Just read this! Tom Smith, the BYU professor who initiated the research, was doing his graduate work at BYU when I was an undergrad. I talk to him occasionally. Very knowledgable guy when it comes to bears.

http://byunews.byu.edu/archive08-Mar-bearspray.aspx

I will stick with my guns. I sprayed a small blackie of ft richardson once up here and he did backtrack about 5-10ft, but stopped and came back towards us.

He didnt leave us alone til late that night. I shoulda shoved a handgranade up his tail pipe (we had 5 cases of granades) but I figured range control might say something.

The bear was extremely thin so I dont if his want of groceries was overriding his brain or if he was accustomed to the soldiers. dont know, but the spray didnt impress me any. our unit stopped using it after that and started carrying rem 870's.

For a good sized bear, pepper spray adds some "zest" to their meals!

Joel,

Wainwright, Richardson or Greely? I was at Greely back about '80. Totally fell in love w/ AK. Never wanted to leave but uncle Sugar had different plans for me. Can't wait, 10 more days 'til I fly to Nome on the 5th for Grizzly.

I was stationed on elmendorf AFB, did most if not all our training on Ft Richardson. Finally elmendorf didnt want us on there base and neither did Ft Rich so we built a new training center right on the boundary of the airbase and the army post. taught them

I am a former Marine.

Thanks for your service. Though it seems you found a home!

Take Down Pepper Mace works much better than plain pepper spray on bears. it's OC combined with CS.

Has anyone used or considered cattle prods? Or perhaps something akin to the 500K volt stun batons -- perhaps with workings reassembled on longer baton?

Having seen my second grizzly without bars between us and 'way too close, I gave much thought to the cattle prod-stun gun solution. I'm not comfortable with the idea, though, because I do not know what kind of discomfort threshold grizzlies have.

Just some thoughts.

if a bear is coming on a charge, do you really want to wait until he is close enough to touch with a cattle prod/stun gun- especially when you don't know if it will work???? at least with the " bear strength" pepper spray, you have a ranger of 8-10 feet. i would still prefer a load of lead in his face, though

quote:

Originally posted by jdollar:
if a bear is coming on a charge, do you really want to wait until he is close enough to touch with a cattle prod/stun gun- especially when you don't know if it will work???? at least with the " bear strength" pepper spray, you have a ranger of 8-10 feet. i would still prefer a load of lead in his face, though

We have a similar Weltanschauung (I've always wanted to use the word correctly in a sentence. You won.) If I can jury-rig some sort of speedloader for my SRH 480, I'll have the barrel cut and use it. Otherwise, my FA 475 becomes my "Never bring claws to a gunfight" gun.

Does pepper spray serve as a good marinaded for bear meat??

Keith

naphtali, thats a real good question. Folks up here are starting using portable electric fences around there camps with decent success.

Not sure how well it works since folks are usually sleeping at night so no one knows how many bears were actually detered.

I sure wouldnt want to be the one holding the prod during a charge. Talk about holding the short matchstick. the bear is still gonna get ya. his momentum and inertia wont stop. I'm sure he will recover much faster than you would.

The biggest problem with a taser or cattle type prod would be what are you going to do when the electricity goes off. Tasers only work for a few seconds, then wait and see how mad they are when they get up and figure you did it to them. There is a video of a rodeo bull being tasered, he does not get up happy. So if they are close enough but not angry yet, they sure will be when it is all over, then you may wish ya used it on yourself just to avoid the pain, haha.

I have a few issues with pepper spray. It is a short range weapon, and IMHO if a bear is really charging and close enough for the spray to be effective, I want the bear dead. I'm not about to trust a product that isn't 100% effective, even when properly used. Also we tend to a bit of wind, and there is a good chance the pepper spray will come back on you, and that's something I just don't want during an encounter with a bear at bad breath range.

I'll stick with my 44 mag and 320 HC bullets as a last resort bear stopper. Hard for the wind to blow that back in your face!!

quote:

Originally posted by Hog Killer:
Does pepper spray serve as a good marinaded for bear meat??

Keith

You're from Texas, so your hot food pain threshold, would be much higher than mine.
So for you, spray then shoot, for me I'll add a little later.

......... Just shoot and kill them !!!!

If you have never been near a real mad bear in the wild it can be litterly terrifying .. They are amazing ..... I don,t know if there is anyone left like Ben Lily or Sasha Semiel ....
I,m not , I,ll use a 458 please ...... Pepper spray may be better than nothing , but thats all that can be said for it ...

Naphtali, I have had my SRH cut to accept the full moon clips. They really make for fast reloads. Wildwest guns did mine in Anchorage, but you can also send the cylinder to TK Custom Guns (email tom@tkcustom.com) hand have it cut. A much better option than speed loaders. Jim

quote:

Originally posted by Jim Brainard:
Naphtali, I have had my SRH cut to accept the full moon clips. They really make for fast reloads. Wildwest guns did mine in Anchorage, but you can also send the cylinder to TK Custom Guns (email tom@tkcustom.com) hand have it cut. A much better option than speed loaders. Jim

Jim:

Lloyd Smale, and you, have convinced me to do the moonclip conversion. And probably Wild West Guns will do the job. The reason I got off the dime is that I was able to acquire the front sight assembly for the Super Redhawk that alters it from utilitarian but unaesthetic to aesthetically pleasing. It should arrive within the next few days.

Pepper spray? PEPPER SPRAY? That fool has never been up close & personal with a grizzly/brown bear. Sounds to me as though that idiot is a cousin of "Bear-poop" Treadwell. I'll take my rifle any day & he can keep that crap. I'd like to be a fly on the wall & watch this idiot use pepper spray on a grizzly/brownie at 30 ft. I think my opinion's been clearly made.
Bear in Fairbanks

quote:

Originally posted by Joel/AK:
naphtali, thats a real good question. Folks up here are starting using portable electric fences around there camps with decent success.

Not sure how well it works since folks are usually sleeping at night so no one knows how many bears were actually detered.

I sure wouldnt want to be the one holding the prod during a charge. Talk about holding the short matchstick. the bear is still gonna get ya. his momentum and inertia wont stop. I'm sure he will recover much faster than you would.

When I bought my home, the previous owner had the backyard fence electrified with 110 AC. A hand-lettered sign posted near the gate notified readers to beware. I disconnected the electricity but left the sign intact. I figure the bears won't realize the sign is a hoax.

I had to copy this from another forum, re pepper spray.

I have a friend who accompanies me while I am out photographing animals or sometimes we just go fishing so always want to try to prepare for the unexpected. Well weekend before last some how he lost the trigger lock on his can of spray. He was unaware of this until he went to get in his car and accidently let out a small amount of spray that came my way. I felt the effects of it but the effects was very minor, thank goodness, none the less very uncomfortable. He didn't realize he had spray on his hands and rubbed his face and eyes...needless to say the result was painful. So this past weekend he was trying to be cautious, we even discussed the fact he needed to dispose of this spray and buy a new one with a lock, no more then said this when he went to put the canister of spray in the door slot and once again accidentaly sprayed himself, this time a direct hit in the face. The doors was closed, windows was up a/c was on. It got all over his suv, him and me. In that split second I heard the spray go off, I held my breath and jumped out of the car, so I was lucky that it didn't get as bad as it could of. We was very close to his house so I rushed him there, stripped him down got him in the shower.
The cold water flushing his eyes and skin helped alot but in tender part of the skin, his neck, arm crease, ears...he was stained yellow from the spray.
I fell back upon my nursing days and looked around his place to see what I could find, the only thing I came across was a jug of vinger, so I wet paper towels and tested it on the crease of his forarm. He said it was making it feel alot better and the burning was subsiding. It was also removing the yellow spray stain. So we went with, he stunk and the wouldn't have nothing to do with him for a few days it work and it worked fast. So maybe I stumbled across another possible solution for anyone who might accidently get sprayed. There is little information I can find online about how to deal with the effects of the spray.
I used easy off oven cleaner, gloves, toothbrush and q-tips to get the spray off his car door, which worked very well. Needless to say I presonally took the spray away from him and disposed of it.
Thanks for the stories and tips.

The moonclip convertion is actually really nice. I love my smith this way.

quote:

Originally posted by .366torque:
For a good sized bear, pepper spray adds some "zest" to their meals!

LOL!!

I've only had one bear encounter in the wild in my life, and I have to say that it seems risky to me to bet your life on what amounts to a "condiment".........

If you carry pepper spray, I advise you to have a MACE MK3 Relief Decontamination Spray in the car, it is useful and effective.

quote:

Originally posted by Edmond:
If you carry pepper spray, I advise you to have a MACE MK3 Relief Decontamination Spray in the car, it is useful and effective.

Do the bears know about this?

I think if I ever got into a situation where I'm delivering pepper spray to any bear, black brown or white, it's sure as hell going to be on a Barnes. And, I don't expect it will make any more difference to the bear than straight out of the can. The Barnes might though.

FYI
Last year a couple of bow hunters up in Tom Miner Basin had an "encounter" with a grizz. This happens almost every year but seems to get reported only in the local paper. One guy had a can of pepper spray. So, they hosed the bear down, whole can apparently. Bear left. BEAR CAME BACK REALLY PISSED OFF. Other guy had a 44, bear dies, everyone else shaken but not stirred.

There is also an account in a book on grizz bad behavior that cites an incident in Canada of two women in a Park that hosed a bear down and it came back and beat the crap out of them.

When I guded in YNP I carried two of the big cans, I also NEVER let my clients carry bear spray. Since it would their FIRST time I didn't want to get sprayed, or have to deal with them hosing themselves down with bear spray and peeing their pants.

Most effective bear deterent? Your brain, stay alert, stay focused. I've had a few "incidents" with both black and grizz and all I did was shout at the bear and it left. Luck? Probably. But then again I saw the bear before it saw me and let it know I was there before the distance between us had closed to "critical". Outside the Park? Pepper spray and a single action 44 that I actually practice with every week.(I've also killed moose, elk, deer and bear with this weapon.) I know a double action is faster, whatever, if you can't take care of it in 6 you're not going to have a chance to reload anyway...

I disagree, pepper spray is very effective, but only if you pepper spray them with buckshot up close.