What ammo for 12 Guage for Colorado black bear protection

What 12 guage ammo should I use against a bear

  • 00 buck shot

    Votes: 7 6.7%

  • slug

    Votes: 80 76.2%

  • alternating both

    Votes: 18 17.1%
  • Total voters
    105
L

Lambdebois

New member
I'm curious if most feel 00 buck shot or a slug is better for black bear protection.
I also hear about alternating the rounds with one being the slug then next buck shot the a slug ect....
 
Slugs. I'm not sure what buckshot would do to a decent sized bear (**** him off?). I'm no expert here, but that's my $.02
 
When I used to live on the Western Slope, most folks out walking the dog or hiking carried a 357 or 44 and felt adequately protected. I would imagine that slugs would more than do the job .....with proper shot placement - THAT, IMO, is the key......
 
Slug all the way. IMO oo buck is for people:) A bear is a hearty animal and can take a pretty good hit and still do damage. They are one of the few animals that have been known to attack in the direction from which the injury came from, the other being a lion or wild piggy (mmmm pork chops):D
Breneke(spelling) makes a good slug and I also have Remingtons,and Winchesters. Just make your shot count, the last thing you want is to have to trail a wounded bear into thick brush:eek:. That gives me a pucker factor of about 8.
 
Its only a black bear man ....they aren't that aggressive unless you run into a sow with cubs / and you don't want to kill her except as a serious last resort... 90% of the time or more - you'll have plenty of time to back off from a black bear ( grizzly is different, but there aren't any Grizzly that far south anymore).

I would leave the shotgun at home / carry a revolver in .357 mag and it will be plenty for a black bear - if you had to use it. Black bears in the Rockies - just aren't that big ....they're more pests than anything. They do make good breakfast sausage / if you mix the bear meat with venison --but that isn't what you're asking about ...

I killed lots of black bear (but always with a rifle - and a .30-30 was plenty on white tail deer or black bear) - when I was hunting in northwestern Montana when I was a kid in the 50's and 60's / but as meat - throwing a rock or a piece of wood at one around the camp was about as much as you needed to do to scare one out of camp / or holler at them on a trail.
 
the guy said for protection, he's not going bear hunting,

so what's this again about trailing the wounded bear deep in the woods? Sorry, that seems like asking for additional trouble to me, yes as a hunter I would go the distance but other then that I'd say you are own your own mista bear.
 
katrina Guy,

No disrespect - but if you wound an animal, you have to track him and finish it. It isn't ethical to let him go / or worse yet, for someone else to come accross him - because a wounded black bear could very well be dangerous.
 
Link from a Google search listing fatalities from Black Bear attacks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_bear_attacks_in_North_America_by_decade

youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Br373JIsQWY

I'd sure pack something if I was going into bear country! Then there was the Discovery Channel I think it was, last month on the Black bear that attacked and killed two hikers, one of the hikers wasn't hiking but heard hollers and aided in fighting off the bear, he died on the scene, bear killing the female hiker and mauling her son also hiking...the bear was apparently hungry, based on the narrative of the tv program, as he was immediately eating upon the humans that he had just killed, ripping large chunks of flesh from their mangled bodies. That show also went on to say that while it's advised to play dead when undergoing a Grizzly attack, on the black bear side that doesn't fly, apparently, and fight for your life, as the television show's bear experts said.
Based on the above, perhaps not all Black Bears are chased away by thowing a stick at them and hollering.
 
Let's put things into perspective here Jim,

I'm bee bopping along in the woods hiking or whatever and a bear comes out of the blue and attacks me, or charges me, something to force me to pull out a firearm for my life, sorry, I'm not tracking into thick woods going after the bear for humane reasons and have me get ambushed or whatever, yea if I see him fall I'd probably go and finish him off kind of thing, but sorry, I'm not putting my life on the line for some wild beast that charged me or attacked me. We aint' talking white tail deer here alright, I consider your post equal to "hey, you knifed that shark attacking you on your blow up little rafty, and you didn't put on your snorkel to go finish him off?
Hunting is a different story, primarily because you are better armed to begin with.
Sorry, I wouldn't risk my life as a camper or a hiker tracking after a wounded bear in heavy brush, call the Park Ranger! My common sense overrules my humanity.
So, armed with a .357 the hiker/camper that should count his blessings he survived the charge/attack is with this whatever caliber, handgun, is to now go looking for trouble where before trouble came looking for him? I wonder if the Park Ranger would go by himself to finish off a wounded bear and I would assume they are armed with more then a .357
 
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Not really alternating... I would load a 00 for first shot. If the bear just flat out catches you off guard and appears mere feet in front of you the 00 may just work. The rest would be slugs.
Brent
 
Around here they are protected, i see alot of them, they take trash out of the dumpster and my pickup truck. They eat the azaleas, and more than a few times i have been within 20 ft of them with my fairly large dog barking bloody murder...they just stand there and stare or continue munching the flowers. Hunting, they aren't tough to kill, and they don't frequently get close to people, but once they are used to being around people...timid/elusive bear behavior goes out the window.
I vote slug.
 
They collect empty beer cans too!?

We got a bum around here that rumages through the trash cans all the time too, he resembles Charles Manson, ironically, we all call him "bear" LMAO
 
Katrina Guy - hey, we're fine my friend / but we do disagree...

I've probably hunted and killed 2 dozen black bear over the years in Northwestern Montana ... biggest male maybe dressed out at 200 lbs and honestly, they are more like white tail deer than they are Grizzly. They are just not aggressive animals in my experience. We hunted them for meat ( and White Tail deer and Elk primarily ).

From a very young age / I was in the woods with a handgun as a backup weapon ( fishing, hunting, etc ) - but I always hunted and shot Black Bear with a high powered rifle ( .30-30 / .30-06 ) and I don't recall ever needing a 2nd shot / or a black bear ever charging. They were easy to hunt / yesterday's white tail deer gut pile was our primary spot .... and if Grandma wanted 400 lbs of bear meat - that's what we went out and got / and 1200 lbs of deer meat, a few Elk - whatever ....

All this Bear talk - may have more to do with where you grew up / than anything else. I grew up in Montana ( no rattlesnakes, no snakes at all really ) .... but lots of Black Bear and Grizzly. Black bear were in town all the time / around the ranch ( that's why we had outside dogs ) and they were just more of a nuisance than anything. Grandma or one of my sisters were always chasing them out of the flower beds or one of the garden patches ( when the dogs were napping ..) - it just wasn't a big deal. If they came around too often - we added them to the freezer .... On the other hand, I am afraid of Snakes ( any and all of them / and you guys down south, that swim and water ski in the bayou's, etc are just plain nuts ..) with gators and snakes ( and bad snakes ..).

Grizzly are different. I've only killed one Grizzly ( about a 600 lb male ) - grandpa and I both tracked him / killed him after he came into our hunting camp, took a deer carcass off the drying rack in the night. It took 3 or 4 rounds to definitively knock him down and a few more to keep him down ...( at about 50 yards ) .... and we kept shooting until both rifles were empty / every time he growled or moved we nailed him again ( .30-06 and a .30-40 Krag ) - and truthfully I was still shaking an hour later ( I was about 15 or 16 ) ...

The last black bear encounter I had / a few years ago in Glacier Park - late summer. One was messing around on the porch of the cabin and woke my wife up / so I threw open the screen door - and smaked him with a piece of firewood and went back to bed ( no handgun or any gun in my hand ..). Maybe I'm lucky / maybe stupid - he has teeth and claws ... but I was tired and he was aggravating me. My wife asked me if it was ok, I said sure, go back to sleep ....( she was a little scared / so I closed the wood door instead of just the screen door ....and we went back to sleep ).

But maybe this is all based on your perspective.
 
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