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Long range bullets for grizzly
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<blockquote data-quote="Pistol packer" data-source="post: 518522" data-attributes="member: 34702"><p>wow! that got heated. ha. it's amazing how much experience and good advice that you guys have. so far as i have read, i agree with nearly everything everyone has said. the books and the experts dont agree with my experiences either. i used to shoot nosler partitions and dont anymore because i had 2 to fail. one failed to expand-at all and the other one blew up. both were fired consecutively on a moose. i know of a lot of others in alaska who wont shoot them anymore either. that said, i was always told to not shoot target bullets because they will not penetrate. i then proceeded to blow a hole right thru a 10 inch creosote telephone pole with a 168 gr hornady HPBT. small hole in, .40 out. also with sierra HPBT MK. 200 gr. that being said, i think i can tie in everyones comments. </p><p>there are actually two different bear experiences. HUNTING and SELF DEFENSE. hunting big bears is easy and they die easy, so to speak. SELF DEFENSE on big bears is an entirely different matter. a bear can live for over one hour with NO BLOOD in its system. their muscles have so much myoglobin that they can live off the oxygen just in their muscles for that long. a quiet brown bear (browns live on the coast, grizzlies live interior and kodiaks live on kodiak-they are all the same bear with some very minor anatomical differences) is not the same animal as an attacking, adrenaline junkie, hopped up brownie. a fish and game (AK) friend of mine has never used anything bigger than a 7 mm RM and he says that is overkill-on a hunt. on an attacker--we had a few years ago a fish and game officer with his wife just off the shellikoff straits on the mainland get attacked and from about 40 yards he put 5 375 H&H rounds and his wife put that many 338 WM rounds into him it before it piled up on their feet. that's cranking out some firepower in a mighty big hurry. the guides i have talked to that have been charged by a hopped up bruin have all said the same thing-if you want to stop one of these freight trains you need 10,000 ft pounds of muzzle energy. that is if you want to stop it NOW. seems that is a magical number that kept popping up. it made the 500 rigby or 500 A-Square as it is known very popular with several guides. the old timers also talk of this. they found VERY LARGE bore rifles with LARGE projectiles hardened enough for thorough penetration at about 2000 ft/sec was just the ticket for such a problem. now i have several other friends who have been guides for many years and have never been charged by a stalking/crazed killer and they carry 338 WM and 375 H&Hs and say that is enough. ALL THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN ATTACKED BY SUCH AN ANIMAL say that a 458 WM is the minimum and bigger is better. Charlie Lean, a retired AK F&G (whose father was a bear guide and also helped develope the 450 alaskan cartridge when he was in Cooper Landing, and grandfather was a bear guide-shot as many as 60 bear in one field of fire in one day) once told me that NO ONE had ever survived a bear ATTACK using a 44 mag for self defense. that was '83. i was working on a 360 grainer for the 44 and since then several people have survived such attacks using these ultraheavy, hard cast bear loads and they kill them attacking and with ONE shot. they drop as if poleaxed. </p><p>the point of the above essay is that when i was in bear country-which is ANY time you are in AK, anywhere, i was always packing a 44 or bigger with massive heavy bullets. if i didnt have one of those, i was carrying a super penetrator--e.g. 45-70 with 430 hard cast at 2100 fps, 458 WM, or my pop gun of 300 WM with barnes X (i would stuff the ttx in now-as i like the dense tungsten and shorter bullet, or the Fail Safe winchester in the biggest they make). bears can move incredibly fast. i have seen an 8 foot sow charge 600 yards DOWN HILL over hugh boulders in 3 sec. caribou can run 45 mph and they were, but it appeared as if they were standing still compared to her as she descended upon them.</p><p>i have seen many more such incidences. there is a video from glacier national park, here in montana, that the shooter of that video is not known. all that was found of him was his voice on the film and the camera. the last footage was him filming a grizzly at 400 yds. killing an elk. it descended so fast the elk only moved 10 yards from the time it took the bear to go 200. then the bear turned and charged the 400 to the camera. less than 3 seconds. if he is wound up tight and less than 60 yards away-you will have ONE shot if the gun is in ready position and you just have to tilt and shoot. i wouldnt count on my guide because he may be undergunned too and he will have one shot if he is as fast as you or you, him. there are many "old" guides in alaska who have never seen what i have just told you and even less who have seen the below.</p><p> </p><p>the conclusion to this is simply what one previous person said, load ttx or some similar super penetrators for walking, traveling, etc. and the VLDs for the sheep, caribou, etc. the VLD wont be used to kill that which hunts you, so you will have time to switch to them and the zero can be held for them for long distance. you dont need to have much of a zero for a 10 foot, 1600 pound car coming from 30 yards at 40 mph. it's going to be point and shoot anyway.</p><p> </p><p>last item: talkeetna and alaska posters- that F&G friend has a 16 FOOT SQUARE bear hide his father shot, he doesnt tell people about it and he cant put it in his house as it would cover the floor, wall and some of the ceiling. the FIRST bear i ever saw was on 6-21-83 and it was 18 ft SQUARE (that is what F&G told me). they darted it 10 years later and a Lone ranger II helicopter couldnt lift it to weigh it-about 4000 pounds. a 16 footer isnt just 60% bigger than a 10 footer. it is over 200 % bigger. the 18 footer was 8-10 feet wide at the shoulder and if he stood up he was over 20 ft tall. his FRONT prints were almost 20 in wide. i walked in them with my size 11 bunny boots (ha, in the middle of summer-that's the arctic for you) and they were so much bigger than my boots that i didnt know that they were tracks for several minutes. they were like a 18 in plate with 5 toes, one almost 4 in across, and very long claw points. i have seen 3 others that were 14 -16 foot square. in fact a eskimo friend of mine taunted me about those stories and said he had never even seen a bear in this region and he was 24 yr old and fished and hunted a lot. so, i took him fishing and we saw a 14 footer that day. no more taunting. he was so scared he almost broke an ankle running when it was 500 yards away still. also, i stood 3 foot from a 12 foot 2000 pound BLACK bear, not a grizzly, in seward. he was later shot by the police and measured over 12 square and over 6 foot tall at the shoulder.</p><p>i know how big he was because i am 6 ft, 1 in and i was standing in my front door on a 8 in step and when i opened the front door he was on all fours and he was looking me in the face less than 8 inches away. his shoulders were too wide to come in. needless to say, i slammed the door so fast that my wife said the door appeared to go thru my body as she never saw me move out of the doorway. </p><p>several friends of mine and i was in a truck when a 11 foot black bear in talkeetna crossed the road. his *** was just getting past the white shoulder line on the hwy as his HEAD was already past the center line 11 feet away. he stood 6 feet or better on all fours. </p><p>there are much bigger bears than kodiaks. this is one of the best kept secrets in alaska. several people are in the know but they wont talk about it too much. if you want to see one-go to the ak peninsula past Katmai. if you notice, there are no villages there, either on the coast or inland. there is a reason why. F&G wont even go in there. it is a suicide mission. dead man's cove is not a misnomer. Just remember, more people get killed by juvenile browns (6-8footers) than all the "monster" browns put together, more people die from blacks than browns and more people die from moose than all of the above put together. </p><p>so make your decision. i hope you live by it. dont take the guide or anything else for granted. listen to him and do everything he says immediately just dont depend on him to stop every life threatening event. i hope this has cleared up what appeared to be conflicting opinions. they really werent. they were just talking about different situations.</p><p>i would be interested in your post hunt stories and pics. i have only met one out of 100 or so guides that knew about the super brownies, but it is the crack-head, schizo ADD one that will get you not the superbig ones as they seem to be really reluctant to come out into the open and be seen at anytime. that may be one reason they get so big, but i believe that they are an actual subspecies as the cubs i have seen are 6-7 feet at 2 y.o.a.</p><p>so you know that the disney version of bears are not real, but neither is what the F&G tells you about bears, wolves or any PETA/greenie subject. remember, alaska seems like its on this planet, but it really isnt.</p><p>doc</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Pistol packer, post: 518522, member: 34702"] wow! that got heated. ha. it's amazing how much experience and good advice that you guys have. so far as i have read, i agree with nearly everything everyone has said. the books and the experts dont agree with my experiences either. i used to shoot nosler partitions and dont anymore because i had 2 to fail. one failed to expand-at all and the other one blew up. both were fired consecutively on a moose. i know of a lot of others in alaska who wont shoot them anymore either. that said, i was always told to not shoot target bullets because they will not penetrate. i then proceeded to blow a hole right thru a 10 inch creosote telephone pole with a 168 gr hornady HPBT. small hole in, .40 out. also with sierra HPBT MK. 200 gr. that being said, i think i can tie in everyones comments. there are actually two different bear experiences. HUNTING and SELF DEFENSE. hunting big bears is easy and they die easy, so to speak. SELF DEFENSE on big bears is an entirely different matter. a bear can live for over one hour with NO BLOOD in its system. their muscles have so much myoglobin that they can live off the oxygen just in their muscles for that long. a quiet brown bear (browns live on the coast, grizzlies live interior and kodiaks live on kodiak-they are all the same bear with some very minor anatomical differences) is not the same animal as an attacking, adrenaline junkie, hopped up brownie. a fish and game (AK) friend of mine has never used anything bigger than a 7 mm RM and he says that is overkill-on a hunt. on an attacker--we had a few years ago a fish and game officer with his wife just off the shellikoff straits on the mainland get attacked and from about 40 yards he put 5 375 H&H rounds and his wife put that many 338 WM rounds into him it before it piled up on their feet. that's cranking out some firepower in a mighty big hurry. the guides i have talked to that have been charged by a hopped up bruin have all said the same thing-if you want to stop one of these freight trains you need 10,000 ft pounds of muzzle energy. that is if you want to stop it NOW. seems that is a magical number that kept popping up. it made the 500 rigby or 500 A-Square as it is known very popular with several guides. the old timers also talk of this. they found VERY LARGE bore rifles with LARGE projectiles hardened enough for thorough penetration at about 2000 ft/sec was just the ticket for such a problem. now i have several other friends who have been guides for many years and have never been charged by a stalking/crazed killer and they carry 338 WM and 375 H&Hs and say that is enough. ALL THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN ATTACKED BY SUCH AN ANIMAL say that a 458 WM is the minimum and bigger is better. Charlie Lean, a retired AK F&G (whose father was a bear guide and also helped develope the 450 alaskan cartridge when he was in Cooper Landing, and grandfather was a bear guide-shot as many as 60 bear in one field of fire in one day) once told me that NO ONE had ever survived a bear ATTACK using a 44 mag for self defense. that was '83. i was working on a 360 grainer for the 44 and since then several people have survived such attacks using these ultraheavy, hard cast bear loads and they kill them attacking and with ONE shot. they drop as if poleaxed. the point of the above essay is that when i was in bear country-which is ANY time you are in AK, anywhere, i was always packing a 44 or bigger with massive heavy bullets. if i didnt have one of those, i was carrying a super penetrator--e.g. 45-70 with 430 hard cast at 2100 fps, 458 WM, or my pop gun of 300 WM with barnes X (i would stuff the ttx in now-as i like the dense tungsten and shorter bullet, or the Fail Safe winchester in the biggest they make). bears can move incredibly fast. i have seen an 8 foot sow charge 600 yards DOWN HILL over hugh boulders in 3 sec. caribou can run 45 mph and they were, but it appeared as if they were standing still compared to her as she descended upon them. i have seen many more such incidences. there is a video from glacier national park, here in montana, that the shooter of that video is not known. all that was found of him was his voice on the film and the camera. the last footage was him filming a grizzly at 400 yds. killing an elk. it descended so fast the elk only moved 10 yards from the time it took the bear to go 200. then the bear turned and charged the 400 to the camera. less than 3 seconds. if he is wound up tight and less than 60 yards away-you will have ONE shot if the gun is in ready position and you just have to tilt and shoot. i wouldnt count on my guide because he may be undergunned too and he will have one shot if he is as fast as you or you, him. there are many "old" guides in alaska who have never seen what i have just told you and even less who have seen the below. the conclusion to this is simply what one previous person said, load ttx or some similar super penetrators for walking, traveling, etc. and the VLDs for the sheep, caribou, etc. the VLD wont be used to kill that which hunts you, so you will have time to switch to them and the zero can be held for them for long distance. you dont need to have much of a zero for a 10 foot, 1600 pound car coming from 30 yards at 40 mph. it's going to be point and shoot anyway. last item: talkeetna and alaska posters- that F&G friend has a 16 FOOT SQUARE bear hide his father shot, he doesnt tell people about it and he cant put it in his house as it would cover the floor, wall and some of the ceiling. the FIRST bear i ever saw was on 6-21-83 and it was 18 ft SQUARE (that is what F&G told me). they darted it 10 years later and a Lone ranger II helicopter couldnt lift it to weigh it-about 4000 pounds. a 16 footer isnt just 60% bigger than a 10 footer. it is over 200 % bigger. the 18 footer was 8-10 feet wide at the shoulder and if he stood up he was over 20 ft tall. his FRONT prints were almost 20 in wide. i walked in them with my size 11 bunny boots (ha, in the middle of summer-that's the arctic for you) and they were so much bigger than my boots that i didnt know that they were tracks for several minutes. they were like a 18 in plate with 5 toes, one almost 4 in across, and very long claw points. i have seen 3 others that were 14 -16 foot square. in fact a eskimo friend of mine taunted me about those stories and said he had never even seen a bear in this region and he was 24 yr old and fished and hunted a lot. so, i took him fishing and we saw a 14 footer that day. no more taunting. he was so scared he almost broke an ankle running when it was 500 yards away still. also, i stood 3 foot from a 12 foot 2000 pound BLACK bear, not a grizzly, in seward. he was later shot by the police and measured over 12 square and over 6 foot tall at the shoulder. i know how big he was because i am 6 ft, 1 in and i was standing in my front door on a 8 in step and when i opened the front door he was on all fours and he was looking me in the face less than 8 inches away. his shoulders were too wide to come in. needless to say, i slammed the door so fast that my wife said the door appeared to go thru my body as she never saw me move out of the doorway. several friends of mine and i was in a truck when a 11 foot black bear in talkeetna crossed the road. his *** was just getting past the white shoulder line on the hwy as his HEAD was already past the center line 11 feet away. he stood 6 feet or better on all fours. there are much bigger bears than kodiaks. this is one of the best kept secrets in alaska. several people are in the know but they wont talk about it too much. if you want to see one-go to the ak peninsula past Katmai. if you notice, there are no villages there, either on the coast or inland. there is a reason why. F&G wont even go in there. it is a suicide mission. dead man's cove is not a misnomer. Just remember, more people get killed by juvenile browns (6-8footers) than all the "monster" browns put together, more people die from blacks than browns and more people die from moose than all of the above put together. so make your decision. i hope you live by it. dont take the guide or anything else for granted. listen to him and do everything he says immediately just dont depend on him to stop every life threatening event. i hope this has cleared up what appeared to be conflicting opinions. they really werent. they were just talking about different situations. i would be interested in your post hunt stories and pics. i have only met one out of 100 or so guides that knew about the super brownies, but it is the crack-head, schizo ADD one that will get you not the superbig ones as they seem to be really reluctant to come out into the open and be seen at anytime. that may be one reason they get so big, but i believe that they are an actual subspecies as the cubs i have seen are 6-7 feet at 2 y.o.a. so you know that the disney version of bears are not real, but neither is what the F&G tells you about bears, wolves or any PETA/greenie subject. remember, alaska seems like its on this planet, but it really isnt. doc [/QUOTE]
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