Pilsner
WKR
- Joined
- Oct 31, 2018
- Messages
- 970
Just got home and unpacked from nearly 2 weeks in the Medicine Bow NF in Wyoming chasing black bears. What an amazing trip and place!!! A friend got married, we got to use our pack goats, and veterans from both Zero-Day Outdoors Ministries and Snake Mountain Pack Goats had a great time of fellowship and campfire "therapy".
I finally connected on what might be a record book black bear - if they kept records on the smallest bears taken in a season. It was a beautiful cinnamon and chocolate 3-year-old bear that weighs about the same as my 120# chocolate lab service dog who was hunting with me. Got it on the last hour of the last hunting day so I am not complaining.
My problem is that my Springfield Waypoint 2020 carbon fiber in 300 PRC was both too bulky and too heavy for my disabled self to tote around at 8 to 10k feet of elevation. The 24" barrel + can was just too much to either attach to my pack while climbing over, under, and through dead falls or carried in hand (needed both trekking poles nearly 100% of the time due to US Army abused knees).
I am thinking of a short barreled 6 creed Tikka in a RokStock with an OTB suppressor on it for next year. I've got several long range and competition NRL-H rifles in various 6.5 chamberings and have complete faith in either a 6.5 or 6 mm chambering to do the job out to any distance where it still has minimum expansion velocity. All of my teaching and competition rifles are too heavy and/or bulky for my purposes. Bonus points since I still have reloading components and dies for 6 creed.
Thoughts from the more experienced Western bear hunters on here for me?
I chase and outfit for black bears here in the Ozarks but that is a nearly 100% archery pursuit due to our season structure.
Picture of MurphyTheWonderDog because who doesn't love a lab who goes bear hunting with you?!
I finally connected on what might be a record book black bear - if they kept records on the smallest bears taken in a season. It was a beautiful cinnamon and chocolate 3-year-old bear that weighs about the same as my 120# chocolate lab service dog who was hunting with me. Got it on the last hour of the last hunting day so I am not complaining.
My problem is that my Springfield Waypoint 2020 carbon fiber in 300 PRC was both too bulky and too heavy for my disabled self to tote around at 8 to 10k feet of elevation. The 24" barrel + can was just too much to either attach to my pack while climbing over, under, and through dead falls or carried in hand (needed both trekking poles nearly 100% of the time due to US Army abused knees).
I am thinking of a short barreled 6 creed Tikka in a RokStock with an OTB suppressor on it for next year. I've got several long range and competition NRL-H rifles in various 6.5 chamberings and have complete faith in either a 6.5 or 6 mm chambering to do the job out to any distance where it still has minimum expansion velocity. All of my teaching and competition rifles are too heavy and/or bulky for my purposes. Bonus points since I still have reloading components and dies for 6 creed.
Thoughts from the more experienced Western bear hunters on here for me?
I chase and outfit for black bears here in the Ozarks but that is a nearly 100% archery pursuit due to our season structure.
Picture of MurphyTheWonderDog because who doesn't love a lab who goes bear hunting with you?!
