What to look for in a bear defense shotgun?
- Thread starter Rustle in the Bushes
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Yikes, back to the buck shot vs slug discussion. No brainer in my opinion, slugs all the way if you use a shotgun for bear defense. If you spend a bit of time looking at the different penetration tests done by law enforcement and others, it is readily obvious that buck shot is used for close range, two legged predator defense. Once you are out past 30 yards, some buck shot has such a large spread that you are lucky to get one or two buck shot in the target area. For a polar bear within a 100 yards, yikes!!
In addition to the issue of spread, buck shot just doesn't have the penetration to make it a reliable bear defense option. Yes, folks have killed large bear with a .22 LR, but is that a reliable option? I wouldn't count on it, but if was all I had, I would hope and pray for luck. However, luck is not something you can rely on. Neither is buck shot even though there are some limited examples of bears killed with buck shot. It is just not a money shot for sure and you are really gambling with your life. Yes, luck would be the operative word.
In addition to the issue of spread, buck shot just doesn't have the penetration to make it a reliable bear defense option. Yes, folks have killed large bear with a .22 LR, but is that a reliable option? I wouldn't count on it, but if was all I had, I would hope and pray for luck. However, luck is not something you can rely on. Neither is buck shot even though there are some limited examples of bears killed with buck shot. It is just not a money shot for sure and you are really gambling with your life. Yes, luck would be the operative word.
@sweetshot I can't believe they authorized him to empty his magazine multiple times into a bear at over 50 yards. Yes they will cover ground quickly but damn, I'd surely not want to explain I was defending myself at 75 yards.
Here's a wrench into the equation, what do you all think about the newer/growing in popularity large bore AR chamberings for bear defense? .458 SOCOM, .450 Bushmaster, .50 Beowoulf, etc.
Fastest follow up shots available, large rounds, would probably have to look hard for a bonded bullet but assuming you could find one what do you think? I've been thinking these would be great bear defense in the AR platform because with the stock collapsed its short and handy with follow up shots as easy as they get.
Here's a wrench into the equation, what do you all think about the newer/growing in popularity large bore AR chamberings for bear defense? .458 SOCOM, .450 Bushmaster, .50 Beowoulf, etc.
Fastest follow up shots available, large rounds, would probably have to look hard for a bonded bullet but assuming you could find one what do you think? I've been thinking these would be great bear defense in the AR platform because with the stock collapsed its short and handy with follow up shots as easy as they get.
Hi ripnbst! The point was that if a polar bear is coming at you, he wants to eat you, and if he's at or within 100 yards and coming, it's likely your first shot will be a lot closer given his speed. There's usually not a question of self defense when it's within a hundred yards. It just is! (Unless he spins on you and you hit him in the back...... 
) Point and shoot multiple times is your only defense. Slugs are best.
) Point and shoot multiple times is your only defense. Slugs are best.Rustle in the Bushes
New member
what!
^ Nawh- I aint looking for bears. Its good to know though that theres some insurance in the car when you're camping or whatever. TBH it should be pointed out that the best defense is not to be an idiot- properly store food, keep food smells away, make noise in bear country, if you see a bear back away while facing it, stay away from mama bears etc etc... I take no small amount of pride in the amount of friggin awesome Canadian wildlife/animals were blessed with up here and would never want to shoot a bear. there are much better tasting animals.
I have a big respect for these things that was taught to me from a young age- my dad came pretty close to getting gutted when he and a friend wandered through the bushes, no shirt, no spray, no gun. Came across what must have been one angry, hungry bear cause the thing defied convention and just charged. thankfully it was deep brush which they think slowed the thing down as they made a panicked 5 minute dash back to the boat. They hit the beach screaming for us to get off the beach and into the boat and we took off. Funny thing was we were with a hunter who forgot his jacket on the beach. he circled the boat around, got out to go get his jacket and the bear surprise charged him from the woods. he was back in the boat so fast and probably pooped himself even faster.
^ Nawh- I aint looking for bears. Its good to know though that theres some insurance in the car when you're camping or whatever. TBH it should be pointed out that the best defense is not to be an idiot- properly store food, keep food smells away, make noise in bear country, if you see a bear back away while facing it, stay away from mama bears etc etc... I take no small amount of pride in the amount of friggin awesome Canadian wildlife/animals were blessed with up here and would never want to shoot a bear. there are much better tasting animals.
I have a big respect for these things that was taught to me from a young age- my dad came pretty close to getting gutted when he and a friend wandered through the bushes, no shirt, no spray, no gun. Came across what must have been one angry, hungry bear cause the thing defied convention and just charged. thankfully it was deep brush which they think slowed the thing down as they made a panicked 5 minute dash back to the boat. They hit the beach screaming for us to get off the beach and into the boat and we took off. Funny thing was we were with a hunter who forgot his jacket on the beach. he circled the boat around, got out to go get his jacket and the bear surprise charged him from the woods. he was back in the boat so fast and probably pooped himself even faster.
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The gun you have is fine. Just load it up with the hardest and heaviest slugs you can get your hands on.
You should get a backup pistol or revolver as well.
As others have mentioned .44 magnum is a great choice, .41 magnum is excellent as well. However another viable option is 10mm. The more powerful 10mm loads are not that much less powerful than the lower-powered .41 and .44 magnum rounds people often actually end up using in their guns. With less kick, smooth action, and far more rounds in a magazine, it should be easier to achieve multiple hits on target, and penetration and damage per round won't be too much worse than with the magnum rounds. If .41 is passing through a bear sideways then 10mm should get over halfway through.
Don't just listen to me though.... Denmark sends 2 men teams out on extended patrols (4 months, thousands of kilometers in dog sledges) in the dead of winter in northern Greenland. They give them a .308 Bolt action for hunting/survival (bolt for reliability in extreme cold weather), and a Glock 20 for polar bear defense (apparently also highly reliable in extremely cold weather). They aren't the only ones to believe in this round for bear defense. 10mm is actually fairly common for this purpose in Alaska since it is the most powerful "common" non-magnum pistol round available, and many people don't feel comfortable with the size and weight of big magnum revolvers, nor the kick of magnum rounds.
So if you don't already have a pistol/revolver for defense, you might want to consider a Glock 20. Load it up with 16 rounds of 10mm, stick it in a holster, and you are ready to go.
You should get a backup pistol or revolver as well.
As others have mentioned .44 magnum is a great choice, .41 magnum is excellent as well. However another viable option is 10mm. The more powerful 10mm loads are not that much less powerful than the lower-powered .41 and .44 magnum rounds people often actually end up using in their guns. With less kick, smooth action, and far more rounds in a magazine, it should be easier to achieve multiple hits on target, and penetration and damage per round won't be too much worse than with the magnum rounds. If .41 is passing through a bear sideways then 10mm should get over halfway through.
Don't just listen to me though.... Denmark sends 2 men teams out on extended patrols (4 months, thousands of kilometers in dog sledges) in the dead of winter in northern Greenland. They give them a .308 Bolt action for hunting/survival (bolt for reliability in extreme cold weather), and a Glock 20 for polar bear defense (apparently also highly reliable in extremely cold weather). They aren't the only ones to believe in this round for bear defense. 10mm is actually fairly common for this purpose in Alaska since it is the most powerful "common" non-magnum pistol round available, and many people don't feel comfortable with the size and weight of big magnum revolvers, nor the kick of magnum rounds.
So if you don't already have a pistol/revolver for defense, you might want to consider a Glock 20. Load it up with 16 rounds of 10mm, stick it in a holster, and you are ready to go.
The 10 mm is nearly identical in many ways to the .357 magnum in ballistics. I am not sure I would want to use either for a polar bear, grizzly bear or even a large black bear, but it has served in those capacities on more than one occasion.
12 ga with slugs delivers enough business with proper shot placement to do the job. It does come with a high level of recoil but at the point in time you have a charging bear, recoil is the last thing that will bother you in that situation.
12 ga with slugs delivers enough business with proper shot placement to do the job. It does come with a high level of recoil but at the point in time you have a charging bear, recoil is the last thing that will bother you in that situation.
Different Circumstances, People, Different Choices
Sorry, but you're not hitting a charging bear at 100 yards and probably not at 30 yards either unless you're hunting, on you're terms. And like you'd get that much warning if you're the prey... Forget pepper spray -- a charging bear running into a jet of 10 hardened .36 pellets is stopping. Don't care which way the wind is blowing. And the closer it is the stoppeder it will be. Have to hit it in the eye? At 10 meters I would defy you to i.d. the head...
The trade-off is multiple addequate hits or any at all vs. none or an ineffective one. It is naive to think such a load isn't powerful enough to stop a bear.
Sorry, but you're not hitting a charging bear at 100 yards and probably not at 30 yards either unless you're hunting, on you're terms. And like you'd get that much warning if you're the prey... Forget pepper spray -- a charging bear running into a jet of 10 hardened .36 pellets is stopping. Don't care which way the wind is blowing. And the closer it is the stoppeder it will be. Have to hit it in the eye? At 10 meters I would defy you to i.d. the head...
The trade-off is multiple addequate hits or any at all vs. none or an ineffective one. It is naive to think such a load isn't powerful enough to stop a bear.
^^^ Yea , thats why you see many guides on bear hunts using buckshot or 22's (as in your earlier post) as back-up guns. 
Get real Gerhardt!
The scary part about your last post and the one prior to the last, is, I really think you believe what you're implying.
As a kid, I used to kill squirrels with a slingshot, but that's not what is best to hunt them with.
The thread is: What to look for in a bear defense shotgun.....not ... What can possibly kill a bear.
Get real Gerhardt!
The scary part about your last post and the one prior to the last, is, I really think you believe what you're implying.
As a kid, I used to kill squirrels with a slingshot, but that's not what is best to hunt them with.
The thread is: What to look for in a bear defense shotgun.....not ... What can possibly kill a bear.
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Dear Gerhard,
What is it about buckshot that appeals to you as a bear defense option? Everything that I have read from those that have been eye ball to eye ball with the critters centers on penetration and stopping power. The fact that at 30 yards, half of your pellets will likely never hit the critter or if they do hit will be absorbed in their several inches of hide and fat let alone their massive bony skeleton without ever reaching any vital organs should be of upmost importance in the decision on what type of bear defense a person chooses.
Bears are quite fast and waiting until it is 10 yards away is not a good survival choice as well, but that is the range that you will have maximum penetration and lack of spread. Many legal DLP shootings take place at 30-50 yards which for a bear is only a couple of seconds between you. At those distances, the buckshot is rendered quite weak and innefective even for many black bears.
I just don't fathom the rationale folks have for a very good close range man stopper that does not translate well into the bear defense realm. Their is a purpose behind the designs of these firearms and intended uses. For me, the idea of buckshot is a close quarters combat round for urban use where over penetration is a factor to avoid. With bears, penetration is the whole ball game.
What is it about buckshot that appeals to you as a bear defense option? Everything that I have read from those that have been eye ball to eye ball with the critters centers on penetration and stopping power. The fact that at 30 yards, half of your pellets will likely never hit the critter or if they do hit will be absorbed in their several inches of hide and fat let alone their massive bony skeleton without ever reaching any vital organs should be of upmost importance in the decision on what type of bear defense a person chooses.
Bears are quite fast and waiting until it is 10 yards away is not a good survival choice as well, but that is the range that you will have maximum penetration and lack of spread. Many legal DLP shootings take place at 30-50 yards which for a bear is only a couple of seconds between you. At those distances, the buckshot is rendered quite weak and innefective even for many black bears.
I just don't fathom the rationale folks have for a very good close range man stopper that does not translate well into the bear defense realm. Their is a purpose behind the designs of these firearms and intended uses. For me, the idea of buckshot is a close quarters combat round for urban use where over penetration is a factor to avoid. With bears, penetration is the whole ball game.
TheKlawMan
Moderator
For what it is worth, Chuck Hawks thinks that a shotgun is a poor choice for bear defense. http://www.chuckhawks.com/firearms_defense_bears.htm
Hehe.. That was a pretty funny read. The entire thing boils down to "All that matters is Sectional Density"..... So does that mean I should melt down my pure platinum (almost exactly twice the weight of lead) wedding band and turn it into a few ~90 grain .22LR bullets for bear defense? SD would be .256, considerably better than all other handgun ammo he listed!
I like how he accuses someone else of not applying the scientific method properly (Taylor KO factor) and then his reason for ruling out shotgun slugs doesn't even involve the scientific method. SD only directly informs you of which round has superior penetration when ALL ELSE IS EQUAL. So basically that means it only applies directly when you are comparing two rounds of the same caliber with the same powder load, same shape and size, and the ONLY difference is that one weighs more than the other. It doesn't even apply if the only change is in diameter, because there is no way to have two rounds be the same size and shape if diameter changes, so all else is not equal. When all else is unequal all it does is provide a weak indicator of penetration capabilities.
His logic seems to be that penetration > all else. However, this leaves something vital out of the mix.... All Over-Penetration is wasted penetration. If a .30-06 passes right through the bear then wouldn't he have been better off with a fatter round of the same weight that can pass 90% of the way through? Bigger wound channel, more likely to hit something vital, less likely to be deflected away from vital organs by bone, and from every angle 90% through means if it was going to have hit a vital organ it will have done so already before it comes to a stop.
I am not disputing that heavy-round rifles are a good choice for bear defense. I am just saying that nothing about his reasoning for ruling out a shotgun makes any sense. If he could provide a good argument, more power to him, but this argument is just ridiculous on the face of it. For instance, by using SD as the only factor he does ridiculous things like places .22LR ahead of 12 gauge slugs and .357 magnum ahead of .44 magnum. This may or may not be correct in regard to raw penetration, I don't know because I haven't looked into the results of the few SCIENTIFIC tests done on this subject for all these rounds. What I do know though is that if a bear was coming at me I would rather have a 12-gauge with multiples slugs than any pistol or revolver out there.
Oh, and for what it is worth (nothing at all actually) 10mm/230 has an SD of .205. So clearly 10mm rounds are more powerful and deadly than .44 and .454 magnum rounds.
I like how he accuses someone else of not applying the scientific method properly (Taylor KO factor) and then his reason for ruling out shotgun slugs doesn't even involve the scientific method. SD only directly informs you of which round has superior penetration when ALL ELSE IS EQUAL. So basically that means it only applies directly when you are comparing two rounds of the same caliber with the same powder load, same shape and size, and the ONLY difference is that one weighs more than the other. It doesn't even apply if the only change is in diameter, because there is no way to have two rounds be the same size and shape if diameter changes, so all else is not equal. When all else is unequal all it does is provide a weak indicator of penetration capabilities.
His logic seems to be that penetration > all else. However, this leaves something vital out of the mix.... All Over-Penetration is wasted penetration. If a .30-06 passes right through the bear then wouldn't he have been better off with a fatter round of the same weight that can pass 90% of the way through? Bigger wound channel, more likely to hit something vital, less likely to be deflected away from vital organs by bone, and from every angle 90% through means if it was going to have hit a vital organ it will have done so already before it comes to a stop.
I am not disputing that heavy-round rifles are a good choice for bear defense. I am just saying that nothing about his reasoning for ruling out a shotgun makes any sense. If he could provide a good argument, more power to him, but this argument is just ridiculous on the face of it. For instance, by using SD as the only factor he does ridiculous things like places .22LR ahead of 12 gauge slugs and .357 magnum ahead of .44 magnum. This may or may not be correct in regard to raw penetration, I don't know because I haven't looked into the results of the few SCIENTIFIC tests done on this subject for all these rounds. What I do know though is that if a bear was coming at me I would rather have a 12-gauge with multiples slugs than any pistol or revolver out there.
Oh, and for what it is worth (nothing at all actually) 10mm/230 has an SD of .205. So clearly 10mm rounds are more powerful and deadly than .44 and .454 magnum rounds.
buckshot?
Remember that, at 10 meters, depending on the choke, that buckshot pattern will be from five to perhaps 20 inches wide. A three inch shell has 10 triple ought shot inside.
Easy to miss with the five inch pattern and the larger pattern may be ineffective because of the limited number of pellets.
Which pattern are you hitting the head with? ( a target moving over uneven ground at nearly 30 mph. A slug is not necessarily easier to hit with either.)
the problem with the buckshot load is that you must hit the head because the penetration is not there with those little .36 cal pellets at 1200 fps.
Miss the head with a slug and you are still going to get serious penetration. I'll leave it to others to argue over how effective that will be.
Is it ever optimal?
Pete
Remember that, at 10 meters, depending on the choke, that buckshot pattern will be from five to perhaps 20 inches wide. A three inch shell has 10 triple ought shot inside.
Easy to miss with the five inch pattern and the larger pattern may be ineffective because of the limited number of pellets.
Which pattern are you hitting the head with? ( a target moving over uneven ground at nearly 30 mph. A slug is not necessarily easier to hit with either.)
the problem with the buckshot load is that you must hit the head because the penetration is not there with those little .36 cal pellets at 1200 fps.
Miss the head with a slug and you are still going to get serious penetration. I'll leave it to others to argue over how effective that will be.
Is it ever optimal?
Pete
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What a coincidence!
Just watched the show 'Alaska State Trooper'.
Among other events, they showed one in which a hunter saw a bear carcass up in the tundra, came back and reported it. Trooper had to make a trip to the area to try and find out what killed bear.
He loaded up an ATV on the back of a trailer, climbed in his truck and headed for the area.
Upon arrival to area, he unloaded the ATV and started preparing to make the ride to where the bear was.
The first thing he did was get his 12ga. pump shotgun out , walk back to the tailgate of the truck and shucked all the buckshot out of the gun. As he reloaded the shotgun with slugs, he explained the reason for switching out the ammo. You need penetration and the slugs were best fit against running into possibly aggressive bears
He figured other bears would be in the area and there could possibly/probably be a bear feeding on the dead carcass. Too, the time that this happened, the sows had cubs and we know what happens should you get between momma and the little ones.
Well, the show ended un-eventful as when he arrived at the site where the carcass was supposed to be, it was gone. He explained another bear had more than likely dragged the carcass over the hill. But he did find signs of an illegal bait station in which there had been molasses dumped on tree limbs, dog food/corn scattered about.
Bottom line, if you're going into bear country where your chances are good of running into one of these big bruins, shuck the buckshot and carry the best ammo for the job...slugs.
Just watched the show 'Alaska State Trooper'.
Among other events, they showed one in which a hunter saw a bear carcass up in the tundra, came back and reported it. Trooper had to make a trip to the area to try and find out what killed bear.
He loaded up an ATV on the back of a trailer, climbed in his truck and headed for the area.
Upon arrival to area, he unloaded the ATV and started preparing to make the ride to where the bear was.
The first thing he did was get his 12ga. pump shotgun out , walk back to the tailgate of the truck and shucked all the buckshot out of the gun. As he reloaded the shotgun with slugs, he explained the reason for switching out the ammo. You need penetration and the slugs were best fit against running into possibly aggressive bears
He figured other bears would be in the area and there could possibly/probably be a bear feeding on the dead carcass. Too, the time that this happened, the sows had cubs and we know what happens should you get between momma and the little ones.
Well, the show ended un-eventful as when he arrived at the site where the carcass was supposed to be, it was gone. He explained another bear had more than likely dragged the carcass over the hill. But he did find signs of an illegal bait station in which there had been molasses dumped on tree limbs, dog food/corn scattered about.
Bottom line, if you're going into bear country where your chances are good of running into one of these big bruins, shuck the buckshot and carry the best ammo for the job...slugs.
Short... I seen that'n too...
For HD... Either will suffice and I feel pretty safe with the #3 buck in the 20ga. But for big critters, especially at any distance, it is slugs...
If I did my part payin' attention, chances are better that I have an increased distance from time I first know of the threat...
Brent
For HD... Either will suffice and I feel pretty safe with the #3 buck in the 20ga. But for big critters, especially at any distance, it is slugs...
If I did my part payin' attention, chances are better that I have an increased distance from time I first know of the threat...
Brent
