RAfiringline,
I've seen the movie too, and the bear scene was quite amazing. The main rifle Dicaprio used in the movie was made by Ron Luckenbill, and it was a .50 caliber. I guess there were two of those rifles made for the movie. Though you see Glass using different firearms through the movie, I think the bear gun was the .50. That being said, how far do you figure that CGI bear was from him when he fired? 3 or 4 yards? Even less than that? That part, to me, when he fired, and that bear wincing at the shot, looked very well done on the screen. It looked like (and was) a good shot to the neck. Then, the enraged momma bear grabbed another gear and commenced the second go-round on Glass.
When the rifle was slowly brought up to fire by the already torn-up Glass, did you notice he deftly pulled the frizzen shut just before he fired? Even though you'd think his priming was gone after the bear knocked his gun out of his hands, you could justify easily enough that there was still "just enough" to fire the rifle...and there was (and that's Hollywood). After that next mauling, you could see the bear had her death wound by all that blood on it's neck, and she was getting a bit wobbly besides; then the knifing which ended the whole deal.
Let's say Dicaprio had a proper patched round ball load in his rifle with a 90 grain charge. A .490 RB weighs around 180 grains, and probably would be moving at 1700-1800 fps at the muzzle (?) out of a flintlock. At the range he shot the bear, that ball would penetrate well enough to cut the main artery and bleed out the bear fairly quickly, but surely wouldn't put it down immediately, which it didn't (IMO). At the angle of the shot, I don't believe there would be enough penetration of the ball to break the neck and drop the bear in it's tracks. Nothing but thoughts here, for sure. Muzzle-blast in that bear's face is fairly interesting to contemplate, too, but it sure didn't make any difference to Glass' bear, eh?
I've killed two buffalo with a .50 caliber percussion ball shooter, using the .490" patched round ball, and 100 grains of 2fg powder. They were both less than 40 yards away, and both dropped at the shots to just below each of the ears. I know the hide is quite thin in that area, and probably the same could be said of a bear if you had the broadside shot you could take just below the ear and break the neck. If you could make that shot on a bear at, say, 5 yds., I believe that bear would drop in it's tracks. Hope I never have to find out...and again, I'm just speculating here.
I've also killed enough deer and antelope with a traditional muzzleloader in both flint and percussion, using the patched round ball, to know you can shoot through the body cavities of those critters some of the time. Usually, the ball is a half-flattened out slug lodged against the hide on the far side of the shot. A couple of years ago I shot a mature doe whitetail with my .54 flinter, using 90 grains of 2fg black, and a .527" patched RB. At 82 yards (by my rangefinder) that ball passed completely through both lungs on that deer and out the far side of the hide, a complete pass-through. It ran about 50 yards and gave up the ghost. It's always cool to be able to retrieve those slugs out of a critter, and the ODGs most always did it when they could for reuse. In the early 1820s, mountain man James Clyman shot 3 buffalo using the same retrieved ball from the critters, reforming the lead projectile with his teeth to fit his rifle's bore. He was a bit low on ammo that time during a long walk he was taking...
The only time I can recall Dicaprio loading anything was right after he shot the elk in the beginning, and headed back to the fight that was commencing. All I saw him do was charge his rifle from the horn (a no-no) and spit a ball down the barrel without ramming. If that's how he was loaded when he had the bear encounter, he was in real trouble for sure, doubly. I enjoyed the movie, and didn't nit-pick too awful much. It's Hollywood, and though they didn't follow the real story, nor where it took place, it's surely worth seeing. The filming, guns, clothing and scenery was very good, indeed.
As a comparison, I believe a .50 caliber, patched round ball shooter with a charge of around 90-100 grains of 2fg black powder would be underpowered, and maybe not by too much, to a 30-30 Winchester with a proper smokeless charge and a 170 grn. bullet. The big difference would be the projectiles themselves; pure lead round ball, compared to a jacketed flat point. Just a comparison, but bullet placement, as we all know, is the key, and dead is dead.
reinert
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