Griz guide/backup cartridge

[SquatchHunter]

Pshhh. The bear is already dead because I shot it with the TMK.


Got me thinking though. With what I have that I have confidence in.

5.56 in 77TMK. I’d have my regular AR with a red dot vs my hunting AR.

Or

Grab the 10.5” .458 socom and 300 grain copper solids. With the G super dynamic 3 gun trigger I shoot just as fast if not faster than my 5.56. Recoil is definitely there however when triple tapping. Definitely be a factor.

Or

12 gauge slugs.

Id pick the .458 over the 12. More comfortable with it, higher round count, faster reloads if it came down to it. I shoot the 5.56 better than both of the others. More rounds. Less recoil. Tough one between the 5.56 and .458.

Glory or Valhalla with the 5.56.

 

[smithjd]

Is there a 'reliable enough' 12 gauge semiautomatic? Yeah, I'd lean towards something that would have enough energy deposited to try and stop or slow their forward travel, so I could get more slugs in them. When you're talking maybe one shot at a charging bear or you die, you'd want the biggest solid slug that you can handle. Hard cast or copper to break bones. I'm afraid they'd run right through lesser energy rounds like the 223 tmk and kill you then die. You want to deposit maximum energy and break bones.
Edit: break bones from head to toe

I'd say the Beretta 1301 or Benelli M4 are plenty reliable, maybe even more than a pump.

I would also delineate between a backup gun for hunting bears and a strictly defensive gun for bear defense. Large bore rifle for the former, 12g semiautomatic for the latter...

 

[Greyinggrayling]

Just use bear spray

 

[DawnPatrol]

You saw this or took it as gospel?

Good points. DawnPatrol, any more details with your friends account? Glad they came out all right.

Hi all—I’m back on the grid and happy to provide more context.

First (and importantly) this was not something I witnessed. I’ll explain why I believe it afterwards, but here are some more pertinent details:

My friends were walking down a small trail that paralleled a salmon stream in SEAK near where we all worked. They saw a sow and two cubs run up out of the creek and across the trail into heavy alders/salmonberry about 40 yds ahead of them. They start yelling hey bear etc. The cubs go up a tree and mom starts growling and moving towards my friends. They can hear her in the brush but can’t see her. At this point, they have rounds chambered and guns pointed in her general direction (policy was to never carry with a round in the chamber, so we are talking about two .338 model 70s, each containing 3 total rounds). Sow breaks cover at full charge at 20 yds. Both people fire. Sow falters but refocuses on them and continues moving in their direction, although clearly injured. Both people unload their two remaining rounds into her as she keeps trying to reach them, covering the remaining 15 yards or so (I don’t have a good sense of how long this part took). She expires at their feet. One of my friends described delivering his last shot with the rifle pointing almost straight down.

Why do I believe this story? Well, mostly because I knew the folks involved very well. We lived and worked together several seasons. One of them was a fire arms instructor for a federal agency; both were mature adults with a lot of experience with bears and guns in AK.

In terms of the number of bullets that actually wound up in the bear, I know they skinned it afterwards (ADFG requirement for DLP bears in our circumstances) and these were the kind of folks who would have taken an interest. but at the same time, with that much lead zipping around, it can be hard to know for certain how many hits occurred. So if the actual number of hits was 4 or 6, I wouldn’t be surprised. And I don’t know specifics about WHERE they hit it, which would be helpful.

Like all stories, I’m probably misstating a couple of details. But I’m confident that something along these lines happened.

My main take away is that an amped up brown bear is an incredible animal and will survive a lot of punishment. You can draw your own conclusions about weapon/caliber/bullet choice from there.

 

[wyosam]

Hi all—I’m back on the grid and happy to provide more context.

First (and importantly) this was not something I witnessed. I’ll explain why I believe it afterwards, but here are some more pertinent details:

My friends were walking down a small trail that paralleled a salmon stream in SEAK near where we all worked. They saw a sow and two cubs run up out of the creek and across the trail into heavy alders/salmonberry about 40 yds ahead of them. They start yelling hey bear etc. The cubs go up a tree and mom starts growling and moving towards my friends. They can hear her in the brush but can’t see her. At this point, they have rounds chambered and guns pointed in her general direction (policy was to never carry with a round in the chamber, so we are talking about two .338 model 70s, each containing 3 total rounds). Sow breaks cover at full charge at 20 yds. Both people fire. Sow falters but refocuses on them and continues moving in their direction, although clearly injured. Both people unload their two remaining rounds into her as she keeps trying to reach them, covering the remaining 15 yards or so (I don’t have a good sense of how long this part took). She expires at their feet. One of my friends described delivering his last shot with the rifle pointing almost straight down.

Why do I believe this story? Well, mostly because I knew the folks involved very well. We lived and worked together several seasons. One of them was a fire arms instructor for a federal agency; both were mature adults with a lot of experience with bears and guns in AK.

In terms of the number of bullets that actually wound up in the bear, I know they skinned it afterwards (ADFG requirement for DLP bears in our circumstances) and these were the kind of folks who would have taken an interest. but at the same time, with that much lead zipping around, it can be hard to know for certain how many hits occurred. So if the actual number of hits was 4 or 6, I wouldn’t be surprised. And I don’t know specifics about WHERE they hit it, which would be helpful.

Like all stories, I’m probably misstating a couple of details. But I’m confident that something along these lines happened.

My main take away is that an amped up brown bear is an incredible animal and will survive a lot of punishment. You can draw your own conclusions about weapon/caliber/bullet choice from there.

That makes sense now- assuming each shooter’s first shot made a decent hit of some sort, even if not fatal, probably slowed her roll a good bit.
Paints a pretty good picture of why a CNS hit is what it takes to stop them quickly. Breaking bones and spilling blood are great, breaking the connection that makes the pointy parts move is better.


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