Handgun Hunting Afield

 

Bear Vs. Man: How to be the winner.

 

“What most people fail to grasp is that hunting and self protection are two different things. Carefully placing a shot on an unwary bear when you are hunting with a .44, .454 or .500 is not the same as quickly trying to hit a rapidly, erratically moving target.”

                                      Phil Shoemaker

 

Jack and the bear.

Jack and his girlfriend went on a hike. He had recently retired and was enjoying life. Hanging on Jack’s belt was a Ruger Vaquero in .45 Colt with a 4 ⅝” barrel. In its cylinder were some stoutly loaded hardcast bullets. He was carrying this gun in this place for one reason. There were a lot of grizzly bears in the area. Jack had worked for the Wyoming Game and Fish Dept. He was more familiar than most with the behavior of bears and especially this time of year when sows had cubs along during their daily activities. In all of his years working this area he never had a dangerous episode with a bear. He was vigilant, keeping an eye out for bears and he knew as soon as he saw a bear what to do. Never run from them, stand your ground and raise your arms to appear larger than life. Even with this tactic he was always acutely aware of his service handgun. It worked for Jack and because he followed protocol, he lived to retire.

The Encounter.

On this beautiful day just a few miles into the hike Jack heard a single, unmistakable grunt. The bear was less than 20′ from his girlfriend but had clear intentions of making her a bear attack victim. At this point we interject another fact about Jack and his choice of firearms. Jack wasn’t your average shot. He had some SASS (Single Action Shooting Society) experience. Jack favored the Vaquero not because it was the best choice for everyone but because he was intimately familiar with it. He told me he only had time to take a step while drawing his gun,  put it on the back of the bear’s head and fire. The bear was stopped 10 feet from its intended target. He immediately called it in and he and his girlfriend ended their hike and headed out of the mountains. 

Investigation.

They accompanied the wardens to the scene of the charge the next morning for the investigation. Jack had actually participated in these investigations before so he was familiar with the protocol. Jack and his girlfriend  filled out their statements and the wardens had to compare the statements to the scene of the bear shooting. He told me he sat down on a big rock while they were examining the bear. That is when it hit him. He said he began to shake when he realised how close they came to examining the scene of a bear killing them vs. him killing the bear. Jack had actually worked with part of the wardens investigating the shooting. He said it was a very serious thing if they declared the shooting unjustified. After they had already looked things over, one of them walked over to Jack and said “ nothing to worry about, there are powder burns on the back of the bear’s head.” Reaction time and practice saved their lives. 

Why it matters. 

Since I am planning on hunting moose in Alaska with a handgun,  I decided to take the handgun vs. bear scenario a bit more seriously. I already had several handguns that were probably up to the task of fighting a bear. My initial plan was to take my G20 Glock 10MM with some heavy hardcast or mono-metal bullets such as Cutting Edge Bullets 190 grain solid. After watching videos and reading articles on handguns vs. bear charges, specifically 10MM vs. .44 Magnum, the only conclusion I could draw was that most of it was based on conjecture. There wasn’t a definitive answer to the question “which is best.”  What I learned was that in successful dangerous encounters the person pulling the trigger was alert and had experience shooting the gun used to successfully stop an attack. Another factor usually omitted is that bear attacks aren’t just brown bears or grizzlies. There have been two fatal bear attacks this year less than 300 miles from where I am sitting as I type. Black bears that have lost their fear of humans are becoming a real issue. People mistake their cuteness as being docile. For that reason this applies to them as well.

More bear attacks.

Actually knowing Jack and knowing his situation I decided to find out what happened from more people that had actually been in a shootout with a bear. Conjecture is only good till the bear is real and attacking you. So what did I learn?  Everyone that I was able to contact was able to stop the attack with a gun. The part that will go against the grain of some experts is that many of these attacks didn’t end instantly with a picture perfect head shot. An initial shot was fired hitting the bear while under duress and the bullet impact was enough to either stall the charge and allow for a precisely aimed shot or cause the bear to run off. Not quite what you get off of YouTube but it is an infallible truth. While I was able to research many attacks, here are a few actual shootouts. 

Shots fired!

One attack was thwarted with a single shot from a .44 Magnum using a 310 grain hardcast bullet fired from a .44 magnum. The bullet missed the center of the head and traveled down the side of the neck into the body of the grizzly. It  penetrated through the top of the lungs, through the guts and stopped in one of the bear’s hind legs. It dropped the bear on the spot. The bear was still moving so he emptied his gun in the bear for insurance. In this case the shooter knew there was a bear in the area that he had already encountered so he was very alert. Awareness and quick shooting saved his life. 

Stumbling into Bears.

In another case two hunters out scouting for moose accidently walked up on a bear feasting on a moose kill. They were walking through thick alders and young birch trees. As they said “it happened fast”. They had already caught wind of something dead so they were on high alert. Because of the heavy brush their view of the bear was obscured. They both had drawn their guns as they worked through the alders.  The bear stood up 10 yards from them and just seconds later charged. They only had time to aim at the center of mass and start shooting. The bear was hit several times,  but a bullet that hit the spine stopped the charge. The bear was only 5 yards from them when it stopped. They were using G20 Glocks. They had a lot of experience with G19s so they were already familiar with the G20. Brett said that he shoots quite a bit with the G19 and G20 which keeps his shooting skills sharp.  Staying alert and  carrying handguns they were familiar with along with reaction time saved their lives. 

Wounded Bear.

The next attack happened while a guide was following up on a wounded bear  in Alaska. He has had to follow up on bears several times when the client didn’t make the best shot. On this occasion he had a bear laid up in an alder thicket that was hit badly. I used to play in the alder thickets as a kid. You can barely walk through them but a bear can run through them.The client shot when he told him not to, right as the bear reached the thicket. John was still evaluating the bear with binoculars when the rifle shot surprised him. He told me he saw the bullet impact the bear on its butt. He made the decision to back out till the next morning. Then he went into the alder thicket with his guide rifle.  He spotted the bear at about 50 yards as just a dark spot. The bear immediately charged. He fired 4 shots. 3 of them hit the bear. That is no small feat with a bear running in alders. The killing shot went through an alder limb then hit the bear in the head killing it. Staying calm and continuing to fire in a bad environment saved his life. 

Blackhawk and the Bear.

Nate had just killed a moose and returned with a couple of buddies to help skin it and pack it out. He has been involved with several bear attacks while working for the state of Alaska. On this day he was packing a Super Blackhawk loaded with 250 grain Keith bullets running about 1300 fps. He told me that he had been using 300 grain loads and the followup time between shots was too long. The bear, a large boar, came in to take over his moose kill. Nate drew his .44 Magnum and killed the bear. He said if he had known they were going to be attacked he would have had a slug gun with Brenneke slugs. Now carries a G20 Glock for faster followup shots. He has had to stop a bear with it as well. Awareness and experience saved his life. 

 

What does it take to stop a bear charge?

There are established power levels that we know will kill a bear with a CNS shot. That simply means choosing a gun chambered in a proper cartridge using good ammo, that is capable of penetrating a bear skull and doing significant damage to the brain or spine. The 10MM and .44 Magnum are both capable of breaking through the bear skull and stopping the CNS. There are several accounts of bears being stopped or delayed from finishing their attack when the bullet missed the head and traveled through the body, while doing significant damage along the way. The X-factor is the person pulling the trigger. In 90% of the actual attacks in which I was able to uncover the details for, the deciding factors were reaction time, accuracy and bullet performance. From attacks that I was able to gather details on, the most important factor was the readiness of the shooter. While not as romanticized as the gun and cartridge used, it is the most important factor. Part II will deal with that in detail. 

 

The test guns and ammunition.

Of course the original plan was to decide between a 10MM and  .44 magnum. Most of the successful bear fights with automatics were won by Glock G20s using 180 to 220 grain hard cast bullets. Buffalo Bore’s most popular 10MM ammo is the 220 grain. In digging up bear and moose attack data this load is the load most often cited. I procured some of that load to have the most accurate picture of how it performs. 

The 44.

  Most of the successful bear stops I can find with revolvers were stopped with .44 Magnums but with a variety of bullets and loads. The bear stops with .44 were more varied in ammo choice but some were by chance encounters and used expanding bullets. What I could dig up on them was that in the cases where a detailed necropsy was done they didn’t penetrate very deep. Obviously they worked because the attack victim lived to tell about it. For individuals purposefully carrying .44 Magnums for bear defense the answer was mostly hard cast bullets in the neighborhood of 300 grains with large meplats and one individual that has actually had several bear encounters changed to loads using the 250 grain Keith bullet. The ammunition  issued to the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game field staff is with 300 to 310 grain hard cast bullets. He told me it depended on availability when they ordered. Having discussed this in the past with my friend Randy Garrett, former owner of Garrett Cartridge, I remembered our discussion about the 310 grain defender load. He said it wasn’t his most powerful load but it was powerful enough to completely penetrate the skull of a bear and it would work from regular length .44 Magnum cylinders like the Super Blackhawk and the S&W model 29 and 629. Because the velocity is lower, the bullet is more likely to stay together when encountering heavy bone. It also has less recoil than many heavy loads so that followup shots can be made with more control. In my case I bought a 4.2” Redhawk .44 Magnum. This is the sidearm issued to A.D.F.G. employees. 

Two Main Choices.

Since both the 10MM and the .44 Magnum have proven their ability to kill a bear the X factor has to be the shooter’s ability to use one or the other as efficiently as possible. 

 

Where do we go from here?

We know which guns and ammunition  were used effectively. How do we put them to good use?

In many of the bear attacks I was able to get details on, the shooters, knowing they were going into bear country practiced with the guns and ammunition  they were actually going to carry for protection. I contacted Michael Harrington who is the Chief Firearms and Wildlife Safety Instructor, Alaska D.F. and G. He said they train their staff that are going to be in harm’s way with dangerous animals such as bears and moose. He provided detailed information about their training regimen. There is simply not enough room in this article to go through the training and drills that have proven successful against dangerous animal attacks. Stay tuned for 

10mm vs. .44 Magnum: Part 2.

 

Stay safe and happy hunting.-RDY

 

Special thanks to:
Mr. Phil Shoemaker, Professional Alaska Guide

Randy Garrett, former owner of Garrett Cartridge

Mr. Michael Harrington, Chief Firearms and Wildlife Safety Instructor, Alaska DFG

Don, Jack, Brett, John, Tim, Nate, Doug and Chuck