DOUBLE bear attack story.....

I have actually not been able to find a single verifiable (emphasis on verifiable) case of someone stopping a charging grizzly with a handgun. Zip. Doesn't happen. Or at least nobody has pulled it off yet. Bear spray at least works more often than not. So while I used to carry a Marlin .45-70 in grizzly habitat, I always carried bear spray too, and if I'd been limited to a handgun, the spray would have been my first response.

When the bear spray doesn't work, it also is worth trying to find out what kind of spray they used. I'm aware of at least one case where the ineffective "bear spray" turned out to have been ordinary anti-people pepper spray; no wonder the bear wasn't impressed.

Not having it at my fingertips, but having read it and it was verified, there was a guy in Alaska that did that very thing - 454 Casull + charging grizz and he killed it dead! It slid past him (he stepped out of the way) and it was a MONSTER.

Happened in the last couple years, so it's recent.
 
If I was foolish enough to hopple in "Bear County" I would carry a straight razor, hand grenade, and a bottle of bar-bq sauce. If the hand grenade didn't stop the bear, and the straight razor failed. I and would pour the bar-bq sauce over me. In this way at the gathering of the bear clan at the local watering hole, the "Jimmy Bear" could tell his Buds, " I had a really tasteful old crippled guy for lunch in spite of the winkles' and grey hair. These old guys are real easy to catch, once you get by the fresh poop".
 
I have actually not been able to find a single verifiable (emphasis on verifiable) case of someone stopping a charging grizzly with a handgun. Zip. Doesn't happen. Or at least nobody has pulled it off yet. Bear spray at least works more often than not. So while I used to carry a Marlin .45-70 in grizzly habitat, I always carried bear spray too, and if I'd been limited to a handgun, the spray would have been my first response.

When the bear spray doesn't work, it also is worth trying to find out what kind of spray they used. I'm aware of at least one case where the ineffective "bear spray" turned out to have been ordinary anti-people pepper spray; no wonder the bear wasn't impressed.


You make it sound like you got a lot of experience with bears.....

Have you personally used 'Bear Spray' to repel a charging bear.....Or the 45-70?

Jest wondering.



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Bigs ones......

Big ones go around 1600 LBS!!!!!! But if you punch them in the nose they will sit down and cry with their paws over their eyes.

Is this BS Looks like they go about 800 LB normally and some of the pictures on the web are probably doctored.

SIZE of the skull is probably a better measure due to the difficulty of weighing a bear deep in the north woods.

I see the official record for a skull is 27 3/8". That is very hard to imagine.

PS No, it's not BS. I see more reliable sources that say they average about 800 LBS but can reach 1500 LBS. The coastal bears are bigger than the inland variety. So I'd rather be attack in country where the bear in only four times bigger than I am.
 
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Well now thar Watchdog,

I've personally killed a bear that was tryin to run up my britches leg, with a 348 Winchester rifle...And lived to tell the tale. ;):D


Su Amigo,
Dave

Dave, I know it was serious at the moment, but the line "that was tryin to run up my britches leg" made me laugh. Very descriptive.

I've kicked a snarling angry black bear out of the brush, but then he wasn't a Mother Grizzly. As tough as he wanted to sound he knew if I got close enough I would shoot and eat him. He fled out the back.

I was chased by bulls twice when young. I flat out ran a Jersey bull thru the brush bending around trees like a world champ barrel horse. Twice I felt his breath on my back and I picked up speed.

I would think a grizz and a bull with a mean streak might waller one around in the dirt a while before any pepper spray worked.
 
I encountered bears fairly often when I was in Alaska..Interior grizzlies. As you said it is hard to judge weight on a bear..Spring up there they are much lighter in weight..fall much heavier as they pack the food away if available. The ladies would go out berry picking in a large group..many carried 30 carbines cause they were light and easy to carry and shoot. I mean 10 women with even 15 rounds each is a lotta lead. I did a little panning on my days off back in the bush and had encounters with black and grizzlies. They might look at you a bit but they always took off and disappeared. I always went the other way. Looking at the bears I figured most weighed in the 350-450 range..Big claws..big teeth. I once watched one of average size chase marmots around up on the bare slope..Marmots went under rocks to hide and the bear would move rocks that weighed several hundred or more pounds...easily.... and still catch the marmot. It was a kinda funny spectacle..but not for the marmot of course. Here in Wyoming I think the average weight may be 400 lbs...but I've never gotten that close to one and don't want to. I see one almost every time I hunt elk until the late season when they den up for the most part. They may look at you and amble off...but unlike Alaska they seem to have no fear of humans. Many are YNP problem bears moved to other places so they may have had many encounters with humans. They predate on new born elk calves pretty often. Between them and the wolves there are many places with low populations of elk..especially south of Yellowstone. With no hunting seasons on either there is no way to reduce the populations of either... also meaning there will probably be more bear/human encounters. I meant to add..when in the bush I carried a Winchester M-12 riot gun loaded with 7 slugs and carried an old Ruger flattop 44.
 
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The victim of the attack that is the topic of the original post wrote a detailed account on his Face Book. That has been copied and pasted to a thread in the lounge on Ruger forum dot com.

Now I suppose I am obligated to make some comment on how I go about fighting Grizzly bears. While whacking heads and arms off zombies and big foot I only use the pen blade of my Case Peanut. That saves the edge on its master blade for Grizz.
 
Having spent a bit of time in the back country,
many miles a horseback from town.

I have a very serious respect for bears of all kinds.

Back before chemical sprays to detour bears were commonly
thought to be a defense against same......

I've always carried a heavy caliber sidearm & a short heavy
caliber rifle as personal defense against being chewed up in the wilds.

But, when it comes right down to the nut cuttin'.....
Sometimes ya got to go with whatcha got.

I think he (MT Game Warden Lou Kis) had a S&W model 66.

(Photo No. 14 of 22)

Grizzly Attack Caught on Camera | Field & Stream

This is the story I remembered when I read the "never zero nada" comment. The pictures are good but I also remember it being taped. The sounds with it were something else. With the bear on top of him the sixth bang dropped the bear. Memory says M29. I'm going to find the video I'm hoping.
 
This is the story I remembered when I read the "never zero nada" comment. The pictures are good but I also remember it being taped. The sounds with it were something else. With the bear on top of him the sixth bang dropped the bear. Memory says M29. I'm going to find the video I'm hoping.


I too remember it being a video as well.......



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Dave, I know it was serious at the moment, but the line "that was tryin to run up my britches leg" made me laugh. Very descriptive.

I've kicked a snarling angry black bear out of the brush, but then he wasn't a Mother Grizzly. As tough as he wanted to sound he knew if I got close enough I would shoot and eat him. He fled out the back.

I was chased by bulls twice when young. I flat out ran a Jersey bull thru the brush bending around trees like a world champ barrel horse. Twice I felt his breath on my back and I picked up speed.

I would think a grizz and a bull with a mean streak might waller one around in the dirt a while before any pepper spray worked.


It was a lit'l on the comical side...........The short story of dealing with a pissed off bear.

A close friend and I were chasing the elusive wapiti.

Having tied the horses off after riding as high as we could.
After hiking our way into the black timber for a hour or so,
stopped for a short break and a glassing of the area ahead.

We had moved fifty yards or so and the brush below us started popping,
my sidekick had won the coin flip as to who
had first shot and he's a few steps ahead of me and a lit'l
higher ground. He is craning his neck like ET looking for a
ride home, thinking we had buggered an ol bull out of his bed.....

Well, out of the low brush boils this piss'd blackie, poppin it's teeth and wholff'n every jump.

I'm thinking my pard's gonna shoot, talk about tunnel vision...I'm locked on, I'm thinking somebody gonna have to shoot. So, at about 15 feet I thought it was close enough and let that bear have one at the point of the shoulder, that turned it and I gave it another between the shoulder blades and that was all she wrote as they say.

As we were skinning it out, I made the backhand'd comment to my ol cowboy partner, "Well, was ya gonna wait till she ran up my britches leg before you started shooting?"

His reply was just as curt, "Hell fire, I'm elk huntin' Bud!"


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