whats a good 9mm anti black bear round?

if using a gun you need some thing big, id say a 44 mag is the minimum.

but I think the best bet is the buy the strongest bear spray you can get for the bears. Save the 9mm for the 2 legged predators.
 
In this situation, the 9mm would only be useful to turn on yourself before the bear mauls you. You need a magnum round. If you can't afford a light weight magnum, like others have said, get the spray.
 
Forget about the cougar, because you would never see it coming.
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Not true in my experience. I've seen it coming, twice.

First time wasn't enough for me to have a "come to Jesus" regarding carrying guns in the back country. It took a second encounter before I dropped money on the notion.

Perhaps I'm in the blessed minority that has a repeated tendency to be stalked by mountain lion, and lucky enough to notice and do something about it.

I'll tell you that I "got by" with building a relatively wild, large, uncontrolled fire and was lucky I didn't burn down the forest both times. If I had a pistol, there would have been a dead cougar each time. And I'm 100% A-OK with dead cougar, when they reveal themselves as potential man stalkers. The first one tripped over one of my tent lines in the middle of the night and I scared it off with a flashlight, then lit a big fire. The second one (two years and 1500 miles away) screamed around the edge of my fire's light and I think it wanted to eat my 5' tall girlfriend at the time. It screamed around our camp for 10 minutes, less than 50 feet away from us around the giant fire.

OP:

If your southern black bear get no bigger than about 300 pounds, then a 9mm with FMJ-FN heavy ammunition will do okay. The goal is to hit the sinus gap in the skull below the eyes, behind the nose, when they charge. Cougar are not nearly as tough as most folks make them out to be. As long as you can get a shot off. They are spooky fast, and it takes good luck and awareness to even realize if you have one eyeing you.

However, I will not carry a 9mm in the back country, even here in AZ. We don't get huge bear here (maybe 400-500 pounds max, though 250 is about the norm). I'm just a believer in "wide meplat, heavy bullet, enough velocity" theories. Elmer Keith's Sixguns resides on my coffee table. I carry a 9mm around town, but in the woods I carry either a LW Commander in .45acp when weight is a concern and the environment doesn't support large critters, or a .44 magnum Redhawk when I have to have that extra power.

A "Wilderness" belt does wonders for back country support of a pistol.

Add to that an OWB holster with a wide belt mounting system that distributes the weight of the pistol around the belt as much as possible... rather than tiny narrow little loops that sag at your hip.

Another vote here for re-examination of your carry rig and do what needs doing to make the .44 your partner in the back woods and swamps.
 
Get the best pair of running shoes you can buy...good thing that

Glock is light, might gain you a step or two on the bear...

I would not shoot a bear with anything less than a .35 Remington out of a 336.


mark

added: Black bears here in PA are pretty much a non-issue. My brother and sister in law routinely hike the woods all over the Eastern United States armed with nothing more than a small pocket knife, have been doing this for decades, seen several black bears, never had any problems with them at all.

m
 
If you can believe what you read, these animals will avoid you. Bumping into a pig or bear with piglets or cubs seems to be the real danger. Cougars are nocturnal and few in number. Avoid startling by being noisy. I used to carry a police whistle in addition to my cannon when trekking in their world. Forget about the cougar, because you would never see it coming.
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Actually, cougars are more accuracte described as being crepuscular, not nocturnal, though they may hunt nocturnally or diurnally.

If your southern black bear get no bigger than about 300 pounds, then a 9mm with FMJ-FN heavy ammunition will do okay. The goal is to hit the sinus gap in the skull below the eyes, behind the nose, when they charge.
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Right, when the bear is charging you, azredhawk44 wants you to be able to land your shots in an area maybe comprising 5 square inches. This will be most easily accomplished if the bear is charging you at full speed, about 30-35 mph as in their fastest run, their gait actually produces less head motion than when they lope or jog at you at slower charging speeds that produce considerable vertical motion of the head. So a fast run will give you a more stable target but much less time for you to make your fairly precise shot. Of course the best part is that the shot will get easier and easier as the bear gets closer and closer.

Oh, and it isn't the sinuses you want to hit, but the CNS behind them, particularly the brain. Keep in mind that if you shoot below the eyes and your shot isn't absolute in the center, you stand the chance of having the round actually passing laterally by the skull, through soft tissue, with no CNS damage. You see, the bear skull is really quite narrow save for the zygomatic arches which protrude laterally that give the bear's skull much greater physical width.

If you end up shooting that spot below the eyes from too much of a downward angle, you run the risk of the bullet passing beneath the cranium and potentially not doing any CNS damage. Remember that using external landmarks to hit internal structures depends on having a 3 dimensional concept of what you are doing. It isn't just the external shot placement that matters, but the trajectory through the body and the amount of penetration attained.
 
I would say a hot FMJ but I strongly encourage you to use pepper (bear) spray. Not only is there strong evidence that it works better than a bullet, but you will be in deep doo-doo if you kill a bear in Louisiana or Mississippi.
 
I think I may just answer this guy's question. I think that the answer to this is probably something from double tapp or buffalo bore. I've heard that heavy-for-caliber bullets penetrate better, but I've also heard bad things about 147's. I'd probably go with a 124 grain fp like the buffalo bore penetrator ammo. There's a reason NATO went with a 124+P and not a 115. The 147 flat point would be ok. There is a Fiocci 158, but I would only use that for a suppressed gun for fun.
 
I'll tell you that I "got by" with building a relatively wild, large, uncontrolled fire and was lucky I didn't burn down the forest both times. If I had a pistol, there would have been a dead cougar each time. And I'm 100% A-OK with dead cougar, when they reveal themselves as potential man stalkers. The first one tripped over one of my tent lines in the middle of the night and I scared it off with a flashlight, then lit a big fire. The second one (two years and 1500 miles away) screamed around the edge of my fire's light and I think it wanted to eat my 5' tall girlfriend at the time. It screamed around our camp for 10 minutes, less than 50 feet away from us around the giant fire.
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I was deer hunting one year with my dad. We had a "horse-camp", so we'd tie one horse at night, and turn the other loose to graze. The next night we'd switch which one was tied.

One night I heard a mt lion scream from nearby, and then spend the next hour or so out babysitting the horses. Dad didn't come out of his tent, so I guess he figured I could handle it.

I never saw that lion, but the horses could sure enough see it. I lit a lantern and hung it next to them (they were together, since my paint had joined dad's bay that was tied that night). All I had to do was watch the horses to know where the lion was, and it would scream from time to time.

I stayed out 'till the horses settle down, and then went back to sleep. Pretty eerie night, though.

I've always kept a handgun handy when outdoors. It's provided more than a few meals for me, too.

Daryl
 
Not enough gun if you are truly concerned about a bear encounter. Otherwise I would choose something like he Buffalo Bore Penetrator round and certainly a FMJ bullet. Police officers have told me that they have trouble sometimes euthanizing deer along the highway with 9mm and you want to feel comfortable with a 9mm on bear? Personally, bears are the least of your problems wading around in swamps.
 
Are you a reloader or are we restricted to only recommending factory loaded ammo?

I'm not going to get into criticizing you about the premise of your question: I figure you know your own reasons and circumstances better than I do.

About the chances of bear attack: that statistic rises to 100% when you are actually being eaten by a bear. I knew a guy who was struck by lightning. That doesn't mean I'm going to walk around the woods wearing a metal grounding strap...but I'll bet he wished he was wearing one that day!
 
It is not hard to answer a simple question guys.
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Over and over and over and over and over again. What handgun for bear is my least favorite topic on here -- one that has been kicked around, stomped on and beaten absolutely to death.

Like several others here, I've spent a ton of time in the woods, particularly in the mid-Atlantic states and particularly in areas where black bear are extremely common. I've never been chased or eaten alive. I don't know anyone else who has been, either. I've come close to peeing my pants a few times when we've surprised each other, but that was the worst of it.

The most serious encounter I've ever had in the woods was with a fearless spike buck in the middle of the Appalachian Trail in the Shenandoah National Park. He decided he wasn't going to move and wanted to fight. I had to jab him with my trekking poles to get him to go.

The best answer for the which handgun, which caliber question I like to give is that the gun should have the front sight filed off for easier rectal insertion (that's you, not the bear). The best 9mm, should you have to use it in an emergency situation, is the one you use on yourself as you're being eaten alive.

Who knows, though? I've seen giant swamp monster 600 lb black bear when I lived in eastern NC, and in those areas, you really would be an idiot to go around with anything less than a .30-06 or slug gun. In my typical run-ins, these are 150-250-lb bears. Bears are physiologically much different than men, but we think a 9mm can handle a 250 lb man.
 
knew a guy who was struck by lightning. That doesn't mean I'm going to walk around the woods wearing a metal grounding strap...but I'll bet he wished he was wearing one that day!
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I was hit by lightning in a parking lot Lightning continues to scare the p**** out of me during big storms and when lightning is very close (as in hitting trees near me) and I'm not in a vehicle. The strike odds seem a bit high to me. I used to spend huge amounts of time in the woods alone.

I have seen a fair number of black bear in the woods, but only one really scared me. I was working in WV at the time. My brother had a big black bear sniff his ground blind with him in it during archery season. There were some tense moments since he could have touched probably a 400 lb bear with an arrow. No harm done except for the underware. All he needed was a picnic basket.
 
Most black bears are quite small in general but they have reached nearly 900 pounds in the wild, the size of a large grizzly

Adult Weights: Wild male black bears of breeding age usually weigh between 125 and 500 pounds, depending upon age, season, and food. Very well fed bears can be heavier. The record is 880 pounds in Craven County, North Carolina, and a close second from northeastern Minnesota weighed 876 pounds on September 5, 1994. Wild females usually weigh between 90 and 300 pounds with the heaviest known female weighing 520 pounds in northeastern Minnesota on August 30, 1993. Black bears in captivity may exceed these records.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/outdoors/s_422836.html

http://hunting.maitt.org/bear-hunting/world-record-black-bear-800lbs-624406.html

It's not necessarily surprising that Seman's bear was as big as it was, or that two of the top four bears ever recorded have come from Pennsylvania, said Mark Ternent, the Game Commission's black bear biologist. The state routinely produces some of the largest bears in North America, with five weighing in excess of 800 pounds and 16 weighing in excess of 700 pounds recorded since 1986. It stands to reason that the skulls of those bears would be equally large, Ternent said.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/outdoors/s_422836.html

So I agree with many that note all handguns are not adequate, but 9 mm against one of those above? Sorry, but I will start with at least a .44 for some form of bear protection, once again recognizing it is a still a pee shooter against such a potentially large and powerful animal.
 
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