anti-black bear

Status
Not open for further replies.
Dear dahermit, as someone pointed out above, the unsuccessful cases don't get reported, they get buried instead.

Seriously, there are issues of penetration that many folks have noted. If it is all that I have, so be it, but my 20 ga with buckshot is my home defense option. My Marlin .444 and my Ruger SRH in .44 magnum are my woods guns. I think those are much better options myself. Just my own opinion based on penetration issues and stopping power. I love the option of buckshot in the home defense situation, not so much for the bears. They are just too big, fast, furry and built like a tank.

If all you have is a 12 ga with buckshot and you have a bear before you, hope and pray it will work like the two rednecks with the 16 ga, but many do believe that there are a lot better options.

I would like to know if there are successful cases of buckshot in a bear charge situation if I am ever in the place of defending myself with my home defense 20 ga with buckshot. That would be my option if a bear broke into our house. In that case, you would be at very close quarters and it may have a chance of working right out of the muzzle. I just am not aware of any myself after looking at bear attack reports for years and years. Just don't see them out there for what ever reason.

As in many issues, I don't ever want to test any of these theories in person.
 
Well, we had a hard freeze just as the fruit trees and berry bushes were beginning to bloom. Then we had no rain until mid-July. No apple, no berries, very few acorns...What's a self-respecting (and very hungry) bear to do?

There are any number of seasonal residents here (we call them "tourists!") who just love to hang hundreds of bird feeders around and think it's humorous when the bears tear them down. The last few years have seen a huge increase in the number of bears in the mountains here, nearly tripling the "normal" population. Now without much natural food available, they are wandering down and eating anything and everything they can find.

It has been shown that a normal bear is as intelligent as, say, a German shepard dog. It learns well, usually with a single experience. Once a bear experiences food in or around human habitation, well, it knows that human habitation means food might be available. Trap the bear and move it a couple hundred miles away and...when it finds human habitation there, it will continue looking for food around it. If someone cooks something and the aroma of that cooking is still wafting from a window (remembering that bears have some 10,000 times the smelling capability of humans), the bear will probably try to get into that house and find the food. And now that bear knows that there is food inside the houses and will continue to try to get in them.

So, it's 2:30 in the morning when my phone rings. It is my elder sister (I love calling her "elder"!). She lives in a cabin just down the canyon a bit from here. I see it is her on the caller ID function and start getting up to drive her to the hospital, when she says that she is not sick, but something is in her cabin. She is talking quietly and calmly. So I strap on my .45acp and rack a round of .45LC into my lever action Winchester, put on my boots and head up toward her place. By the time I get there, the bear is gone. After ripping the screen off, it had crawled into an 18" wide by 10" open window, walked over to the refrigerator, opened the freezer (where we tend to keep our edible garbage between trips to the dump), taking out most anything edible, and took it all out onto the patio for a picnic.

Sis was just fine and certainly none the worse for wear, but she had left her Winchester in her art studio instead of taking it to her bedroom with her. Now she wants another one so she will always have one close to hand!

Of course we called the state Game and Fish, and they brought out a trap. They also said we were lucky there was a trap available because they were averaging three bear problem calls a day in our area! The agent gave us permission (:rolleyes:thanks!) to shoot the bear should it once again break in.

Sis got some pictures of it when it tried to get in the following night, then it headed for the trap. The trap worked well and we nailed it the first night. He was a 300 pound male cinnamon.

Sis was a bit disappointed that she didn't get to shoot the bear - what a great story that would have made! I didn't tell her that she could have probably done it when the bear was on her porch and nobody would have minded!
 
I favor slug since it give you more distance, but buckshot are as effective only if you hold off and fire only at very close range .... like 8 to 12 feet max, at that distance they have tremendous stopping power.
________
roberto
 
I don't know about the Doc, but if I actually shoot a bear, it most likely would be 5' to 10'. As I stated earlier, I don't want the mess. I am no longer able to skin it out, and to butcher it would be impossible for me. My Arthritis would not allow me to. I will do everything I can to get the bear to move on before I would actually shoot one. Then I would have to call F&W to come pick it up because I just cannot do it anymore.

Yes, Our F&W have several traps too... They come up here when the bears get to be a problem and move them...the bears always come back.

Doc, I don't know exactly where you live, but I have knocked almost all the brush around my place down and have about 100 yards clear in any direction, and about 250 years to the north. It's taken 6 years, and the kids help when they come, but good way to reduce fire danger too. We kept the Saskatoons, but the rest of it was chopped out, cut up and burned.
 
I plan to rent or maybe even buy a bulldozer in the next couple years when I get the money, that's what I've always used up here till it died of natural causes haha! I would carry a .44 as a bear back up but the handgun is also for anti cougar reasons, the slugger is good for bear but I figure if I come into contact with another cougar and it's aggressive I want a little bit of rapid fire action, they are quick little creeps! and of course I would load that up with hollow points had cougars been its sole purpose, but I guess it still kind of is anti bear back up as well, multi-purpose product. for those of you who are curious about my general whereabouts I am somewhat deep in the blue mountains near the Washington-Oregon border.
 
I've shot many black bear in East Tennessee with my Winchester lever action 30-30 rifle....No problem. But I do trust myown shooting capability and skills.

And with a Ruger Blackhawk .357 mag handgun.
 
Use 12G 3" Mag Brenneke Hard Cast slugs. They even make ones with a grizzly's face on it growling. I would keep some 000 Buck 3" Mags its aways good to have some Buckshot. I have 2 of those 55 round bandoliers, I would take atleast one with me :D, stocks with the above only about 15 Buck. The rest would be slugs.
 
Dear dahermit, as someone pointed out above, the unsuccessful cases don't get reported, they get buried instead.

Seriously, there are issues of penetration that many folks have noted. If it is all that I have, so be it, but my 20 ga with buckshot is my home defense option. My Marlin .444 and my Ruger SRH in .44 magnum are my woods guns. I think those are much better options myself. Just my own opinion based on penetration issues and stopping power. I love the option of buckshot in the home defense situation, not so much for the bears. They are just too big, fast, furry and built like a tank.

If all you have is a 12 ga with buckshot and you have a bear before you, hope and pray it will work like the two rednecks with the 16 ga, but many do believe that there are a lot better options.

I would like to know if there are successful cases of buckshot in a bear charge situation if I am ever in the place of defending myself with my home defense 20 ga with buckshot. That would be my option if a bear broke into our house. In that case, you would be at very close quarters and it may have a chance of working right out of the muzzle. I just am not aware of any myself after looking at bear attack reports for years and years. Just don't see them out there for what ever reason.

As in many issues, I don't ever want to test any of these theories in person.
Click to expand...
The problem I have with the statements about buckshot not being effective on black bear is that it is not based on data, but assumptions. Your answer may be amusing, but in fact, if a person shot at a black bear with buck shot and was killed, it would be reported inasmuch as the bear will not eat the shotgun and spent shells, and the person's demise via bear would be discovered.
In short, it is annoying to read how something will or will not work, unless there is adequate data to prove that it is true or not true, and almost all of the opinions on the subject on this thread are not data-based and therefore are unscientific.
 
Dear Dahermit, yes you are correct, we would all like some data on this to make a good decision. I have a 20 ga loaded right now in my home with buckshot that is my home defense weapon of choice since I live in a duplex. In this instance, I want close quarter penetration with low wall penetration should a shot go astray toward my neighbor which I would try my best to avoid. I also have a .357 that can penetrate beyond what I would want in this situation.

Here is a video of shooting #4 buckshot from a 12 ga. Look at the pattern at 25 yards. Seeing this pattern tells me I don't want to shoot a bear at 25 yards with a 12 ga with buckshot. The person doing this video notes a one inch spread per yard with 00 buck meaning at 25 yards it is a 25 inch spread. Even at 10 yards, it will be a 10 inch spread.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASCsvtjiYQc

Finally, this video goes over shot pattern of 00 buck AND penetration of this vs slugs and rifle rounds. I believe that this video is all the evidence we need to answer the question with real life data.

The answer, there is no way I would want to depend on 00 Buck for bear defense. Folks are welcome to their own opinion.

Here is a another video of various shot shell penetration patterns with typical wall board. This was at 5 meters which still showed about 6 inches of spread. I would have expected a tighter pattern at this distance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWRToW2d1XU

I hope that this gives us some reasonable data to actually make a decision on this issue that keeps coming up time and again on several websites.

God bless,

Alaska
 
Now lets look at a 45-70 vs .338 penetration with milk jugs:

Which one do you think goes through the most milk jugs full of water?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s3ac7vuP5w&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL9F95152470E2F234

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6CrP5OBfyg&feature=related

I believe that this is great justification for the big and slow approach to bear defense that you get with the large bore rifles such as 45-70, .450 and the .444. If you want penetration, throw a large hard cast bullet as fast as it can be pushed and that will get the bears attention for sure. Once again, just my own opinion.
 
Last edited:
no offense but how do you guys manage to go around the woods entire year with loaded shotguns and rifles as "bear defense" for your dog when most state game departments consider it a crime to go in the woods with a rifle or shotgun during bowseason?
 
Great question, but a lot of states have varmint hunting 12 months of the year. All you need for that is a valid hunting license. Yes, carrying adequate bear protection in many places becomes a legal logistics nightmare. But most states have no season and allow year round hunting of feral pigs and coyotes. All that is required in most states is a valid hunting license. Follow the attached link for your state (the second search result on the page)

I think you can take a pig or coyote with a .44 magnum or a .444 in Marlin? Sounds good to me. You just need to know what to tell the game warden.

http://www.google.com/search?client...t+hunting+idaho+regulations&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
 
Dear Dahermit, yes you are correct, we would all like some data on this to make a good decision. I have a 20 ga loaded right now in my home with buckshot that is my home defense weapon of choice since I live in a duplex. In this instance, I want close quarter penetration with low wall penetration should a shot go astray toward my neighbor which I would try my best to avoid. I also have a .357 that can penetrate beyond what I would want in this situation.

Here is a video of shooting #4 buckshot from a 12 ga. Look at the pattern at 25 yards. Seeing this pattern tells me I don't want to shoot a bear at 25 yards with a 12 ga with buckshot. The person doing this video notes a one inch spread per yard with 00 buck meaning at 25 yards it is a 25 inch spread. Even at 10 yards, it will be a 10 inch spread.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASCsvtjiYQc

Finally, this video goes over shot pattern of 00 buck AND penetration of this vs slugs and rifle rounds. I believe that this video is all the evidence we need to answer the question with real life data.

The answer, there is no way I would want to depend on 00 Buck for bear defense. Folks are welcome to their own opinion.

Here is a another video of various shot shell penetration patterns with typical wall board. This was at 5 meters which still showed about 6 inches of spread. I would have expected a tighter pattern at this distance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWRToW2d1XU

I hope that this gives us some reasonable data to actually make a decision on this issue that keeps coming up time and again on several websites.
Click to expand...
This is not the data I had in mind. I would prefer that the "data" be black bears shot with buck shot, the results posted (did it stop the bears?) and the carcases examined to determine how much the double ought penetrated. Performance on wall board does not interest me much inasmuch as it is not bear hide, bear muscle, or bear bone.
 
Dear dahermit,

I couldn't agree with you more that I would greatly appreciate having real life bear penetration data, but to the best of my knowledge that data does not exist anywhere easily obtained on the internet.

On the other hand, looking at the spread patterns of 00 Buckshot as well as the door penetration test in the link above, or rather lack of penetration in vs the incredible penetration of two doors with the slugs, the issue in my mind is quite easy to settle. The spread pattern limits any effectiveness to 15 yards or less since the spread at 25 yards will only get one or two pellets into the CNS area but without any degree of accuracy. At 25 yards, any CNS hits would be by random chance variation.

So, even with the lack of real life data, I do believe we have enough real life demonstrations of how buck shot performs at different distances. If I have a charging bear, I won't wait until they are in a five yard kill zone. I would have to wonder whose kill zone it was at that point.

In the end with the lack of real life data, it will in part come down to individual choice. From the several videos I have seen on buck shot performance, my choice is to go with a large slug of lead.

http://www.buffalobore.com/index.php?l=product_detail&p=156

Just my own choice.
 
WileyP, we're not too far from you and we have several bears running the hills around us, escapees from the fires. I carry a .357 whenever I'm out in the yard and keep a .44 carbine pretty close by.

As far as using a shotgun on a bear, I too wouldn't want to let him get that close so that I had a small shot pattern. Those bad boys run damn fast, faster than I do. Those of you who want to use a scattergun for bear protection, let us know how that works out for ya.
 
I vote for a slug with some sort of expansion control(not a soft lead Forster type). The Brenekke is said to be popular in Africa for cats. The argument for a buckshot pattern spread is not good since a pattern bigger than 8-12" is going to allow a lot of pellets to miss the vital area. In addition, the most likely shot presentation for a true attack scenario is going to be a frontal with skull and front shoulders foremost. Unless the buckshot is delivered at very short range, it may not provide the required penetration to make a killing shot. I have little experience with a lever action rifle but considerable with a pump shotgun and would be comfortable with it for this purpose. On a bear hunt in Ontario years ago I helped recover 3 bears shot with slugs. No discernable difference in wounds compared to the 30/06 I carried and not much difference in the reaction to the hits. The animals fell at the shot, but were instantly back up and ran in whatever direction they happened to be pointed until they ran out of blood.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top