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Wow that really puts into perspective how you really need to be prepared even out in the wild.

 

I cant imagine the adrenaline and panic. But it turned out good for them.

 

Id hate to take a mother bear from her cubs, but when it comes to me or her, I cant say i woulda put that round into the water.....although he may not have been intending for it to go there either. The rush and panic may have just ended it that way.

 

 

Looked like they were on alert for a mother bear but couldnt really see her, then BAM she just charged out of nowhere.

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I sure wouldn't have done it. First, in this part of the World, if you're taking a handgun, take the one with the special "Bear Insurance" rubber hammer so it won't hurt so bad when the bear takes it away and sticks it up your ass. Mileage may vary for you really tough guys with .50 cal handguns. If a bear came at me like that, I'd be banging away at center mass with my Mossberg 12 ga. with 00. And it ain't a bad idea to save one for yourself. One day my Saiga may be my woods gun but I'm going to have to know and trust it a lot more. The trusty Mossy has saved my life once and for now, it is my constant companion anytime I'm outside the Anchorage city limits.

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I have heard the "warning shot" idea before as well. Can't really tell if that's what he did but I have been told it's the way to do it. Pretty sure I would have either peed my pants (no biggie since they were all wet anyway) or attempted to unload all ammo. Either way it was cool to see.

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Bears are kinda like dogs in that they have very sensitive hearing. And if a dog isn't trained for it, they can hate/fear gunfire in the extreme. Same with a bear. Warning shots, clanging pots and pans, etc are all "Officially" advisable(but not always effective). DO NOT yell, they take it as a challenge. Not something I want to get into a pissing match with, lol.

 

"...really need to be prepared even out in the wild."

 

Ya, but some people don't want to be, Mucking idoits.

 

There was an article in the magazine "The Western Horseman" several years ago by a women against the wolf reintroduction out west. She stated that she could no longer go trail riding where she liked to because she felt like she had to(gods forbid) "carry a gun with her now". And the bears, mountain lions, rattle snakes, etc, etc weren't reason enough to begin with. Can we say "Idoit Ass People"?

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I think he just missed... That situation was WAY past warning shots. Thankfully the bears reaction to the miss was running away, otherwise we would not have had video of the event.

I agree. I know a guy in Montana who is a Wildlife Biologist for Fish and Game up there. His job was to investigate Grizzly kills as they were once endangered. He had an encounter with a big Grizzly boar who decided to come steal a bull Elk he had just killed. As it charged, between two of them, they put six rounds of .300 Win Mag into it, the last was pretty much point blank in the head. He examined the animal as he did frequently at his job and discovered the other five rounds were all kill shots in the vitals. He was running on pure adrenalene for a pretty good distance. Warning shots were not going to turn this bear around.

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Wow that really puts into perspective how you really need to be prepared even out in the wild.

 

I cant imagine the adrenaline and panic. But it turned out good for them.

 

Id hate to take a mother bear from her cubs, but when it comes to me or her, I cant say i woulda put that round into the water.....although he may not have been intending for it to go there either. The rush and panic may have just ended it that way.

 

 

Looked like they were on alert for a mother bear but couldnt really see her, then BAM she just charged out of nowhere.

Actually I was impressed with how little panic there was. Everyone did their job. The rowers kept rowing, the cameraman kept filming, and the shooter kept a sharp eye out and had his gun at the ready. These guys were all cool as a cucumber and that's why I think he put that round right where he intended.

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Wow that really puts into perspective how you really need to be prepared even out in the wild.

 

I cant imagine the adrenaline and panic. But it turned out good for them.

 

Id hate to take a mother bear from her cubs, but when it comes to me or her, I cant say i woulda put that round into the water.....although he may not have been intending for it to go there either. The rush and panic may have just ended it that way.

 

 

Looked like they were on alert for a mother bear but couldnt really see her, then BAM she just charged out of nowhere.

Actually I was impressed with how little panic there was. Everyone did their job. The rowers kept rowing, the cameraman kept filming, and the shooter kept a sharp eye out and had his gun at the ready. These guys were all cool as a cucumber and that's why I think he put that round right where he intended.

 

Oh you are right, they all handled it very well. But I can imagine no matter how cool headed and ready you are....when that momma charges your butt still puckers. :lolol:

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Actually I was impressed with how little panic there was. Everyone did their job. The rowers kept rowing, the cameraman kept filming, and the shooter kept a sharp eye out and had his gun at the ready.

 

Personally I would have wanted everyone to draw a gun as soon as the cubs were spotted. Rowing and filming wouldn't have been of any use if the bear had reached the boat.

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Actually I was impressed with how little panic there was. Everyone did their job. The rowers kept rowing, the cameraman kept filming, and the shooter kept a sharp eye out and had his gun at the ready.

 

Personally I would have wanted everyone to draw a gun as soon as the cubs were spotted. Rowing and filming wouldn't have been of any use if the bear had reached the boat.

Nobody could argue with that, but this situation had the best possible outcome so my hat is off to them.

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I think he panicked and discharged his weapon before he got it level with the bear personally.

 

Yeah, and it's a good thing he didn't shoot the boat!

I have had a grizzly running at me before and it happens a LOT faster than even that appears! Fortunately I was just in the bears way and it turned off the trail and ran on by me.

I'll tell ya, I had seemingly ZERO time to even say "Oh Sh*t", so I was about as lucky as a guy could be, and I think those fellas did just fine!!

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Lucky indeed. I saw that show Hunter and Hunted about 2 Polar bear attacks in Norway. The one attacked because he fired a warning shot and it pissed the bear off. It was only a .22 revolver to boot! The other attack was 2 women cornered on a cliff. Low flying airplanes pissed that one off. They don't like noise.

 

About that other story that was posted, 6 shots from 300 win mags and still trucking! My .44mag seems useless now.

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I think he just missed... That situation was WAY past warning shots. Thankfully the bears reaction to the miss was running away, otherwise we would not have had video of the event.

I agree. I know a guy in Montana who is a Wildlife Biologist for Fish and Game up there. His job was to investigate Grizzly kills as they were once endangered. He had an encounter with a big Grizzly boar who decided to come steal a bull Elk he had just killed. As it charged, between two of them, they put six rounds of .300 Win Mag into it, the last was pretty much point blank in the head. He examined the animal as he did frequently at his job and discovered the other five rounds were all kill shots in the vitals. He was running on pure adrenalene for a pretty good distance. Warning shots were not going to turn this bear around.

 

If you can keep your act together, the plan in this part of the world, where we really do deal with big bears, is that you fire and step aside; the bear is running on pure adreniline, so you fire and get the Hell outta the way. That said, I've had a couple of encounters with brown bears and I can't say that I did much thinking. I killed one and I don't know what happened to the other one, s/he turned away into the woods and I don't even know if I hit him. Hell, you can't even process what you're seeing fast enough to know what really happened. You swing the gun and fire, and fire, and fire, and either you tell the story or you don't.

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Lucky indeed. I saw that show Hunter and Hunted about 2 Polar bear attacks in Norway. The one attacked because he fired a warning shot and it pissed the bear off. It was only a .22 revolver to boot! The other attack was 2 women cornered on a cliff. Low flying airplanes pissed that one off. They don't like noise.

 

About that other story that was posted, 6 shots from 300 win mags and still trucking! My .44mag seems useless now.

 

hmmm.... id think a 50 beowulf would work better. heavier round with more momentum and larger surface area to inflict more pain to the bear rather than blasting right through the way a 300 mag round would.

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Brown bears have a peak velocity of around 35mph. That's 100yds in 6 seconds.

 

AK Dept of fish and Game uses Brenneke Black Magic mag slugs for bear protection, some highly respected guides in my area use 00 buck. The minimum my friends carry back home are 44mags (when out guiding or fishing), a 45-70 with some buffalo bore 405gr hardcast is quite popular if you're going to be in the thick of them. I use a Mossberg 500 Mariner with 5+1 BMM slug.

 

Warning shot are only good if the bear has not been around people and firearms. Some will poach kills and are relatively undeterred by the percussion of a round going off. This happened to my friends when they were elk hunting on Afognak, the nothern island in the Kodiak Archipelago.

 

Brown bears are more likely to bluff charge than black bears. Apparently black bears only come at you when they want to eat you. If they get a hold of you play dead with brown bears and fight like hell if it's a black bear (according to my bear safety course and several AK DF&G biologists I know). Just be smart and don't come between them and their food or their cubs. Do not startle them, sometimes you have to sneak back out the way you came.

 

This compilation of info is from living around and dealing with bears for 22 years as well as taking a bear safety course before working in the villages of Beluga and Tyonek. YMMV

 

ETA: You're right Cali, you want momentum. LOTS OF MOMENTUM. Momentum breaks bones, energy kills. You want to incapacitate it, ie break it's shoulder because it can run on adrenaline for MINUTES.

Edited by delNbones
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definitely, the debate between kinetic energy and momentum was something i had been contemplating for a very long time. a friend of mine who is also very much into firearms is always telling me that kinetic energy is the only thing that matters in determining ballistics, and he gets mad when i bring up momentum contribution.

 

personally, i think he needs to study more physics.

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You want a lot of both, actually.

 

Good point, it is better to have a lot of both kinetic energy and momentum. To clarify, from what I have been told/read, it is better have more momentum in this case compared to more energy. A round with higher kinetic energy may penetrate but not break a bone, which is what you're really looking to do. A CNS shot would be ideal. To further illustrate my point a .45-70 pushing 430gr hardcast at 1880fps (~3400ft-lbs at the muzzle) is much better suited to stop a bear than a 300WM throwing a 200gr partition at 3000fps (~4000ft-lbs). This is why I use BMM slugs pushing 600gr (1 3/8oz) slugs at 1500fps at the muzzle. Regardless, you want the meanest round that you can shoot accurately and it should be loaded with really hard bullets.

 

IMO real bear stopping calibers start with a 4. For hunting if it can't be killed with an '06, you're not on this continent and you best be running. If I was on a hunt for a large coastal brown bear I'd prefer to have a .375H&H. YMMV

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energy and momentum are intimately related, in that they are projections of the same thing onto space-like and time-like dimensions.

 

I'm sure these words must have been spoken at some point in a Star Trek episode. :D

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energy and momentum are intimately related, in that they are projections of the same thing onto space-like and time-like dimensions.

 

I'm sure these words must have been spoken at some point in a Star Trek episode. :D

 

haha probably. i like that show too, especially the older episodes!!

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I was bow hunting elk in Wyoming a couple of years ago and a big grizzly came over a hill about 25 yrds from me and my buddy. We saw the bear a split second before it noticed us. When the bear saw us it made a scared loud vocal sound and took off running faster than anything I have ever seen. We were both perplexed and very thankful that it didn't run toward us. There would have been no time to react in self-defense or shit my pants. As a kid my dad would take me camping all the time. One time we were hiking on a trail and we stopped to look at the view. Next thing I know I see a black bear standing on two legs and put his front paws on my dad's chest. My dad pushed the bear as hard as he could and yelled at the same time and the bear took off. It's amazing how silent and fast something that big can be.

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Very good points about momentum and velocity. I only live in black bear country now, so I think my .44 with the one box of Cor-Bon 305 grain hard casts is all I need here. I did live in Idaho, and used to camp in northern Idaho, Wyoming, and Northern Nevada. I was young then, so all I had was my Winchester 1200 20 gauge, but dad had a .357 with hot home loads and his Winchester .284 lever action. Probably not the best choices!

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Very good points about momentum and velocity. I only live in black bear country now, so I think my .44 with the one box of Cor-Bon 305 grain hard casts is all I need here. I did live in Idaho, and used to camp in northern Idaho, Wyoming, and Northern Nevada. I was young then, so all I had was my Winchester 1200 20 gauge, but dad had a .357 with hot home loads and his Winchester .284 lever action. Probably not the best choices!

 

oh man, i think its best to be prepared for anything. that being said, if i were to wander off into bear country, id have the most powerful rifle i own in my hands, and the most powerful handgun i own on my belt. id probably have to buy a huge revolver for that. if other people were coming with me, id arm them as well. if a bear were to charge me and my friends, it would be walking into a damn firing squad.

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