btmj said:
In my view, hunting is hunting... and combat is combat.
Hunting is about making ONE good shot on an animal. It is like sniping... firing from concealment or from a long distance. If you are going to make ONE shot on a large game animal, you need that bullet to be big, heavy, and powerful. Thus, really big game is taken with 458, 416, 375, etc...
I wouldn't really call it combat... I'd liken it more to self-defense. And the lawyers at ADF&G treat a DLP (defense of life and property) shoot of a bear more like a homicide investigation than most people would think. Using terms like 'combat' are ill-advised, even if there is a
small ring of truth to it...
Defending yourself against a large charging animal is not hunting, it is combat. And all militaries all over the world went to autoloading weapons a long time ago. In my view, the best bear/lion/tiger/bison/rhino defense weapon would be an M-240 machine gun loaded with armor penetrating 7.62x51... The idea is to put as many shots onto the moving target as possible.
Since there are legal and practical limitations to lugging a 25+ lb machine gun through the bush, we can look to the second choices.
The second choice would be a good semi-automatic military pattern rifle in 7.62x51... M1A, AR-10 style, FN FAL, etc. Another grand choice mould be an M1 garand.
In your view, you may be right. But reality is often different than our own biased views of what an ideal gun/cartridge is for such a situation. A .308 Win/7.62 NATO is a reliable man-stopper, it has proven to be so in combat for decades. The problem your theory has, again, is reality. You're talking about stopping a charging bear that weighs 1200+ pounds, running at you at 30mph... Forgive me if I don't endorse a .308...
Your counter-argument will likely be that you have 20+ rounds of .308 available in such a weapon... Again, your theory doesn't take reality into account... You will have time for 1-2 shots from any weapon. This isn't an open-battlefield charge by an opposing army or militia. This is a 1200+ pound bear at 30mph, at 25-50yds. You won't see them before that, and if you do; leave the area. 1-2, maybe three shots. These should be well-aimed, because you can't miss fast enough to stop a bear.
Another good choice MIGHT be an AR-10 style rifle re-chambered in 338 federal... 225 grain bullet with significantly more energy than a 220 grain 30-06.... as long as the recoil is not so excessive that followup shots are slow.
Again, your theory contradicts reality.
There's only about a 200ft/lb difference in energy between 200gr projectiles from both calibers. I can't imagine that 5gr would increase that margin any significant amount.
You're talking about (.338 Federal) a cartridge with a .308 Win case, necked-up to accept a .338 bullet... The .30/06 case is much longer, and puts the bullet out of the muzzle 100-300fps faster than a .338 Federal...
All of that to say this; .338 Federal and .30/06 are basically equal in this whiz contest...
A Bennelli 12 gage auto loaded with slugs and/or 000 buckshot... that might be the best choice of all.
Slugs. Buckshot does not have sufficient penetration to reach the vital organs, much less cause the instant blood-loss shock needed to stop the bear. And if you think buckshot has a snoball's chance in hell of getting through the bear's thick skull, you have another thing coming, and it's a ticked off bear with buckshot imbedded in its fur...