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Handguns 95% Effective ln Bear Attacks

A 44 Magnum is totally adequate for Polar Bear.. l think Robert Peterson of Hot Rod Magazine is credited with taking a 12 ft one in 1965 using a Smith&Wessson 44Magnum revolver... l believe the bear is in the NRA Firearms Museum at their National Headquarters.. Larry Kelley of MagnaPort Arms took Africa's Big Five Dangerous Game Animals with his Ruger Super Black Hawk 44Magnum revolver. Magna Ported of course.

On a personal note... l have a box of those 240gr Norma JSP bullets like the ones Robert Peterson used to take his 12ft Bear.. No longer made by Norma- They are Steel Jacketed!!
 
sw282 said:
On a personal note... l have a box of those 240gr Norma JSP bullets like the ones Robert Peterson used to take his 12ft Bear.. No longer made by Norma- They are Steel Jacketed!!
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All Norma bullets used to be mild steel jacketed, although few users realised it since they were plated with a copper alloy coating. A magnet would pick them up though. Mild steel jackets were very common in European bullets during and after WW2 until late in the last century and some manufacturers, especially in central / eastern Europe still use them. The original primary reason for the choice of steel was almost certainly the lack of home mined / refined copper in Europe making it a strategic materials supply issue in wartime, but I'd imagine cost considerations play a part too.

I don't know when Norma bullets switched to gilding metal, but they were still steel in the late 1980s when I loaded thousands of 146gn FMJBT 308s for sling shooting, and performed as well as any other make available at the time, better than many in fact. I saw a US gun mag advert long ago that tried to play this feature up calling them 'unique tri-metal' bullets. The company's expanding bullets used the same materials and apparently performed well in this role too. (Some of its heavier RNSP 'Alaska' bullet models such as the 160gn 0.264" model weren't given the copper-alloy surface coating for some reason.) The Norma plating worked very well and seemed pretty tough - recovered FMJ bullets retained it despite the stress of being engraved by the rifling and wouldn't show rust even after weeks of lying in wet sand backstops. Conversely, untreated steel jacketed military surplus 7.62 such as 1980s manufacture West German would often start to corrode if storage conditions were at all damp and the cartridges were packed in cardboard packets and not sealed into tins.

I don't know why Norma switched to gilding metal eventually. It may be that that material was needed to take consistency / performance beyond a particular level, or maybe as a result of customer resistance to steel, widely regarded as an inferior material and 'hard on barrels' (it isn't).
 
cmillard said:
I was just at the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy weapons instructor school and 9mm is definitely making a big comeback. I think there were more 9s than .40. I will be pushing my agency towards 9. A good flat nose or hard cast in 9mm will stop a bear. I read an article over on singleactions.com about 9mm being effective on bear with those style bullets
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IMO...The bear defense pistol issue is getting watered down when the 9mm is becoming a talked about defense gun for a big bear attack. Sure, if it's all a hiker or Hunter has for a sidearm while in bear country, take it. Stoke a couple mags with the heaviest hardcast ammo you can and hope you don't need them. Hardcast bullets are the answer to penetrating skull and heavy bone but even better are HEAVY bullets in that configuration and material. We've all heard of the 9mm stopping an attack. Also the .22 rimfire has stopped attacks but in no way shape or form is the .22 rimfire an adequate defense gun against a bear attack. Stick with a minimum of a .40 caliber with 180 or heavier bullets in the hard non-deforming configuration. Nobody knows truly what will stop a bear attack until the moment arises. I think I'd want the stoutest round I can put on target fast with numerous follow up shots. That certainly limits the range of cartridges but training is the number one action to become confident and proficient with this skill.
 
284winner said:
IMO...The bear defense pistol issue is getting watered down when the 9mm is becoming a talked about defense gun for a big bear attack. Sure, if it's all a hiker or Hunter has for a sidearm while in bear country, take it. Stoke a couple mags with the heaviest hardcast ammo you can and hope you don't need them. Hardcast bullets are the answer to penetrating skull and heavy bone but even better are HEAVY bullets in that configuration and material. We've all heard of the 9mm stopping an attack. Also the .22 rimfire has stopped attacks but in no way shape or form is the .22 rimfire an adequate defense gun against a bear attack. Stick with a minimum of a .40 caliber with 180 or heavier bullets in the hard non-deforming configuration. Nobody knows truly what will stop a bear attack until the moment arises. I think I'd want the stoutest round I can put on target fast with numerous follow up shots. That certainly limits the range of cartridges but training is the number one action to become confident and proficient with this skill.
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Agreed a 9mm is not what I want in a bear fight. A 40 is marginal and a 10mm is OK.
 
Larryh128 said:
Agreed a 9mm is not what I want in a bear fight. A 40 is marginal and a 10mm is OK.
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If I thought I could effectively put at least 4-5 rounds in a 6" area as fast as I could pull the trigger with a 44 magnum, I'd not ever take a 10mm in bear country. Fact is, I can not. I can however do it with my G20 easily. Most times I can put the entire 20 rd magazine in it as fast as I can shoot it. Without the scared shitless factor, it's not all that tough. Throw that in there and I'm positive that number is cut down 75%.
 
cmillard said:
Hunting. I think he has done it multiple times now
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Definitely a huge difference hunting a relaxed dangerous animal VS a life threatening attack from one. He obviously put some very accurate lethal bullets where he was aiming. I think that's a tough feat when a person is being charged by a large predator.
 
cmillard said:
How many elephants did teddy Roosevelt kill with a 7x57 Mauser?
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Are you thinking of Karamojo Bell Cole? I always associate Teddy Roosevelt with a .405 Winchester M1895, although he used an English 500/450 double rifle too on safari, that presumably being his elephant rifle.

Bell killed hundreds of tuskers as a professional ivory hunter with the 257 Mannlicher (6.5X54MS), 275 Rigby (7X57 Mauser) and 30-06, and no doubt a few other calibres too with short-range and very precise brain shots that exploited a weak spot in the animal's skull. With his knowledge of the pachyderm's skeleton and skills, he could probably have managed it too with a .22LR rabbit gun if he'd decided to be really radical! :)

For every such Bell who performed these feats, there were thousands who couldn't including some who tried, failed and died as a consequence. Never heard of Razor Dobbs, but if that was a 10mm pistol on cape buffalo, that sounds to me like another near Bell-type unique character who performs feats that are suicidal for 99.99% of even the most experienced DG hunters. Likewise sticking to handguns, there is probably only one Jerry Miculek on the planet.
 
Laurie said:
Are you thinking of Karamojo Bell Cole? I always associate Teddy Roosevelt with a .405 Winchester M1895, although he used an English 500/450 double rifle too on safari, that presumably being his elephant rifle.

Bell killed hundreds of tuskers as a professional ivory hunter with the 257 Mannlicher (6.5X54MS), 275 Rigby (7X57 Mauser) and 30-06, and no doubt a few other calibres too with short-range and very precise brain shots that exploited a weak spot in the animal's skull. With his knowledge of the pachyderm's skeleton and skills, he could probably have managed it too with a .22LR rabbit gun if he'd decided to be really radical! :)

For every such Bell who performed these feats, there were thousands who couldn't including some who tried, failed and died as a consequence. Never heard of Razor Dobbs, but if that was a 10mm pistol on cape buffalo, that sounds to me like another near Bell-type unique character who performs feats that are suicidal for 99.99% of even the most experienced DG hunters. Likewise sticking to handguns, there is probably only one Jerry Miculek on the planet.
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I believe the 10mm could pretty much enter and exit a cape buffalo from a behind the shoulder shot or rib cage shot with the right slug. Killing one wouldn't be too difficult either if one was hunting a cape buffalo from a stand or spot and stalking with the buffalo unaware or not threatened by a hunters presence. It is much easier to harvest one with a 10mm than defend against one with a 10mm. Like said above, elephants were hunted with 6.5 swedes, 7x57 Mausers and many smaller caliber rifles. Shot placement in hunting is critical as it is in defensive shot placement. There are just other factors involved in high stress shooting in both shooter and target.
 
284winner said:
Shot placement in hunting is critical as it is in defensive shot placement. There are just other factors involved in high stress shooting in both shooter and target.
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................ and I'm a 100% through and through certified coward! Get me to walk into the middle of a herd of hundreds of elephants and shoot the biggest, meanest, fiercest male with huge tusks, then as it falls do it again, and again, and again to others before the herd panics and stampedes (possibly over me)? Not for all the tea in China as my mother used to say.
 
cmillard said:
I do know teddy loved the 405 win but I thought he was a huge fan of 7x57, could be wrong though
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I think all these widely traveling wealthy guys of that era were 7X57 fans. And quite right too! (I own two South American military 7X57 Mausers, amazing rifles and cartridge, always been one of my favourites.)
 
Funny, I’ve shot black bears with rubber slugs. One even had cubs with her. She gather cubs an ran out of the campground. Black bears and grizzlies are two very different things. Really, a 9 would be fine in Black Bear county because they will scare off easily. However, I’ll admit I prefer walking the dog with the 45 colt loaded with 325 grain hard cast at 1100 fps.
 
They seem to be happening more and more. Every year this happens, usually multiple times local to me. I cant remember the last time I read that the bear was shot and killed stopping the bear. The bear always seems to win. There was one a few years ago that a guy was able to get off one shot from his 300 weatherby. He hit the bear in the face, but didnt even have time to cycle the bolt before the bear took his face off. The bear later died and the guy was air flighted to Wa. I never heard if he lived. Thats the only one I remember being shot. Usually the guy doesnt have time to get his gun or its tossed away and he cant get to it.
http://fwp.mt.gov/news/newsReleases...mFJxb5rjzSFxNUByM-Vr-8LYWJu2eZ7DHWbQjmy3mQFX8
 
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