Side Arm for Grizzly Country

[WYO300RUM]

Sorry guys if someone already brought this up, I stopped reading the thread shortly after.
This post immediately got me thinking...If you have your rifle/shotgun lets say the left side and a grizzly bear charges you from the left side are you still going to dismount from the left side where your rifle/shotgun is? Not a grizzly bear expert but the training I've had and my experience in combat would tell me to dismount on the opposite side and put the horse between us. That would be kind of like getting out of a vehicle on the contact side of an ambush (if from only one side) instead of going through the vehicle (if possible) and getting out on the noncontact side and putting the vehicle between you and the aggressors for cover.
So by the officer's logic you need a long gun on both sides in case of an attack on either side, Maybe you should learn to shoot ambi too, just in case. I'm down with that.

Not an attack on the poster above, just don't see the officer's logic.

Good thought. I would practice dismount and grabbing rifle/shotgun at same time . You can dismount with one arm/hand. Probably easier getting of left side grabbing from scabbard on right or vise versa tho. Heck I see them do it movies all the time. Waa haa.

 

[XSIVSPD]

Being familiar with, and knowing how to use what you have on you is a LOT more important that how "BIG" it is.

a guy I met up here managed to kill a grizzly that was mauling him with his pocket knife. He was pretty messed up, no vision out of one eye, cheekbone crushed arm and one leg messed up badly, I think he was missing a few fingers. Pretty hard to look at even years later after it healed as much as it was going to. The bear and knife were on display in a local restaurant until it burned down.

That's what prompts me to always be aware of bears. This was before the days of bear spray, and all he had was his rifle that was out of reach. The way he told I, he would have had time to get off a decent aimed shot, and maybe a couple more rapid shots if he'd had a pistol.

 

[John Polk]

357 will be fine. I do most of my hunting in Grizzly country. I carry a glock 29 10mm. Anything will be better than nothing - no handgun will make their legs come out from under them, unless it is a shot to the head that penetrates their thick skull. You just have to convince them you bite back and live to fight another day. I would choose the gun you shoot the most accurately and pick a good hardcast or solid bullet.

Defense Against Bears with Pistols: 97% Success rate, 37 Incidents

Using a pistol to defend against bear attacks seems to be a viable option.

www.ammoland.com

Buffalo bore usually makes some good bear defence loads. Heavy hardcast lead is what I'd go for. Your 357 will work.

Here in AK I do hunt in brown bear territory and I carry a 6" barreled 10mm. Lots carry glock 20s up here, I carry a RIA double stack 1911 as that's what I shoot the best (by far) for point shooting, accuracy, and rapid follow up consistency, and it gives me 16+1.

A 9MM that you're fast, accurate, and consistent with is better bear defence than a 500s&w that you're slow and not comfortable with in my opinion.


There are also studies that show bear spray is more effective and stopping a charging bear than a 12ga slug. Might be worth picking up a can

I had a 44 mag and found it too heavy And bulky for me. In fact, I found myself leaving it at the camp so I did not have to pack it. Now, I carry a Glock in 10 MM which has a bunch more rounds than any wheel gun. I also use hard cast Bullets. To each their own.

Get a Smith and Wesson model 69, it's much lighter and if you magna port the barrel, it's ideal

 

[Castloader]

I talked to a Park ranger a few years back who worked in bear country. He said that he always kept a road flare in his pocket. When I acted surprised, he said that a road flare presents a lot of things to a bear that they don't like. It's bright, it hisses, it can't be easily extinguished, it burns at over 2,500 degrees, and it smells like hell. I'm sure that the context was bear nuisance, not bear attack as mentioned elsewhere, but I'm sure it would make a great addition to whatever else you are planning you do.

In my mind, the revolver you have is probably your best option for several reasons:

1) A .357 with proper ammo can produce the penetration necessary to definitively kill a bear. Even a grizzly. Myriads of people hope that more energy will make up for poor shot placement. Make no mistake, a clean shot is the only hope you have if the bear intends to eat you. (I'm not suggesting that this is easy, only that it is necessary) The best way to ensure that clean shot is practice and weapon familiarization. I'd wager that less than 1 in 100 shooters actually practice shooting moving targets, and this is the kind of practice you need for a bear attack.

2) If you have prior warning, and are on your guard, you are more apt to take better aim and hit a vital area with the first few shots, therefore negating the supposed advantage of the larger calibers(as well as the capacity of the semi-autos). What I mean is, a .357 crossing the cerebral cortex is just as effective as a .500 along the same terminal route, provided that your ammo selection is appropriate to penetrate that far, as mentioned above. As others have said, your follow-up shots will be faster with the .357.

3) If you have no prior warning, and are surprised by a sudden close encounter, the 15 round magazine of a semi-auto won't help you because only the first few rounds will get fired anyway. Large magazines were invented for combat and police shootouts, and their value in this context is pretty limited unless you get attacked by several bears at once. In that case, God is clearly planning to call you home, just embrace it. But I digress. If contact shots are necessary, the revolver also wins. I will take the route of trusting the gun I know and shoot regularly, over a new hot rod. In any case, I wouldn't take ANY gun into bear country that I hadn't put at least a couple hundred rounds through on my own. I've had new guns that failed in the first box of ammo, (1 revolver and 1 semi-auto, so far).

4) According to my ballistic calculator, a 10mm and a .357 are so similar in terms of velocity and energy for the same bullet weight that it's hard to produce a solid argument for one over the other, and you already own the .357.

All this is meant to say simply that you certainly don't NEED to get a bigger gun in bear country. If you WANT to get a bigger gun, well hey, have at it, just practice with it a bunch first.

As mentioned by several posters, overlapping defensive plans (Gun, Buddy, Spray, Flare) are more effective than any one single factor.

 

[Stiltsville]

The 69 weighs 11.4 oz more than the 329 and only holds 5.

 

[WiscGunner]

QUOTE="Hoppsing55, post: 1916933, member: 91210"]
Cardall and Peter Rosen, in their article "Grizzly Bear Attack" published in the Journal of Emergency Medicine documented 162 bear-inflicted injuries in the United States between 1900 and 1985.[1] Stephen Herrero, a Canadian biologist, reports that during the 1990s, bears killed around three people a year in the U.S. and Canada, as compared to the 15 people killed every year by dogs.[2

According to the NOAA, over the last 20 years, the United States averaged 51 annual lightning strike fatalities, placing it in the second position, just behind floods for deadly weather. In the US, between 9% and 10% of those struck die, with an annual average of 25 deaths in the 2010s decade (16 in 2017).


In 2019, an estimated 38,800 people lost their lives to car crashes – a 2% decline from 2018 (39,404 deaths) and a 4% decline from 2017 (40,231 deaths). About 4.4 million people were injured seriously enough to require medical attention in crashes last year – also a 2% decrease over 2018 figures.
Fatality Estimates - National Safety Council
www.nsc.org › road-safety › safety-topics › fatality-estim..

But if your looking for a reason to buy a new gun,,, bear attack is a good one.
[/QUOTE]

I am guessing not a lot of people in Iowa die in avalanches and probably not too many shark attacks in Arizona but hey those 8,300,000 people in New York City should definitely be included in Grizzly statistics....

 

[Stiltsville]

Well you could also run into some ANTIFA hikers ------

 

[UplandFreak]

Good thought. I would practice dismount and grabbing rifle/shotgun at same time . You can dismount with one arm/hand. Probably easier getting of left side grabbing from scabbard on right or vise versa tho. Heck I see them do it movies all the time. Waa haa.

Lets be honest - if a bear is in the area a horse is going to be skiddish, they will sense the presence of a bear long before you have any inclination...and if it is charging your best bet is to hold on cuz the horse will be out of there like lightning. I shot my first bear because my horse could sense it in the area - refused to move any further up the bottom of the draw, so we ended up working our way up the hill. Look to the other side and a black bear was working its way up from the bottom about 200 yards from where my horse said FU. Livestock are awesome alarm systems.

 

[Stiltsville]

Your horse can run faster than you, hence a sidearm.

 

[Ladd-]

Sorry guys if someone already brought this up, I stopped reading the thread shortly after.
This post immediately got me thinking...If you have your rifle/shotgun lets say the left side and a grizzly bear charges you from the left side are you still going to dismount from the left side where your rifle/shotgun is? Not a grizzly bear expert but the training I've had and my experience in combat would tell me to dismount on the opposite side and put the horse between us. That would be kind of like getting out of a vehicle on the contact side of an ambush (if from only one side) instead of going through the vehicle (if possible) and getting out on the noncontact side and putting the vehicle between you and the aggressors for cover.
So by the officer's logic you need a long gun on both sides in case of an attack on either side, Maybe you should learn to shoot ambi too, just in case. I'm down with that.

Not an attack on the poster above, just don't see the officer's logic.

He said what he said because the majority of riders mount/dismount from the horse's left side and therefore most scabbards are setup on the right. I do. He probably got off his horse like he had his entire life.

 

[longtubeman]

I use something with more horse power, I carey a LAR Grizzly in 45 win mag. I shoot 255 colt hard cast at 1750 fps. I have found that the lighter led has more control, and faster flow up shoots. Its a 1911 on steroids. They brought it out for Alaska because wheel guns freeze up in cold weather. This is my baby!

 

[Hoppsing55]

hahaha, these are valid points, your odds are fairly low of being attacked. However one factor that should be considered is the number of people that live in or travel into where grizzly bears live has got to be way less than the number of people who go where dogs live, or who are outside during lightning etc. Any idea what the probability of attack is for those who go into griz country? I know it's still super low, I'm just thinking it's not as low as the probability of being killed by lightning.

I don't have a quick answer to the probability question. However, in reading through the link below, it is interesting to note how few killed were hunters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_bear_attacks_in_North_America:

 

[skipglo]

I am going on a horseback Mule Deer hunt in Grizzly Country. I will be with a guide. I am told that it is advisable to have a side arm for protection from the grizzly bears. The simple choice looks to be a 44 mag, with hard cast bullets, but I'm interested in hearing what you guys are using, and what advantages and disadvantages you have seen. I am limited in the weight that I can carry, so that is a consideration. I have a 6" S&W 357 Wheel gun, and hoping it is reasonable to use that for protection.

500 S&W....If you miss....climb on up the barrel and hide!

 

[Allen Kitts]

Take the largest caliber you have that you can shoot accurately. I hunt in grizzly country all the time and you usually don't see them until they are very close. Even if you are carrying a hand cannon if you can't hit them in the head or possibly in the front shoulder to break them down and they want ya there gonna get ya. Pray if you see one and it's hungry that you can out run your guide.