bear hunters undergunned ?

[460or338]

how much energy or momentum does a charging bear have?And how much would it take to make him roll back.Maybe not kill him but stop him.Or is a big diameter bullet needed to hit him to deliver more of the energy.



I just think instead of hitting a bear with a convetion round hitting him with a 460 wby or larger would be like hitting him with a truck @ 50 mph .

[phorwath]

That knock back effect as in a railroad engine car hitting a bear wouldn't occur even with a 50 BMG round, shooting a 50 caliber 750 grain bullet at 2700 fps. Any time a large (300+ lb) game animal does the acrobatics thing at the time of bullet impact, it's not because the energy of the bullet moving the mass of the animal. It's due to the animal's nervous system and muscle response to the bullet impact. Believe me. I have shot a substantial piece of birch firewood with a .460 Wthby before, and it didn't even knock it over. Range ~ 15 yds. Birch log was about 22" long and 16" in diameter.

Mythbusters rans a show on the 50 BMG hitting a human dummy to see whether or not the impact of the bullet against a solid steel plate placed in the center of the chest cavity would throw the human dummy backwards and to the ground. Never happened, even with the bullet not penetrating the steel plate planted in the dummy. Very unimpressive. After seeing that you'ld want to take a bazooka out bear hunting.

The bright side is that that isn't how bullets kill animals, so you dont need the pile-driver force. Bullets kill game by short circuiting their nervous system when it comes to the instant death kills, or by damaging vital organs, creating massive blood loss, loss of blood pressure leading to unconsciousness, and in short order - death.

You go bear hunting, you better go on a guided hunt. Something on the show you watched has evidently gotten you good and spooked.

[460or338]

well like when you fire a gun with 100 ft lb of recoil you walk back a few steps .Now how come getting hit with a bullet with 800x the force wont move you? is it because the surface area of the bullet is way smaller than that of the gun stock ?.


also a bear has 21,000 ft lbs of momentum running 30 mph 700 lb bear . I figured to push him back or stop him with pure energy you would need almost half that?.Like the a10 warthog the recoil of the gun or gattling gun recoil is half the thrust of the jet's engines so it sl.ows it down or can push it backwords.but once again i think recoil has more surface area to act on can move objects with pure energy

[460or338]

would you need like a super hollow point to deliver more energy?

[Paparock]

Aim for the nose.

[Iowaboy]

Hey 460or338,

Thinking about being able to knock him off his feet reminds me of when I took my concealed weapons class. Our instructor was a law officer. He told us that no matter what the movies show it doesn't matter what gun you are shooting. He said that he has seem guys go down with a couple rounds from a 9mm, where other guys they have had to shoot have taken multiple 9mm, 45cal and 12 gauge buckshot rounds and stayed on there feet. It really just depends on the circumstance whether or not they go down immediately.

His point was to carry what ever you could put the most shots on target with in the shortest time. When it comes to saving your own life shots on target do more good than several misses with a big gun that recoils more!

That said, I qualified with my 6inch barreled 44 mag, and a stub nose 38. Nether one really is a super fast ultra accurate target shooter and yeah I can put more rounds down range in a smaller pattern with my 22 buckmark, but I'm not ganna plan on that saving my life when it comes down to it.

On the flip side of the coin, I bet half of the "Armed Citizen" stories in the NRA mags the people use 22 pistols to protect them selves and it works!

On that same token, I'm bettin a 12gauge loaded with slugs has protected more people from big bear attacks!

Just my thoughts and a way to put it in perspective wiht protecting your life!

[Moki]

First black bear charge I ever had to deal with I was carrying a 26" barreled 308 Norma Mag loaded with 180gr Norma bullets over 75grs MRP = 3060fps.

Hit the bear @ appr 8 yards in the left side in the neck just in front of the shoulder bullet exited behind the off side shoulder the bears head hit the dirt and somersaulted it right over onto it's back.

That didn't stop it though it was able to roll over and start to drag itself away from me with its front legs one more shot did stop it.

Didn't knock it back but stopped it in the length of its own body.