack? 12-bore. Clearly.

Otherwise.. No more a fan of wheelguns than firelocks, save for historical accuracy in old movies. Not a lot of wheelguns still military battlefield issue, are there? Sound reasons for that.

.45 "Tactical" might not be as impressive as a .44 Mag..... first six.

Its the next seven before the second mag even goes in as could tip the balance. And more than just the two magazines.

Cheat. Stay alive. A Bear would.

Originally Posted by UncleFrank

I spent a couple years in Alaska. The M-16 was the issue rifle but on major field exercises with field kitchens set up we had at least one M-14 along for bears and moose. I never thought we were over gunned.

I you're depending on noise alone there's not much difference between a .357 Magnum and a .44 Magnum. I didn't find a decibel chart directly comparing the .357 and the .44 but the .41 won't be much different.

.357 Magnum 164.3 dB
.41 Magnum 163.2 dB

Scare doesn't seem likely with the bear having all that fur in their ears.....

I like Ron James take on the subject.....:
Grizzly Bears - Ron James: Quest for the West - YouTube

Mom had a young brown decide to hibernate under the porch one winter ... she just called animal control, they tranked him and took him out of the city. I told her she should have taken him up to Wasilla and dropped him off at Sarah's but he was too big for the trunk, couple hundred pounds.

The dog wouldn't leave the house to pee, that was the tipoff. Cocker spaniel, smarter than the average dog.

OK, from the top.

Chip,
I have read some of Capstick's books. Interesting stories from a professional hunter.

CalG,
Two of the guns in question are black powder types, a modern Remington cap and ball .44 replica and a Colt SAA .45 made in 1880 before they improved the alloy of their cylinders to cope with smokeless pressures.

Dalmatiangirl,
An Alaskan doctor who had treated 10 grizzly attacks, making him an expert, would not go in the woods without his .475 Linebaugh.

CalG,
I keep getting the impression that anything that can be fired from the shoulder of mortal man is not over gunned.

Phil,
The .44 Magnum is really sort of a joke. It actually is a .43. Elmer Kieth blew the sidewall out of a .45 Single Action Army cylinder so he went to a .44 special that Colt made in the same OD cylinder, which left a thicker wall. Then he managed to stuff enough 2400 into it to raise above the existing calibers and put out a lot of promotional hoopla. Several people have gone way past the .44 Mag since.

John,
The discussion keeps coming back to long guns. Another gun my nephew will get is my 12 ga Browning O&U and I think the best advice will be to take the shotgun loaded with slugs along and forget anything that can be hung on his belt.

Michiganbuck,
Even more reason to have something that can end the argument. The same opinion keeps coming up. The bears being attracted by a shot is a hitherto unexpressed factor.

Thermite,
Stories abound of animals who kept going after all reason says they should have been down. A few people, too.

CalG
What shoots a .470 round ball? The six shots implies a revolver.

Awander,
The gun is a "Highway Patrolman" model. In the dusty recesses of my mind I regard that and "State Trooper" as interchangeable and picked the wrong version. Mea (somewhat) culpa.

Next several posts,
Supporting views expressed earlier.

UncleFrank,
It usually takes a 3 db change for people to detect it, so the two would be about equal. My audiologist niece did a hitch in the army at Walter Reed Hospital. Her summation- "I test a lot of deaf generals."

Emanual,
Having a bear hibernate under my porch is definitely not on my bucket list.

I will pass these views along and let my nephew ask some locals. Thanks for the inputs,

Bill

My father always carried a 44 mag for that purpose, he gave me a 41. At least I could run faster. Against a big bear I wouldn't want to trust either.

Read an article in hand loader magazine years ago written by someone that did fishing guides in Grizz country. This guy had done his own experiments with hard cast Keith style bullets in 357 and 44 into pieces of plywood with some sort of ballistic medium behind it. What he found was that hard cast from either one both penetrated the same, about 18 inches. However those tests with modern jacketed bullets reduced it by 1/2 to 1/4. He felt that either would be fine on a head shot on a Grizz. He stated that his daughter had actually killed a Grizz in self defense with his 357 with his hard cast loads.
His tests pretty much replicates my experience with big hogs and big lead bullets.

Originally Posted by 9100

OK, from the top.


CalG,
Two of the guns in question are black powder types, a modern Remington cap and ball .44 replica and a Colt SAA .45 made in 1880 before they improved the alloy of their cylinders to cope with smokeless pressures.

CalG
What shoots a .470 round ball? The six shots implies a revolver.

I will pass these views along and let my nephew ask some locals. Thanks for the inputs,

Bill

Cap and ball revolvers are loaded with oversized balls. the pressing process shears off an annular ring as the ball is forced into the cylinder bore.
.470 for a 45 caliber revolver is not unheard of. Best suited for loading a cylinder removed from the pistol frame and using a simple arbor press. That number was just thrown out there "to assure a tight seal". ;-)

Originally Posted by akajun

Read an article in hand loader magazine years ago written by someone that did fishing guides in Grizz country. This guy had done his own experiments with hard cast Keith style bullets in 357 and 44 into pieces of plywood with some sort of ballistic medium behind it. What he found was that hard cast from either one both penetrated the same, about 18 inches. However those tests with modern jacketed bullets reduced it by 1/2 to 1/4. He felt that either would be fine on a head shot on a Grizz. He stated that his daughter had actually killed a Grizz in self defense with his 357 with his hard cast loads.
His tests pretty much replicates my experience with big hogs and big lead bullets.

Bear tried to make a meal of an unarmed "trackwalker", inspecting one of the Northerly rallroad routes, long time ago. Guy was an amateur pitcher, ballgames, type.

Thousands of miles worth of sharp rock used for ballasting the railroad-ties under his feet as he stayed on the track and kept throwing pitches and backing up, he wasn't so "unarmed" after all.

Took the eyes right outta use on that bear first priority. Then finished the job. Which took more than just the one or two hunks of sharpish stone. A LOT more!

One tired sunnovabitch, but in the fullness of time the Bear was concussed, bleedin', skull-fractured, brain-f**ked, then ultimately "stone dead". Literally.

And that was 'modern man". Bear generally avoid humans. They may have a "racial memory" of "primitive man" always short of wimmin so as to consider it a good day to git a bear all tangled up in handmade ropes, gang-f**k the bear, then turn 'im loose so they could do it all over agin' next spring.

You don't see no bears gittin anywhere near the police-y-pelosi circus riots in the Dumbasscraptic city-centers, do yah?

Told yah they was smart critters!

Somewhere I have a book from my dad's library. Name always interested me: "Use Enough Gun" by Rourke (?).

I can dig it up and see what 'enough' is...

Originally Posted by Chip Chester

Somewhere I have a book from my dad's library. Name always interested me: "Use Enough Gun" by Rourke (?).

I can dig it up and see what 'enough' is...

Four-Deuce. HE. Willy-Peter optional.

A basic ground-combat commander's beloved "personal div-arty".

Hits a great deal harder than a One-Oh-Five and cycles right fast, too!

Even armoured assaults have been put-down with massed four-deuce fires.

Originally Posted by akajun

Read an article in hand loader magazine years ago written by someone that did fishing guides in Grizz country. This guy had done his own experiments with hard cast Keith style bullets in 357 and 44 into pieces of plywood with some sort of ballistic medium behind it. What he found was that hard cast from either one both penetrated the same, about 18 inches. However those tests with modern jacketed bullets reduced it by 1/2 to 1/4. He felt that either would be fine on a head shot on a Grizz. He stated that his daughter had actually killed a Grizz in self defense with his 357 with his hard cast loads.
His tests pretty much replicates my experience with big hogs and big lead bullets.

Interesting that cast Kieth bullets would penetrate better than full jacket. If they were like the Keith bullets I have used, they are flat nosed with no points, not the sort of thing I would expect to be a good penetrater.

The event supposes someone being calm enough to pick a vital spot on an attacking grizzly, the sort of ability we would all like to think we have but many don't. As I said before, the .357 is a righteous load but in that situation I would be a lot happier with a S&W .500 or even more with a .460 Weatherby.

BTW, the .357 is my favorite of my handguns because you can load it down to a popgun or up to all the power you need for normal social purposes. I moved it to my shop, replacing the National Match 1911 I had there for years because I am more accurate with it. I do use .38 Special +P cartridges instead of full magnum loads. Too many frame houses in the area. The other reason for replacing the 1911 is that even with the ejection slot milled out and a combat ejector, it will still stovepipe some types of ammunition. The .357 handles anything I feed it. I would rather have 6 that always work than 8 that do most of the time.

Bill

Part of the equation with his argument was having a load you could fire accurately fast into a bears skull , his target area was the skull as anything else shooting a bear head on is too well protected. He stated that pretty much any 357 bullet weight but 44-45 cal he kept it around 240 gr.

I think you have a very wrong idea, you DONT scare off grizzleys, anything you do will attract them, then you will need a gun to stop them, they had a very bad temper, I know my silver mine was many, you dont want to mess with them...Phil

Originally Posted by 9100

..the .357 is a righteous load but in that situation I would be a lot happier with a S&W .500 or even more with a .460 Weatherby.

BTW, the .357 is my favorite of my handguns because you can load it down to a popgun or up to all the power you need for normal social purposes. I moved it to my shop, replacing the National Match 1911 I had there for years because I am more accurate with it. I do use .38 Special +P cartridges instead of full magnum loads. Too many frame houses in the area. The other reason for replacing the 1911 is that even with the ejection slot milled out and a combat ejector, it will still stovepipe some types of ammunition. The .357 handles anything I feed it. I would rather have 6 that always work than 8 that do most of the time.

Bill

"Most of the time"? That lie might die in another 200 years?

"Most of the time" is several hundred MILLION more reliable self-loader rounds cycled than all the fragile cowboys and Indians wheelguns have fired since time began.

Population thing as to number of combatants engaged and what even ONE battle racks up as statistics.

Real life battlefields, the last of the fixed-ammunition wheelgun breed actually FIRED in any number were Birmingham bone breaker Webley .455 and the rather well engineered and tough as nails Nagant.

Dad's war it was Carbine, M1, now and then Thompson, straight mag, not drum, M1 if not Garand or BAR. Tankers had the "grease gun" for lack of space.

.45 sidearm was otherwise a "badge" an/or for emergency use, maybe clearing a house, tight quarters.

Or making an arrest, a drugged up f**kwit, the only time I ever drew mine "in anger" the whole year.

By my tour, a junior officer was armed same as his team - with a select-fire M-14, enough tracer to direct their fires. Had .45 ACP tracer in the grease gun, same reason.

The .45 Government was "badge" again. And for paydays.
"Under arms" sidearm & bayonet "fiddle" - so there was no need to wear yer arm out exchanging salutes as well as MONEY!



Later 9 mm (92AF, here) has served well enuf, BUT... "movies" again...

Ga-ron-tee just about anyone who had to dooo that in a combat situation wudda rather had whatever the issue of the era wuz for a battle rifle, a combat machine pistol, SAW, "Pig" or GPMG on a gallon canteen sling...not a one-hand popper-offer.

Too many comic books. Too few Remington 1100's.

My two metrics would be how much weight do you wish to carry and how much recoil are you willing to endure?

Moment of levity.

A young man, wanting to impress his girlfriend with his manly woodcraft skills, talked her into a wilderness camping trip.
Upon entering the thick forest, he cautioned her to stay close as they were now in bear country.
At that point she stopped to take off her hiking boots and put on a pair of running shoes.
The observant young man sought to educate his female companion by pointing out that she could not possibly out run a wild bear.
She responded with, “ I don't need to, as long as I can out run you.”

Took Janie prospecting and she asked "why are there so many dog tracks around here." They are wolf tracks .. Yes, then we had to sleep in the car.

You would likey have to break a big bear's neck to stop one short... or shoot through its skull.. just body shots and you would likely be hambuger.

figure an 06 heart lung shot can let a deer run 70 yards..likey a bear twice the much energy left, enought to pick up up and shake you twice...
I almost always heve black bears at Kelly Road Camp and I don't carry a gun, I used to keep a 38 special on the tractor..but it likey would be little use.

Originally Posted by Phil in Montana

I think you have a very wrong idea, you DONT scare off grizzleys, anything you do will attract them, then you will need a gun to stop them, they had a very bad temper, I know my silver mine was many, you dont want to mess with them...Phil

Not my idea. This came from a fellow who only recently moved to Colorado and has little of that sort of outdoor experience. As I said in the opening post, I don't know much about grizzlies but from what I do know, it didn't sound like a good notion, so I posted the inquiry. Most people seem to concur that it will most likely get you in trouble.

Bill

Here in Montana some rejoice when the bear exports get et....Phil

Originally Posted by 9100

Emanual,
Having a bear hibernate under my porch is definitely not on my bucket list.

Takes a lot to fluster an elderly school teacher on Ft Rich. Remember the hatchet librarian in Bloom County that used to chase Milo around in his nightmares ?

Funnier was the neighbor lady ... she had roses and other treasured plants in the back yard. One winter a moose decided they looked snackable. She got pissed and chased after him with a broom.

The moose returned fire and chased her back into the house. Uh-oh. Mooses don't like being in houses. Not even a little bit

I don't remember if the insurance paid for it or not ...

I will pass these views along and let my nephew ask some locals. Thanks for the inputs,

You might tell him that in Anchorage, when people go hiking they wear bells and take bear spray, not guns. But then, what would they know ? cheechakos are always smarter

Originally Posted by thermite

"Most of the time"? That lie might die in another 200 years?

"Most of the time" is several hundred MILLION more reliable self-loader rounds cycled than all the fragile cowboys and Indians wheelguns have fired since time began.

"Most of the time" in this case refers to my 1911s. The first was a standard issue one made by Ithaca. I came upon a quantity of issue ball ammunition, so I never fired anything else in it. It ejected straight up, not very vigorously, but it never hung a case. The present one is accurized, probably by the Springfield Arsenal. A fellow in the National Guard bought it through the Army and when he left the guard sold it to me.

Since I take multiple guns to a range, it is rare for me to fire more than 50 .45 rounds. Nevertheless, I would have at least one malfunction almost every session. Supposedly knowledgeable people said I needed a combat ejector, so I installed one. All that did was dent the case mouth before it hung it. The story goes that when John Moses was designing the 1911, the Army wanted it to eject straight up so as to not bother someone next to the shooter. He made an extractor/ejector setup that would pivot the case to the right, where it hit the bottom edge of the ejection port and bounced up. Following instructions I found on the internet, I cut the bottom of the opening lower so the case would clear it. Now it ejects violently sideways, but is still picky about ammunition. I have not had a malfunction with Federal hardball or Remington Golden Sabre, so that is what I use. Other brands may or may not work. I don't care how many rounds have been fired in how many automatic weapons. 98% reliability, which is what I had in the beginning with the 1911, is not acceptable for social purposes and my .357 has a perfect 100% track record.

Bill