Defense Against Bears with Pistols: 97% Success rate, 37 incidents by Caliber

REELDOC

REELDOC

The creek won't clear up til you get the pigs out.
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georgel said:
But, how many failures were never reported, because the bodies were never found? ;)
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someone will find an old stainless Mountain Gun layin' in the woods, with a couple of rounds fired...
 
"We have found two cases where .41 magnum revolvers were used to defend against bears. Both were successful."

Of course!

"We have found four cases where .45 caliber pistols were used to defend against bears. All were successful."

That's a little surprising.

They found no one who used a 45 Colt pistol. I would think that should get the job done well.
 
Lots of good info on encounters in that article. It's funny how many of the griz's were not "huge". (300-400 lb range,) We have black bears here in NC that can be much bigger.

But if you truly study the effects,, you will see that the bullets deep penetrated, and hit vitals. Accuracy, bullet placement, and quality slugs makes all the difference in the world.
 
Big ups to the 3% of bears who pulled off the upset. Real legends.

Always practice basic bear safety folks. The vast majority of bear encounters are avoidable. While your life is worth protecting if it comes to it, it's much better to never get in the situation where you have to draw a gun on a bear. You don't want the poor bear's blood on your hands. And you don't want to roll the dice on whether your bear belongs to the 3%.

(Yes I know that the 3% are probably all grizzlies, but also, black bears down here are basically harmless so why would you be shooting them anyway?)
 
REELDOC said:
sportingclassicsdaily.com

Defense Against Bears with Pistols: 97% Success rate, 37 incidents by Caliber - Sporting Classics Daily

This article originally appear on Ammoland.com Arizona -(Ammoland.com)- On the Internet, and in print, many people claim that pistols lack efficacy in defending against bear attacks. Here is an example that occurred on freerepublic.com: “Actually, there are legions of people who have been badly...
sportingclassicsdaily.com sportingclassicsdaily.com
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When I read the headline I was wondering WHY the Bears Had Pistols in the first place ?
 
holdenarm said:
Big ups to the 3% of bears who pulled off the upset. Real legends.

Always practice basic bear safety folks. The vast majority of bear encounters are avoidable. While your life is worth protecting if it comes to it, it's much better to never get in the situation where you have to draw a gun on a bear. You don't want the poor bear's blood on your hands. And you don't want to roll the dice on whether your bear belongs to the 3%.

(Yes I know that the 3% are probably all grizzlies, but also, black bears down here are basically harmless so why would you be shooting them anyway?)
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For fun?


I keed. I keeeeed!
 
BatteryOaksBilly said:
In one shooting, 3 men...10 feet away...shot 9 times......got 2 hits.
In another shooting a man fired a 454 in a Ruger revolver 4 or 5 times....and.......it jammed???????

That's why I keep coming back here....
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They are bad critters. Even with a fatal hit they can still kill you before they die.
 
BatteryOaksBilly said:
In one shooting, 3 men...10 feet away...shot 9 times......got 2 hits.
In another shooting a man fired a 454 in a Ruger revolver 4 or 5 times....and.......it jammed???????

That's why I keep coming back here....
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That was just bad reporting, when I read that I automatically knew they meant Taurus.
 
BatteryOaksBilly said:
In another shooting a man fired a 454 in a Ruger revolver 4 or 5 times....and.......it jammed???????
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I have had revolvers jam - crud under the star extractor or the ejector rod came partially unscrewed.

In a .454 SRH I can get sticky cases with my handloads - if a case moved back under recoil and then swelled to stick I can maybe see that, or a pierced primer more likely jamming against the back of the frame.

Or even more likely a bullet jumping the crimp after '4 or 5' recoil events and jamming against the bbl face.
 
Jmoser said:
I have had revolvers jam - crud under the star extractor or the ejector rod came partially unscrewed.

In a .454 SRH I can get sticky cases with my handloads - if a case moved back under recoil and then swelled to stick I can maybe see that, or a pierced primer more likely jamming against the back of the frame.

Or even more likely a bullet jumping the crimp after '4 or 5' recoil events and jamming against the bbl face.
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My favorite is when random microscopic particles jam up the rebound slide. There are so many ways revolvers fail I don't even stress over the Hillary lock...least of my worries.
 
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I just wanna know where bears got pistols. Did they pass a background check? Was there a waiting period? Did they have a ppp or a chp? Inquiring minds want to know.

While we're at it what caliber did the bears prefer. Revolver or semi auto. Single or double action. So many questions.
 
Black bears down here are harmless until they are not. You never know when they will cease being harmless. I doubt even they know themselves until they do it. Encounters with bears are sometimes quite surprising to both bear and human. That can be dangerous.

I find it interesting that several of the successes did not result in a dead bear or in a bear that died quickly. If a bear is scared away by the noise from a shot, the chambering of the handgun did not really matter all that much. If a bear ran away wounded, the chambering again did not matter very much. A bear that is not killed quickly can cause a lot of damage as it is dying. It seems as if the larger chamberings had better success killing a bear quickly.

I have a friend who got between a sow grizzly and her cubs in Mt. McKinley NP back in 1971. He was hiking down a braided stream when he ran into the bears that had been unseen behind some willows. He yelled at them and threw his pack at them. The cubs took off, the sow picked him up by the shoulder to shake him a bit, and then ran off after her cubs. He survived. I suppose that would be considered to be a successful encounter since everybody survived, but I bet he wished he had had a huge gun with him while that sow was lifting him off the ground shaking him.
 
Jmoser said:
I have had revolvers jam - crud under the star extractor or the ejector rod came partially unscrewed.

In a .454 SRH I can get sticky cases with my handloads - if a case moved back under recoil and then swelled to stick I can maybe see that, or a pierced primer more likely jamming against the back of the frame.

Or even more likely a bullet jumping the crimp after '4 or 5' recoil events and jamming against the bbl face.
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I had a Ruger Super Blackhawk jam once, and it jammed tight. The case rim exceeded SAAMI maximum thickness. Fortunately I was at the range.
 
Carry what you want … I just want a fat slow Dummicrat with me I can out run (or at least knock down) as I haul ass.
 
My cabin is remote, just across the TN line between Boone and Hampton TN, then 15 miles up a dirt road and 1/4 mile up a pig path. They tend to dump nuisance bears in that part of the country. I’ve seen some big bears up there! There are scraps and scratches 6-7 feet in the trees on top of the mountain. Some are right by the cabin! I go up a lot by myself and I always take bear repellent, an M1a with a 20 round mag of hot loads sitting by the door and carry either my G21 or G41 on me for both 2 and 4 legged critters. I’ve thro my share of rocks and st Ickes at an old scraggly bear passing through the camp but there are some of the more hardheaded and testy bears up there also. I’m surprised that I’ve had no problems as we do set up the kitchen on the back porch.

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Hammer12b said:
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I have trees like that in my yard. Sure that wasn't Amazon delivery?
 
MrBitey said:
I have trees like that in my yard. Sure that wasn't Amazon delivery?
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It wasn’t Amazon, but I have come up to find Mormon literature stuck in the door of both cabins! That’s some dedication,
 
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