Posted on 04/13/2019 1:48:31 PM PDT by marktwain
This is because both methods were used on the same bears.
Fire arms are the sure thing.
But if a bear wants to beat you up or kill you, the pepper spray is just going to piss him off more. If its a brown bear or grizzly then that would apply to hot stinging lead as well
Still, the 2A says the right to arm bears shall not be infringed. But what if we arm bears with bear spray?
Ignore me - just bored and at work :-)
There are guys who believe in both belts and suspenders.
Many places on the Internet continue to claim that bear spray is more effective at stopping bear attacks than firearms.
Many places are full of Bullshit.
If I should ever venture into brown bear or Grizzly country I would be packing a 12 gauge pump loaded with 3” 00 buck magnum loads, plug removed.
I don’t have a dog in this fight.
I have been a user of guns for nearly 70 years. I have seen them perform spectacularly on animals. I have read of instances where they failed.
I will say that around 1982, I used government issued dog spray to stop a doberman like he was pole axed. It almost certainly saved me from serious injury. It was only one tenth of one percent or about a hundred times weaker than bear spray.
The best way to protect yourself from bears is to wear small bells. They make noise and the gentle bear knows that you are in his territory and will leave. In addition if rarely needed carry bear spray, it is 100% effective.
How to identify bear scat: It contains small bells, bits of clothing, human bones and smells like bear spray.
I live in Grizz country above Moyie Springs Idaho, a few thousand yards from Montana. Nobody carries bear spray except outsiders/treehuggers.
The bear spray better then gun studies were done by the manufacturers of the bear sprays. I bought some bear spray for horse riding but it was for pit bulls.
What caliber is recommended?
For a sidearm I’d want a revolver, 357 or 44 mag.
Most people get way too hung up on caliber. What's most important is that it is something you can use well under stress, have practiced with, and will have with you and ready when you need it. Most Alaskan guides would rather see someone show up with a well worn .30-06 than a shiny new rifle in a mega magnum caliber that obviously hasn't been practiced with much if at all. Hits are what count. Some reasonable choices:
I’ve read that a lot of guides in bear country prefer shotgun slugs.
44 magnum is the most popular. Then others like me use bears as a excuse to buy other large calibers such as the 454 Casull, .460, or my favorite, which is a Magnum Research in .500 S&W magnum, but its pretty damn heavy for more than a day hike, but the flame alone would burn his fur off and rendering him deaf.
I watched a Vice documentary on a man who had been mauled by a polar bear, facing his fear to return to the site of the mauling. The site required an armed native to escort the group. A first-nations husband and wife team were pressed into service. The film shows the wife loading her rifle and you can clearly see that it's .243. I hope her husband had a better polar bear rifle - they didn't show his.
Yup, not only keeping. Bearing.
Whatever you do, don't fall for revolver line. Five or six rounds and you're out of the fight and you'll never reload before that bear reaches you. The current trend in Alaska is a Glock 20, which fires 10 mm ammo. It has a magazine capacity of 15 rounds (unless you live in some socialist hellhole). There are two lines of thought on ammo. One is Buffalo Bore 220 gr and the other is Underwood Xtreme Penetrator 140 gr. For either round, it's best to replace the slide spring with a stiffer one due to the tremendous recoil of both rounds.
And dyslexic. ;-)
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