Bears and the unchambered carry debate

The guide removed the shoulder holster to gut the Elk, but there is no evidence that it was unloaded at that time.
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Mark, you're only trying to be reasonable, but given the fact that the gun was found in that condition (probably) where the hunter dropped it, and the people who recovered it (police officers of the National Park, I assume) would have brought it in as found, it's probably just as it looks. Sure, it's an assumption because we can't prove anything, just rely on testimony after the fact that it wasn't tampered with after recovery.


But, in any event, it's either real, or a slightly modified scenario that is being discussed reasonably, just like any of the other created scenarios that are discussed. Any hypothetical guide who let himself be caught unarmed and unawares is just as guilty of stupidity, despite his imagined status.
 
But when logic and emotions come into opposition with each other, the human being will usually take the emotional side. Real education is the key. When someone has education based in TRUTH their emotions are guided by those truths.
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That is quite sage. Myself, I am driven by logic to the point that people think that I'm nuts. Even my wife complains if I remind her that we should go shopping in a specific order of stops. Home depot first, walmart next, then ATM, and groceries. A nice little loop with only one left turn in the heavy traffic. The milk won't get cold on the way home.

She really likes it when she can remind me that one of the places is about to close, and my carefully thought out map is WRONG! Even pure logic can fail you in a situation where proper information is withheld or not put into the loop.

The hunter education classes demand that you unload your weapon and set it down when you confront an obstacle. Cool, right? the dog won't knock it over and blow your ankles off.

Did that apply when the guy set an unloaded weapon on the ground because he didn't want it to get dirty or shoot him in the back while he wasn't looking? Oh, holy green poodle poop, no! Nothing could possibly support that thought based on logic, and my lord, I can't think of any way that even the greenest of greenhorns would think that a defensive weapon should be where it can't be used to defend oneself. Only a genuine snowflake would have done it, or insisted that the guide do it.
 
The hunter education classes demand that you unload your weapon and set it down when you confront an obstacle. Cool, right? the dog won't knock it over and blow your ankles off.
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I get this was not what you were arguing for so to further the point. The purpose of this pistol was far different than the purpose of a hunting long gun
 
Not really meaning to suggest that he should have dragged his piece out of his shoulder holster, shucked out the round and dropped it on the ground while unloading his lunch bag. If it was a shotgun and quail hunter climbing over barbed wire, well, that's common sense, and as he said, mistaken adherence to good, yet inappropriate advice and allowing our less than practical side rule our decisions is why we make a lot of the mistakes we make.

You know, I once took a shortcut through arkansas to save thirty miles, and had to drive through country that made beirut look like a holiday camp. Logic dictated that taking a shorter route would have worked out just fine. I should have never discounted the fact that I was going through the deep south, land of sloughs, skeeters, and packs of dogs that were out running deer at night. Oh, yes, want to make your wife barf? run an entire pack of dogs over at 1 am.
 
"such a gun"

Just to clarify, it's not "the gun", it's the mode of carry, ie, .......using a gun, carried in such a manner, under stress. On top of that, the issue of NOT CARRIED, is bigger if not greater, than the "half loaded" carry mode. Another darn shame, loss of a good man, in a wild circumstances, likely never fully understood. All we can do now is learn from the incident.

I've never been a proponent of "half loaded", nor a gun in the glove box, or between the seats console, in the trunk, etc. If you need a gun, you may very well need it RIGHT NOW.

I took a call from an elderly gent of my acquaintance, who stated his pocket auto .380 would not cycle, he carries it w/ an empty chamber. Pistol works fine, turns out, now at 85yrs of age, , he lacks the hand strength and dexterity to manipulate the slide.

I've encountered other folks who carried in odd manner: empty chamber on an auto, hammer down on an empty chamber in a modern DA revolver, and one fellow who carried with a spent case as next round up in a DA revolver, the argument being to protect himself in the odds of a gun grab. None of these folks would take any council on their practices. All of them were astute enough you'd think they'd know better.
 
NO reason to 'carry' a Glock unchambered, if if it isn't on your person. It doesn't just 'go off', even if dropped. PLUS, in the 'wild', why not carry? Lotsa of really comfy holsters..
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In one of the hunting forums in which I participate, whenever there is a shooting where a hunter gets injured (shoots self, shoots another hunter) unintentionally, there are a variety of hunters who come out of the woodwork proclaiming that there is no reason to be walking around the woods with a chambered firearm. Apparently, these individuals feel that guns are too dangerous to be carried around with a round chambered, that just too much could go wrong and they are very vehement about it. They don't do it. They don't allow others who hunt with them to do it.

It is really a very different mindset. In short, you don't chamber a round until you have an immediate need to do so.

What is really scary is that Uptain did this with a gun that was there for defensive purposes.
 
Yeah, once again... I'll stick with a .44 Mag revolver. No safety, nothing to chamber and if God forbid I ever have to press the muzzle up against 800 or so pounds of vicious muscle, fur and teeth, no magazine to inadvertently release and subsequent lose and no slide to become disengaged and jam when I press the muzzle deep into the fur. Just keep pulling the trigger and praying!!! :D
 
I get the argument for carrying a hunting rifle with an empty chamber. When bird hunting I normally keep the action of the shotgun open (double barrels). So what I might miss a bird? But that Glock was not a hunting weapon. It was there for defensive use and holstered defensive pistols are carried hot. We may, however, be overthinking how much of a difference it would have made. The guide was on an elk carcass and may have been hit before he could react. Maybe the hunter never gets to the gun if it’s not off to the side.
 
Yeah, once again... I'll stick with a .44 Mag revolver. No safety, nothing to chamber and if God forbid I ever have to press the muzzle up against 800 or so pounds of vicious muscle, fur and teeth, no magazine to inadvertently release and subsequent lose and no slide to become disengaged and jam when I press the muzzle deep into the fur. Just keep pulling the trigger and praying!!!
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Same here, revolver guy:) I always prefer large calibers when in a situation where I may encounter vicious predators.

If I am going to be in the wilderness, I am also going to carry a fixed blade on my weak arm side (gun stored in shoulder holster). Smith & Wesson boot knife on belt. In the worst case scenario, I still got 4 inches of razor sharp cold steel. Aim for the roof of mouth or base of neck is possible. Thrust and twist. When a bear or similar large predator actually attacks, they are usually in such a state of rage and determination that they cannot be simply frightened off. The best course of action is to inflict as large a wound as possible, bleed them out and hope to make it out with the minimal level of injury.
 
once again

The real issue is not the type of handgun, it's the fact that the gun was not on the victims person.

The handgun could have been a S&W .500, but hanging in a tree, not on his person, gun type does not matter as much as a flawed practice. Creating an argument over type of gun misses the point.
 
If I am going to be in the wilderness, I am also going to carry a fixed blade on my weak arm side (gun stored in shoulder holster). Smith & Wesson boot knife on belt. In the worst case scenario, I still got 4 inches of razor sharp cold steel. Aim for the roof of mouth or base of neck is possible. Thrust and twist. When a bear or similar large predator actually attacks, they are usually in such a state of rage and determination that they cannot be simply frightened off. The best course of action is to inflict as large a wound as possible, bleed them out and hope to make it out with the minimal level of injury.
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You know, I have had a lot of anatomy classes and for the life of me, I can't recall a single major blood vessel in the roof of the mouth from which to bleed out a bear or other major predator. Suffice it to say that if you are trying to make a bear bleed out through the roof of the mouth with your 4 inches of razor sharp, cold steel, you are doing it wrong.

And bears are pretty fast with their reflexes as well. This old boy tried to shoot a bear in the neck, but danged if the bear didn't react faster and just swatted the gun out of the guy's hand...

A hunter was mauled by a grizzly bear after the animal swatted his pistol away as he tried to shoot it in the neck.
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https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ntana-tom-sommer-gravelly-range-a7932291.html

The real issue is not the type of handgun, it's the fact that the gun was not on the victims person.
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It would seem that the data of known uses of pistols for bear defense would mean that caliber isn't that important. You don't need a massive caliber to do the job, although we all logically probably want more power than less power.

This is a pretty good read. https://www.ammoland.com/2018/02/de...s-rate-37-incidents-by-caliber/#axzz5Xd2e7DfV

I think the author overlooks one absolute failure of the .45 acp in the multiple guns used section. He seems to downplay the failure of one .357 incident because the human victim may not have hit the bear. In the case of the .45, the gun quit working because the human victim ejected the magazine (had to google the story to find out this detail. https://www.oregonlive.com/outdoors/index.ssf/2008/06/bearattack_victim_describes_de.html

Many of the defensive uses of pistols are not against fast moving animals, but against stationary animals, sometimes while the victim is being chewed on by the bear. Attacks were stopped with hits to a variety of locations, often multiples of hits, but not always.

The author seems to overlook cases where people attempted and failed to use or be able to use guns, such as the one noted above where the gun was swatted from the hunter's hand.
 
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Absolutely and I know for a fact that I will be able to buckle up just before the impact of the crash
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i have a young (34) guy who i see once in a while. he will not drive, and bikes everywhere. why? traffic scares him. he will bike down a five lane highway, and feel safe as he does so. why does he feel safe? because he can dodge the car. if a car is coming at him, he can jump off of the bike and the car will hit the bike. he'll be just fine, unless he bruises himself when he jumps off.

i've got no reason to pull your leg about this, its true. kid is a few grains short and the primer is in backwards.

no matter how stupid this sounds, all around the world there are people who believe in things that are even more ridiculous, but those ideas seem plausible, and seem credible.

anything that involves dangerous stuff like guns or bears or biking on highways really deserves closer examination.

a guy i was acquainted with fifty years ago would put dry ice in his gas tank before heading out to cruise. cold gas burns better, and carbonated, fizzy gas works better in the carburetor.
 
Cold gas with hot air does get you a tiny but more HP in a carbureted engine. :)

People have some odd opinions, some backed up by anecdotal stories, old wives tales and in the rare case, data.

For the vast majority of people, making a left hand turn in a busy intersection is still the most dangerous thing they will ever do. But I have yet to see a person in a compact car with a roll-cage, helmet and 5 point harness. :)
 
mark- a couple ounces of dry ice in a tank of premium on a missouri summer night probably isn't enough to help. There was another guy who had a similar thought, he packed a canister with dry ice and methanol, and rigged a metal coil heat exchanger through this thing to cool his gas. That I can see giving a tiny boost by denser fuel mix. but still only along the range of mouse power.

The most amusing part of it was the seltzer aspect of it.

If you are like me, we've heard these things all of our lives, and just dismissed them as nonsense without really putting much thought to it. Then, as time passes and we get a deeper understanding, we realize that the very concept requires a special sort of insanity to believe it. It's really depressing when you see a fully grown adult believing some of these things.

All through my school years, people told me that if I dissolved an aspirin in a coke I could get high. Jesus, mark, I had migraines, and I never once got high when I washed aspirin down with coke. But, that was easily explained. I have to mix the two of them together in the glass.
 
Don't do it!

We used to call those sort of anecdotes "Old Wives Tales" don't do that, the old wives will be very insulted.
Most of those tales are patently ridiculous, or might have a tiny grain of truth mixed in with a lot of horse hockey.
 
This:
The real issue is not the type of handgun, it's the fact that the gun was not on the victims person.
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Although I also vote for the large caliber revolver, it too would have been useless if you don't have it handy when you really need it. The whole point of having a holster is to remain armed when you need to primarily do something else that would otherwise require you to disarm in order to do the work. It's about maintaining immediate access even when it's unlikely you'll need it and you have other stuff to do. If you really think you'll need it, you'll stand by with your rifle in hand and do no work at all. Reasoning that the pistol would simply be inconvenient to the task at hand is what led to the fatal mistake. And this in Grizzly country....
 
This off-body handgun carry and empty-chamber carry stuff is foreign to me. If you don't trust yourself or your gear with a hot chamber, make some changes, get trained, swap gear, whatever.

I pocket-carry a S&W J-frame with hard cast LSWC when pheasant hunting, for the love of Pete. Not for protection vs birds, but feral dogs and feral humans have been known to cause problems. When in feral hog or black bear country, I OWB-carry (SS pancake, thumb snap) a GM 1911 in .45ACP stoked with hard cast pills. With a round in the chamber, thanks. Condition One for the win.

Never hunted or roamed through grizzly-land, but were I to do so, my SW629 or a shiny, new 10mm 1911 would be strapped to my meat sack.

And I hunt with a hot chamber in the rifle or shotgun when outside camp. Have not yet met a guide that insists on a cold chamber when on the hunt.
 
The only time.

For me I am not much of a safety fan. The safety is indeed in between your ears.

That said a good safety is necessary on a hunting rifle, and I use it. My issue with a cold chamber is two fold.
Number 1 is speed. I can flip the safety much more quickly than working the bolt.
Number 2 is noise. A good safety makes no noise. In fact my old FN Mauser the safety is not dead silent. I can pack grease in the bolt to prevent the noise it's very slight, the grease will make it quiet enough.
 
This story isn't really about unchambered carry, it's about not carrying and having your gun accessible and under control. And there's really no excuse for it with a handgun you can keep on your belt. The single biggest thing about using a rifle in bear country for protection is you need to have it with you and accessible. Do that and you're way better off than you are with any handgun because you've got a lot more power from a more accurate platform. But if you're not disciplined and you leave it leaned up against a tree somewhere this kind of thing can happen, and it's something you need to be deliberate about with a rifle. The advantage of a handgun is that it's a lot easier to keep it with you at all times. The trade-off is comparably puny firepower but it's a lot better than nothing. This guy's screw-up was taking his gun off. And yes, he should have also had a round in the chamber.

FWIW I don't generally leave a round chambered in my handguns when they aren't on body, especially around other people and really especially around my (or other) kids. But when it's on me in my holster, there's a round chambered. If I'm carrying a rifle in the woods, it will also have a round in the chamber.
 
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