Hunting Black Bear Over Bait

S

Sportdog

Moderator
Well, my Coastal Black Bear Hunt is on hold due to financial considerations :mad: so instead I have booked a hunt with an outfitter in Northern Michigan. We have a draw system here based on preference points and since I have accumulated six points the outfitter seems to feel that I'm a shoe in for my choice of hunt area and date. I will find out for sure on June 30th. I will be using my 30-06 and asked what bullet type he recomended and he stated that I should leave the Nosler Partitions or Speer Mag Tips home and use Remington Corelokt's. Ranges will only be from 35 to 60 yards from stand to bait station in heavy timber. I have a load that I worked up for whitetails a few years back with 180 grain Round Nose Sierra Pro Hunter bullets with IMR 4064 pushing that bullet @2700fps. I'm thinking that load would be gold for those ranges with plenty of exposed frontal lead for a quick opening. What do you guys think? I've got some 180 grain Remington Corelokt's but they are Pointed Soft Points. Any of you guys have any experience with the Sierra round nose Pro Hunters. I've only shot one deer with them and it was a 40 yard pass through with an exit hole of about 3/4" with a lung shot and no heavy bones being hit. This load is extremely accurate in my rifle so that's why I'm thinking about using it. What distance would you guys zero your rifle? I'm thinking 100 yards. Thanks for any comment.:)
 
I would say that from 60 yards max and with a 30-06, it really makes almost no difference what bullet you are using. This is a black bear, not an Alaskan Brown or a Cape Buffalo. Aside from grabbing something like a 110 grain varmint type bullet, which I am sure you are not dumb enough to do, you should be fine. At 60 yards it just doesn't really matter.
 
I second that motion. Shooting over bait at 30 yards isnt really much of a challenge. At that range a shotgun would work. A black bear isnt a tank. If you peel the hide and hair off of a black bear, it looks like a human corpse hanging from the tree. Round nose 180's would certainly not be needed. Blackies are thin skinned light weight animals even if they might weigh 400#. I would load up some 165gr polymer tips and go for it. Proper shot placement is more important than blowing a hole all the way through a man sized critter. The 165 polymers will also pass through, but they will give you a hydraulic shock channel from hell while they do. Needless to say, GYDRT.

I would say to sight in your rifle at 100, and then shoot at 30 to see where its hitting. It ought to be pretty close. You know its on at 100 and it should still be within 2" at 200, or still in the kill zone.

If I did not load my own cartridges, I'd stop at Walmart as much as I despise the place and buy the cheapest box of .30-06 that they had, as long as it was 150 gr bullets or more. I mean, how can you miss at 30 yards?

Seriously, if I were going to be shooting at that range, I would take the scope off of my rifle and just use the iron sights. I shot my .30-06 for about 6 years with just the iron sights before I put a scope on it. Scope is fine for 250-300 yard shots on big game, but at less than 100 yards, I actually prefer iron sights even though I have made shots out to 200 or so with them. Nothing faster in brush than my old M94 .30-30 with iron sights. Actually it'd smack the crap outta one a them little blackies at 50 yards. I watched an old gal about 60 years old last fall put the sneak on a big old 7x7 bull elk. She kept a big old blue spruce between her and the bull and she got up to about 30 yards and then busted his butt. She was wearin cowboy boots, faded out wranglers, and a plaid shirt and she dropped him like a rock with her .30-30 with iron sights. It was funny he had been in a mud hole the day before and when that bullet hit, a big cloud of mud and dust poofed out, and drifted away. She got him in the spine in front of the shoulder, and his legs buckled and he went straight down.
 
A black bear isnt a tank.
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I strongly disagree. They are tougher than nails. I have seen them soak up enough lead to kill a charging rhino 3 times.

Where we hunt you either drop them on the spot or you are crawling into woods so thick that you can only see 5-10 feet so we now try for the spine.
 
I'd zero at 50 if the anticipated range isn't going to very outside the envelope presented, but 100 is fine. Truth is a MPBR setting is going to be only an inch or slightly higher at the range you are talking. I'd recommend a 1-4 power or fixed 2.5 for this style of shooting. You want to see the whole animal. Iron sights are fine, but I prefer to have my sights on the same visual plane as the animal.

Good luck on the hunt. I hope we get to see some pictures.
 
Fisherman66

Good comment on the scope. I have a Redfield 2-7 that is on my 742 Remington 30-06, so for those ranges I might just pull the old queen out of the gun safe and give her another chance in the accuracy department. If she fails my testing I'll take the Redfield off and put it on my 22 inch barrel Winchester M70 bolt action, also a 30-06. Thanks for bringing up the scope issue!
 
A 2-7 should be fine. Even a 3-9 would be okay, but much higher than that and FOV becomes an issue.

Just leave it at 2X. A 2-7 power is the jack of all trades.
 
and asked what bullet type he recomended and he stated that I should leave the Nosler Partitions or Speer Mag Tips home and use Remington Corelokt's.
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I would also question the Nimrods reasoning for making that recommendation.
If he is recommending a spier point over a round nose i might mildly agree. as I to like a round nose for thick cover knowing full well a 12 ga. slug is the best brush buster we have available.
 
Gbro

The outfitter that I plan on using was recomended to me by Michigan's foremost Black Bear Hunting authority. The outfitter was answering a question that I posed to him as to what type of bullet he felt I should use. I asked if he would recomend Nosler Partitions, Speer MagTips, or other controlled expansion bullets or if I should go with bullets more suitable for deer. His response was not to use the Nosler Partitions or Speer MagTips but I should instead go with CoreLokt's or Ballistic Tips. I believe that what he meant was to use a bullet that had quicker expanding characteristics. He didn't say to use pointed bullets so I just thought that the Sierra 180 grain round nose bullets would be a good choice. (quicker expanding characteristics) I may be wrong about the characteristics of this bullet so I wanted some input from others that may have used it before. Maybe I'll e-mail Sierra and ask their opinion of the comparatives between this bullet and the CoreLokt's. Most of the responders so far seem to feel that the bullet type is of no consequence. I guess that if I go for a shoulder breaking shot at short range they may be right. I fully admit that I am NOT well informed about bear hunting and am in the learning phase before my first ever bear hunt in September. I've been reading some on the subject and before I go on the hunt I should be able to "talk a good line" but that's all it will be....talk. It is my understanding that these fall bears are beefed up for winter and carry a lot of body fat so that's why I thought that the heavier constructed bullets would be a better choice. I think that my thinking must be a carry over from an article that I read in Outdoor Life Magazine years ago about a guy that felt the need for strongly constructed bullets due to heavy wet fur and layers of fat, not to mention heavy shoulder bone, taking a lot of energy from the bullet. At any rate, I just posted for some feedback on those Sierra bullets. Thanks for all the responses.:)
 
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