New and up dated information.

As always the author is still interested and will add any verifiable cases to the data base.

Just left me know and I will get them to him.

https://www.ammoland.com/2019/...-cases-96-effective/


Another ten cases have been added to the cases where pistols or handguns were used in defense against bear attacks. The total now is 73 cases. There were 3 failures. Handguns were 96% effective.

Cool. I appreciate my Tarus Tracker 44 even more.

BH63

Interesting read. Thanks for posting, p dog.

quote:

Originally posted by BuffHunter63:
Cool. I appreciate my Tarus Tracker 44 even more.

BH63

Tarus is one of those companies that can make some very good fire arms.

They can also turn out some bad ones also.

Of the two I own both trackers one in 44 the other in 41.

The 41 was sent back to Tarus before I brought it.

It had a factory reconditioned sticker on the box.

Tarus does seem to make them work when they get them back.

quote:

Originally posted by Bill/Oregon:
Interesting read. Thanks for posting, p dog.

Yes it is.

This research goes a long ways in killing the myths and old wife's tales.

About using handguns for self-defense against bears

P Dog, the late gun writer Bob Milek once got into a close-range tangle with a black bear and he was armed with a .357 with cast loads that slid off that bear's noggin. He came out of the scrape believing more juice and different bullets were needed. I would think a 10mm with a good bullet would be a safe place to start if you were carrying in black bear country, despite all the reasonably good results with lesser calibers.
Some years back a hunter in Southern Oregon waded into a manzanita patch up toward Crater Lake after a black bear he thought he had killed. It was alive and cranky, and the guy was only armed with a 1911 in .45 ACP. He emptied the magazine and managed to get away and the bear eventually died. Not too impressive.
As to Taurus revolvers, your experience is familiar to me. I briefly worked at the gun counter in a Sportsmans's Warehouse after retiring, and we had more problems with Taurus revolvers than all the other guns we sold. Taurus did fix them, but not without aggravation to the buyers. I realize that some run like Swiss watches, but watch out for the ones that don't, especially if you are carrying one for protection.

Great computation of successful defense against bear attacks with pistols and revolvers.

After decades of deer lease service, my Taurus 44 desperately needed cleaning and I took it to a gun shop. Now it is clean and smooth and better than new.
Either it or my S&W M19 with the proper bullets are my choice when venturing into unknown country without a rifle.
And that include while in camp.

As with most stories unless one knows the facts it is really hard to say what happen.

Take the 45 story so he emptied the mag most likely true but unless one knows if he hit it and where he hit it. It is totally meaningless.

As far as a 357 cast bullet sliding off the skull. Most likely it wasn't a square hit.

There is enough flesh on the head to place a bullet so it never squarely contacts the bone.

I shot and seen enough bears shot in the head to know that the skulls are not that are to penetrate.

I did see a fair size black bear shot in the head from below with a 220gr 30cal at 2300 fps.

The shot at about 30 feet dropped the bear out of the tree like a bag of rocks.

The bear bounced once got up and ran. About 400 yards latter. I drove a 315gr hard cast through its head at about 5 feet to end the matter.

The 220gr 30 cal. went between the brain cavity in the eye socket area and the out top of the hide.

Naw the 220 didn't glance off the skull it just missed the vitals.

During another hunt I used the same rifle and same load to kill a same size bear with a head shot. No problems,

The bears field dressed at 292 and 286 pounds.



I suspect the 357 also didn't glance off but cut the skin/flesh around the skull.

Unless on closely skinning the said skull out and closely examined the wound channel.

And actually saw lead skid marks on the skull bone one could easily come to the conclusion the bullet bounced off.

Because that is what every body says handgun bullets do. Not in my experience.

Not their haven't been cases of bullets hitting a skull and not penetrating even in humans.

They have been because of bad angles and not lack of ability of the bullet to break the scull.

A bullet that creases the scull is not the same as a bullet not penetrating it due to the lack of power.

A true bonce off would imply a square hit. Not some glancing shot.

quote:

After decades of deer lease service, my Taurus 44 desperately needed cleaning

A little while ago I decided by 41 tracker could use a good cleaning.

After many years of being carried

So I pulled the grips and the side plate.

It is amazing how many dust bunnies and other garbage that can be found in a handgun after being carried for years.

Shouldn't it be the 3 failures that raise a red flag?? A pistol is second choice I would think, but second beats 3rd..and a short rifle beats them all.

quote:

Shouldn't it be the 3 failures that raise a red flag

Did you read the failures Ray.

They seem to be far more of the a user failure then a firearm failure.

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:
Shouldn't it be the 3 failures that raise a red flag?? A pistol is second choice I would think, but second beats 3rd..and a short rifle beats them all.

Very true!

quote:

a short rifle beats them all.

Only when you have it with you.

p dog, all I can recall about the Crater Lake bear story is that the guy was shooting regular hardball. Have no idea about bullet placement/misplacement.
Milek's story of the .357 fail was in the first edition of "Handgun Hunting" from Peterson Publications. I wore that thing out and no longer have it, but among other things his experience with the .30 Herrett wildcat in the T/C Contender convinced me that I had to have one. I duplicated Bob's rig down to the letter -- 10-inch barrel, Leupold EER 2X scope, leather banodlier holster. It was my first experience making cases for and loading a wildcat and it was really accurate, but I never managed to see a shootable muley while packing it. Good memories.

quote:

Milek's

I read a lot of his stuff all so over the years.

In the early '80s two friends and I were hunting near West Yellowstone, MT. We were camping in a pop-up camper at the end of a Forest Service logging road, and I had my two horses in an electric wire enclosure below our camp.

One of my friends had killed a bull moose and the other friend and I had each killed small bull elk. We had the moose and elk quarters hanging in the wood stock rack in the back of my truck.

About the 3rd or 4th night I went out to check the horses and to "water a bush" across the road from our camper. When I stopped at the edge of the road, a male grizzly woofed at me and started clacking his teeth. He was on top of the road cutbank, less than 10 yards from me.

I had my Ruger SBH .44 mag on my hip, so shining my flashlight on him, I drew and fired one shot over his head. The shot didn't phase him. I then shot the trunk of the lodgepole pine tree next to him. Again the shot didn't phase him.

So I holstered my pistol and picked up a baseball size rock that I threw and hit him. He then ran off into the forest.

A few minutes later we heard a quick series of pistol shots from another camp abut 1/4 mile away, and a half hour later we saw the truck from that camp drive away.

The next day I got on one of my horses and followed the grizzly's tracks. He had left our camp and went directly to that other camp where apparently one of their shots had hit him as there was an occasional drop of blood in the snow where he ran away from that camp.

We then packed up and went home, and reported the incident to the MT FWP. The bear had been wearing a radio collar and had an ear tag. It turns out he had been a problem bear near Cooke City and had been trapped and relocated to the area where we had camped.

The FWP and the Interagency Grizzly Study Team then tracked the bear to where he hibernated a few miles from where we camped, and the next spring they found his collar, but nothing else.

Bears don't under stand English or other human languages.

Loud noises some times works.

Then other times they don't.

I to have chase bears out of camps with rocks.

I firmly believe when using non-lethal means to harass bears. One should be backed up by a quality firearm.

I would like to see a mfg come out with a stout 1911 45 super once again.
255 hard cast at 1100 FPS.

quote:

Originally posted by eezridr:
I would like to see a mfg come out with a stout 1911 45 super once again.
255 hard cast at 1100 FPS.

6 inch

Noted where Dan Wesson came out with a new offering. The Kodiak (10 MM) with a 6" pipe. Would make a good 45 super platform. It would prpbably be a small company to offer such an option.
Would need a supply of ammo to support it.

quote:

Originally posted by p dog shooter:

quote:

Originally posted by eezridr:
I would like to see a mfg come out with a stout 1911 45 super once again.
255 hard cast at 1100 FPS.

6 inch

quote:

Originally posted by eezridr:
I would like to see a mfg come out with a stout 1911 45 super once again.
255 hard cast at 1100 FPS.

This is what I shoot in mine

https://www.buffalobore.com/in...product_detail&p=215

We were on a family vacation in TN and NC in summer of 2008. We'd stopped at an overlook in one of the parks. Soon after we got there, 2 black bear cubs came very close to a large growing crowd that was watching them, including my family. As I walked back to the car my wife asked if I was getting a better camera, I said no, I'm grabbing my pistol in case mamma bear charges all these fools. It was a 1911 with 185 gr Corbons (use 255 gr hardcast now for outdoors). Luckily, mama bear was not upset when she arrived and chased her kids back into the woods.

My memory of the Milek 357/bear story is that his bullets were too soft. He hardened up the lead and the same gun did just fine in future encounters. It seems he was using dogs and the shots were pretty close.

quote:

It seems he was using dogs and the shots were pretty close.

I run hounds some shots are very very close.

Having shot several bears in the head at really close range.

I have a hard time believing that even a pure lead bullet wouldn't penetrate a bears scull. If the shot was square to the scull.

A 22lr handgun can be pretty effective but foolish in polar bear and grizz country.