What does it take to kill a grizzly?

[ElPollo]

What is your experience level to be such a expert? How many grizzly, brown bears , mountain sheep, moose, elk , caribou, Cape buffalo, leopards have you killed, hunting on your own or with a guide? How many career brown bear and grizzly guides have you hunted with to make the above statements? How many guided hunts have you been on, many of the above game animals listed require a guide unless you are a resident. How many career Rocky Mtn states biologists, game managers, wardens call you a friend and that you have hunted with?

I’m kind of enjoying your indignant answers here. Where exactly do wildlife biologists, or game managers, wardens, or guides get training on ballistics? Is this OJT? Is there coursework involved? How many animals do you think your average wildlife biologist or guide kills per year. Is the number of animals killed the measure of someone’s ballistic knowledge? Please enlighten us?

 

[MtnW]

I’m kind of enjoying your indignant answers here. Where exactly do wildlife biologists, or game managers, wardens, or guides get training on ballistics? Is this OJT? Is there coursework involved? How many animals do you think your average wildlife biologist or guide kills per year. Is the number of animals killed the measure of someone’s ballistic knowledge? Please enlighten us?

Don’t know where you grew up ,but it sure doesn’t sound like the Rocky Mtn West where shooting guns is part of your life experience from age 5. Many of these wildlife professionals you are insulting are 3rd generation Montana, Wyoming , Idaho, Washington, B.C., Alberta, AK natives who have more gun,hunting,and ballistics experiences than the internet keyboard experts hat shoot only paper. It’s called in the FIELD EXPERIENCE, and actual hunting experience.
Your comment about “guides” also shows your inexperience too! Many guides have been involved in 100’s if not close to 300+ grizzly/brown bear kills in their lifetime careers . Coursework? REALLY, Coursework on killing grizzly bears?? You live in a different world than I do thank God.

 

[ElPollo]

Don’t know where you grew up ,but it sure doesn’t sound like the Rocky Mtn West where shooting guns is part of your life experience from age 5. Many of these wildlife professionals you are insulting are 3rd generation Montana, Wyoming , Idaho, Washington, B.C., Alberta, AK natives who have more gun,hunting,and ballistics experiences than the internet keyboard experts hat shoot only paper. It’s called in the FIELD EXPERIENCE, and actual hunting experience.
Your comment about “guides” also shows your inexperience too! Many guides have been involved in 100’s if not close to 300+ grizzly/brown bear kills in their lifetime careers . Coursework? REALLY, Coursework on killing grizzly bears?? You live in a different world than I do thank God.

First, where exactly did I insult wildlife professionals? Please go back and read my post again and quote it directly.

Second, why do you think doing something that same way over and over again automatically makes you smarter? You don’t learn by doing if you don’t take time to collect information from what you did, and critically evaluate that information and adjust what you do base on that information. Learning is about questioning, experimenting, and sharing what you’ve learned. I’d don’t see any evidence that you are doing any of that. Instead you appear to be complaining about someone else doing that and casting doubt on their information without providing any of your own.

But perhaps I’m wrong. What is your experience? Are you a biologist or a guide? What’s your actual grizzly body count? How many rounds do you shoot per year in practice and how many animals do you kill and see killed in an average year? What information and observations do you take from that vast experience? And please share with us your knowledge of ballistics and how bullets actually wound and kill. Provide the evidence, not just things you think or feel. If you don’t have evidence about things you think or feel, by all means, go forth and get it and tell us what you find. We will wait patiently.

And by the way, I am a wildlife biologist and have made my living doing that continuously for over 30 years.

 

[Thegman]

Maybe there's a couple of things being conflated here.

Many big game guides have lots of experience on kills, but generally with rifles in a fairly limited range, say typically from 7mm to 375. They know those work, and may know fairly well how well they work.

Now, if you asked the same guides about using a 6mm or .224 bullet on an elk, moose, grizzly, etc, they'd very likely reply "WTF, are you kidding?". Not because they have used these and seen them fail, but because they've never used them and have no knowledge about using them on the same.

I think that's essentially what is being said. Knowing about one set of things does not necessarily impart knowledge about another set of things one has never used, nor seen used.