The recent thread involving wolves brings up the old nightmare of something out there, quietly tipy toeing behind us on the trail or staring from just beyond the fire with unblinking yellow eyes. It's an old part of our consciousness, one that even extends itself to fellow humans who don't happen to dress in Saville Road suits or blanche at the shaman's threat of LAWSUIT. There are two schools of response; the Marlin guide gun ( a dedicated close range defense rifle for bears) which excludes any other scenario besides BLAM! BLAM! take my photo for OUTDOORS Magazine, and the late Timothy Treadwell's naive hubris that Ursus horriblus is really Winnie the Pooh with bad P.R. Learning about potentially dangerous animals is reasonable. Placing them in context with our common world wise. I must wonder if the recently deceased biker in Arizona worried about rattlesnakes while dying of thirst?

In a survival situation, unless our primary needs are attended to first (shelter, fire, water, food, etc.), a hungry bear is going to be little more than a merciful end to an otherwise agonizing demise. Having said that - and being a certified gun nut - I must admit to being rather partial to your first scenario!

Will a .410 slug have any effect on a bear? I know it will drop a deer, but I wonder if anything short of a head shot would really matter to a thing as big as a bear? How about a 30-30?

I know someone who killed a charging girizzly with a .243, but he was a great shot, and made a head shot that time.

Enquiring minds want to know what to pack for a long hike in the deep wilderness.

Martinfocazio:

I have said it before and I will say it again; my personal general all round preference is a semi-auto .22 caliber rifle unless I was hunting for the bear. Because of accuracy and reliability concerns, I would chose a Marlin papoose over an AR7 for a compact take down unit because I have heard the Marlin is better on both counts. Not too long ago I purchased a new Savage .22, 10 shot, clip fed, with extra clip primarly because it is made the old fashioned way of being milled from a solid block of steel. I should have bought the heavy barreled version, but I think I will be happy with the Savage. I have yet to try it out and have attached a 4 X 20 scope to it which has better eye relief than the 4 X 15 scopes most .22's come with.

In Alaska, I understand that a lot of people carry .44 magnums in case of a chance encounter and most of the shots are to scare the bears off. If the shots do not scare the bear away, they must feel confident that the .44 magnum will put the bear away. (CORRECTION: DID A WEB SEARCH AND FOUND FT. LBS. OF FORCE AT THE MUZZLE OF A .44 MAGNUM IS 1037 AND FOR A .410 SLUG ONLY 654, A 20 GAUGE SLUG WOULD BE 1240 FT. LBS. OF FORCE AT THE MUZZLE.) You do however want to have a pump and not a single shot. People I have talked to who are good with guns tell me the new .50 caliber pistols are almost as bad to the shooter as they are to the target.

Of more concern is where you are going. If you go with a gun where guns aren't allowed, they will take it away from you and maybe even your vehicle if they decide to charge you with hunting without a license or out of season. With a .22, there is less likelyhood of that happening as long as there is something in season or a "pest" that can be shot at any time of the year so long as you have a small game license on you.

Good luck!

Bountyhunter

Ballistics are like statistics, and can be used for any armchair argument. In the real world the number of human fatalities attributed to bears in North America at best numbers perhaps 100 + since 1900. The number of bears slain is in the thousands. So, I support the right to arm bears. People need to read and learn about bears before even considering a firearm. The behavior of a grizz is completely different than the black. Attacks are RARE, and carrying a firearm as a placebo for woods savvy is no different than a cellphone for rescue. I saw a polar bear dropped with a single .303 military ball round in arctic Canada. I also witnessed the post mortem of a 'rogue' Kodiak with a nasty reputation. The poor animal had 14 recovered bullets, ranging from 220 grain .30s to the big .375 H & H. Any one of these rounds could have, should have killed this individual. That said, common wisdom says a 12 guage at close range, or a bullet with good sectional density, ie. 140 grain 6.5s, 200 grain .30s 250 grain .35s. UNCOMMON wisdom says keep food secured and avoid each other. <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

I recall reading a magazine as a kid (maybe Field and Stream) that discussed a bet between two hunters who frequent Africa as to whether a 12 guage slug could take down a Water Buffalo (same as a Cape Buffalo??).

The hunter who said it could apparently when hunting with the 12 guage and indeed did take down the buffalo in 2 or three shots - one of them breaking the buffalo's spine. The article emphasized that only a hunter who knew exactly where to shoot could expect that kind of success.

While I'm not against hunting, nor at all into it, it is seemed to me at the time that the buffalo was the one who lost the bet.

Back to the bears - there was a PBS program on the other night about remote Canadian lodges. One of the owners pointed out that they have NEVER had a problem with bears in their 80+ year history of leading hikes. He said that during Grizzly mating season they tend to stay in open areas or near the lodge in order to avoid trouble, but other than that they just make sure hiking groups made enough noise to give the bears time to stay away.

Randy Garrett seems to know what he's talking about with regard to handgun defense from an attacking bear:
http://www.garrettcartridges.com/031000.asp
His hard cast cartridges are nasty to shoot in .44mag. I've tried similar hardness/meplat cast bullets in .454 Casull and I think they are pretty nasty too. HOWEVER, you'll probably never notice in a real bear attack scenario.

To everyone who actually doubts they'd be able to make a killing shot or instantly incapacating shot on a Griz. with a firearm... in a bear attack (and frankly, that should include all of us!) why not consider Bearspray (or Wolf spray, or Cougar spray, etc.). Look at the data:
http://mountain-prairie.fws.gov/species/mammals/grizzly/bear%20spray.pdf

Forget the "head shot" by the way. What you're after is the "up the nose to the brain" shot. When I told my guide "That's a pretty small target to hit on a charging Griz." he told me: "If you'll just wait a moment, the target will be a lot bigger".

I haven't killed many bear, but I wouldn't want to face one down without a full tube of 12 gauge slugs. If you're going to carry, you might as well carry enough to KNOW you can get the job done. A Remington 870 with a full magazine tube, especially a "shorty" riot gun, isn't that heavy, and they're not too hard to move around with either, especially on a sling.

Troy

For the most part, I agree with ya Chris, but I can't help askin', "wudja wanna be onea them hunderd?" <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Just out of curiosity, do you ask yourself when you get into a taxicab "do I want to be one of the four hundred people a year killed in taxicab accidents?" (I believe that's just in Canada; the number for the USA is probably ten times that.)

You are at least 400 times (maybe even 4000 times) more likely to be killed by the simple act of getting into a taxi than you are to be killed by a bear. Yet how many people lie awake worrying about having to take a taxi to the airport in the morning? If they do, they're more worried about missing their flight than they are about being involved in a fatal traffic accident.

Statistics doesn't work the way you seem to think. Nobody has handed out lottery tickets to everyone saying "If your ticket has this number on it you are going to be eaten by a bear." It's just a way of assessing the relative probabilities of different events - for example, the probability of being eaten by a bear, versus the probability of shooting yourself in the head with your own gun.

If you walk through the woods with a loaded gun that's primed and ready to fire, I consider you irresponsible. (Disclaimer: I'm a Canadian, have never owned a firearm, and have only once fired a weapon outside of my military training.) Carrying a firearm that could go off if you trip over a tree root or step in a gopher hole is, IMO, a recipe for an accidental shooting.

Otoh, an unloaded gun is of very limited value for self-defense against a charging bear; you're likely to be far better off using it like a club (in which case, I'd personally prefer to have a club <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> ) From what (little) I've read on the subject, most bear attacks are the result of (a) blatant stupidity (e.g the woman I once saw getting out of her car to take a close-up photograph of the cute little bear cub); (b) mutual surprise; or (c) photographers (and possible hunters) who are deliberately trying to conceal their presence in order to avoid scaring off photographic subjects/game. In none of these cases is an unloaded weapon likely to be of any use. (I've read that a disproportionate number of bear attack victims are nature photographers, who are deliberately trying to make as little noise as possible; few, if any, of these victims even manage to get a picture of their attacker, indicating that the attacks happen with devastating suddenness.)