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308 enough for brown/polar bear?

xsn10s said:
I wanted to get a 375 H&H but at the time I didn't know how well I would be able to shoot it. When I finally got to shoot one heck it seemed easier than my 45-70 with hot loads lol.
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My .45-70 might be too long for bear defense.
Winchester 1886 .45-70 lever action.jpg
 
While a "battle rifle" would be a comfort in a bear attack I would think it would interfere with other activities. I one is hunting you would have a supposedly adequate rifle in your hands. If fishing, camping, cleaning a downed animal a .308 large capacity rifle is awkward. You are the only one who has to be comfortable with whatever you decide. If the worst happens and you were correct you get to brag if you were wrong we get to read about it.
 
brcfo_outdoors said:
I think there is too much dogma and misinformation surrounding this topic, and the internet is full of both.

I see people advocating for pump shotguns or nothing, and never for semi auto shotguns. They say in freezing conditions the semi auto of any kind becomes unreliable, but plenty of duck hunters use semi auto shotguns in nasty conditions just fine because that was what they were designed for. An easy way to screw up a fixed mechanical system is to introduce a human element, so someone panicking and trying to pump a shotgun through cold and adrenaline seems like a good way to reach a failure point.

People talk big bore revolvers which are hard to shoot. They say the caliber has to start with a 4 or whatever yet the empirical data shows that most handguns are effective. There is this warm fuzzy feeling people get when they talk about revolvers as though they were the pinnacle of simplicity and reliability when really it just seems that we as a community have forgotten all the problems like timing issues etc that revolvers had.

I did watch a youtube video where someone was advocating for a semi auto .308 as a dangerous game type gun for north America. I think the real advantage he spoke on was is simply capacity and how it pertains to overall firepower. You can fit a 25 round magazine of .308 into a Ruger SFAR for example which makes a pretty powerful yet lightweight packages which is probably a dream to shoot compared to a big bore lever gun.

All hypothetical though. I really think that this topic is beaten to death, and that if a big bear really wants to kill you, you aren't going to have time to react.
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I've seen semi auto shotguns freeze up or get sluggish duck hunting in Texas....I can only imagine how bad it could get in polar bear country. Usually happens from way too much remoil or hoppes dumped in the action and usually it was a Benelli 🤣
 
brcfo_outdoors said:
Wouldn't know I shoot Berettas lol.
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Same here! And use them to paddle boats and break ice, club water moccasins. I've never found a full size shell it wont shoot! Dropped mine in that black suck mud and washed it out with the water it fell in. They haven't let me down in 23 years of West Texas Mars dust quail hunting or east Texas gumbo mud. As far as semiauto shotguns are concerned.....Beretta is the pinnacle.
 
memtb said:
Yes…..but absolutely "Not" my first choice!

Bullets…. Barnes in what would be considered heavy for the .308 Win. In an attack scenario……Your not worried about long range velocity loss affecting expansion, you want maximum penetration ! memtb
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How effective was the 308 against the brown bear you shot? Was one shot enough to anchor it or severely limit it's movement or did it require multiple shots to get it to slow it down?

For specific ammo in 308 against large game, is the Barnes TTSX and Swift AFrame the best?
 
budlight said:
The skinnies poach elephants with AK47's. Every one of the rifles you listed ONLY shoot the lower powered service rifle ammo. You can't shoot a box of quality 308 rem through them. They pop the primers and jam the gun. I had the SCAR 20 what a heavy ***. I sold it two months later at a big loss. A real full 55,000+ psi AR10 is what you want

If I was really worried about bear attacks simply packing a big pistol is all you need. But on our Alaskan bear hunts I always took my 458 win mag or my 458 Barnes American. Always one shot kills even the 9'6" brown. My hand loaded 510 gr RSP hit it in the chest walk towards us and blew out its butt cheek. DRT. Some of the locals just use their .270's for everything.
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I've been searching around and everybody else on other forums who owns AK's in 308 say they never had a problem with high quality commercial 308 ammo and that their AK's have eaten everything thrown at it.

The Zastava M77 has 3 gas settings on it as well. Setting 1 (most bleed off) can be used for the Barnes TTSX, and setting 3 (least bleed off) for standard M80 ammo.
 

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