Bear bullet?

[Mr. 16 gauge]

Currently, I'm kicking around the idea of doing a back country hunt in Montana (packing in on horse back) in a few years, and with the recent grizzly attacks in Yellowstone and such, I plan on taking my S&W M29 (6" barrel) to put under my pillow at night (better than a night light!;))
If you had your choice, which bullet would you choose to use for self defense against a bear intent on gnawing on you for breakfast......a 240 grain JSP or a cast SWC-GC that weighs in around 250 grains?
Remember: this is for personal protection only.....I have no plans on "Hunting" bear with this round, only stopping them if I have to.
Thanks in advance...............

[buckhunter]

Go with the cast. Better yet, leave the pistol at home and use your rifle. It will work a little better.

[skeet]

Go with the cast. Better yet, leave the pistol at home and use your rifle. It will work a little better.

Mr 16..Buckhunter has the better idea. Use a heavy cast hard 250 gr bullet in the 44.. Save the last one for your self..so ya won't have to endure the pain of the gnawing. He really did have the best idea about going to bed with the rifle. We all have handguns in camp but 3 of us carry an 8 shot pump shotgun...loaded with slugs. We have quite a few grizz in the areas we hunt. In The area 61 I hunt ..the ranch manager just had a cow killed by a grizz. Quite a few wolves there too. Killed 3 of his calves so far. We even had a grizz in camp..but with the noise we made he left us alone(that was in area 58). There are 6 of us that hunt together...sometimes 7 with the lady that hunts with us. She can't always get off as she is a school teacher. That woman carries one of those 45 410 Judge revolvers...all the time. Don't know if she can shoot it but it looks scary. Not 'nuff for a serious bear though.

[GoodOlBoy]

yep, but if using a pistol definitely go cast. Lasercast makes a 300 grain bullet for the 44.

GoodOlBoy

[Mr. 16 gauge]

Lasercast makes a 300 grain bullet for the 44.


The gun I have doesn't handle the heavier bullets particularly well. Also, I want to have something with me all the time.....not in a scabbard on a saddle, ect. I know a rifle is better than a handgun, but I think lugging the rifle around to every place I went (like the privy) would start to be a pain in the arse....
Just looking for a little convenience.;)

[bulletpusher]

The hard cast bullet is absolutely positively the gooderest thing you can use in a handgun for a biting, clawing, stomping critter.

The HARD cast bullet will penetrate really well, where even the best hollow point will probably just make what ever is trying to turn you into a pile of brown smelly stuff (you know excrement, scat or more commonly known as s**t) extremely mad.

And carrying a handgun is better than not carrying a rifle every where you go.

You know the old saying, Walk Softly and Carry a Big Handgun with a Hard Cast Bullet.

Bulletpusher

[Adam Helmer]

Mr. 16 gauge,

I have several M29s and all like my 240 grain JHP bullets and a stout dose of 2400. Bears intruding on your slumber will be at hand shaking distance and 240 JHPs into the head will render them skins for stretching. I cast 245 grain .44 caliber hard cast SWC bullets and they would be my #2 choice with a stout dose of 2400 powder.

A .44 Magnum will kill bear. I would not sleep uneasy with my M29 under my pillow or next to the next stool in a privy when a griz had hostile intentions.

Adam

[skeet]

The bear encounters I know of personally were all at chewing range..and they were doing so. One was killed with a very lucky one in a thousand shot with an arrow and one with the 3rd shot from a 41 mag..the last with the 3rd shot from a 44 mag. All the chew'ies survived..the chew'ers did not. but we did have a hiker killed not far from the site of the 41 mag killed chew'er this summer. He was unarmed except for bells and pepper spray. Neither worked of course. I know quite a few hikers that carry a handgun in grizz country. Most carry in their backpack?? It's a PITA to carry a handgun..but when ya really need it...it's in your backpack?? Don't make a lick of sense to me

[Mr. 16 gauge]

He was unarmed except for bells and pepper spray. Neither worked of course.

Reminds me of that old joke: How do you tell the difference between black bear scat and grizzly bear scat? Black bear scat is usually smaller and filled with the remains of berries and such.....grizzly scat contains fragments of clothing and bells and smells like pepper!:D

I had an interesting experience while in Glacier NP a few years back. We were on a boat ride one on of the lakes, and while in the middle of the lake we had a good view of the sides....folks were hiking with their bells and some had pepper spray (joggers had tied 'em to their laces.....made me laugh when I saw it; reminded me of those doohickies that you put on baby shoes to keep 'em from coming untied:D). The trail wound around the lake, close to the shore, and about 100 yards up from the trail (in what I assume was a berry patch) was a large silvertip grizzly. He was oblivious to the hikers below, and they (hikers) had NO idea that he was even up there.....but he sure as heck wasn't runnin' from no 'bells'.
Here endeth the lesson.........................;)

[GoodOlBoy]

many revolvers don't do well with heavier jacketed bullets, but if you contact last cast they will send you (at a small price) a test patch of the heavy bullets. Cast lead behaves ALOT differently than jacketed, particularly with heavy bullets. My 45 colt blackhawk doesn't do well at all with 300 grain XTP mag bullets. Puts em all over the place (and no it aint just me), 300 grain hard cast lead it shoots into a half dollar group.

GoodOlBoy

[Catfish]

I have never shot a bear. That said, I have taken alot of deer with a .44 mag. useing the 240 gr. Sierra bullet. The only one I ever recovered was from a nice 10 point buck hit in the left hind quater at 130 yrds. ( apx.). The bullet was a bump under the skin of the right frount shoulder. All other bullets were total penatration.

[bulletpusher]

Catfish,

Deer can be taken with a .357 Mag. and it can be killed with a .22 long rifle as far as that goes, that said a grizzle bear can be taken with a .357 also. If that's all I've got that's what I use, but if I've got a choice I use more.

A .44 jacketed bullet will almost always do full penetration on deer sideways, I.E. you said you found one under the skin on the off side. Use a hard cast bullet of the same weight will not only pass thru every time sideways but I'd be willing to bet a dollar to a do-nut that it will penetrate longways as well, I.E. smelly to smell-um or nose to butt going the other way.

The hide of a Grizzly Bear is thicker and that bear weighs about 9 or 10 times what that deer weighs and is a whole lot denser. There is more skin, meat, fat, grizzle and bones that will dwarf any bone in a deer. It will take a lot more penetration to get to the vitals of that bear than you ever thought about needing on any deer.

Can a jacketed hollow point do the job, maybe under ideal conditions. But what if the conditions are not ideal. Do you want to chance a hollow point that will maybe or maybe not do the job or a hard cast bullet that doesn't have to expand to do the job. What do you do when you empty all 6 shots into that bear and it takes it just long enough to die that it has time to kill you first. That hollow point is designed to expand to do the job and that expansion slows the bullet and kills deep penetration on great big bitey critters. All that hard cast bullet has to do is go in and keep going in until it dose all of the damage it can do.

The hunters doing dangerous game hunting in Africa and any other place in the world do not use hollow points for a very good reason. They use solids or soft-points depending on what they are after. They do this so that the bullets will penetrate to the vitals and do some damage. Those guys like to survive there hunting trips and no matter what anyone tells you bears little or big are dangerous game and will kill you if they get the chance.

Use the largest cal. handgun that you can get for that situation and avoid the hollow points for your choise of a howda gun.

Just my buck 95.

Bulletpusher

[popplecop]

Have had and shot for years S&W and Rugers in 44 mag. Have found if I am going to shoot heavy bullets with stout charges I'll stick with my Rugers. Sorry but they will stand up better to a lot of heavy loads. Right now trying to bring a 29-2 back on line. When fired the cylinder backs up about half a notch. Talked with Smith yesterday and everything they suggested had been done. They had never had this come up befor. I did fit a new cylinder bolt to it again, the other one improved it some. Maybe this will will be the cure. It would help if the guy would have marked the chambers (chargeing holes) in the cylinder it was happening on, has been instructed to do so if it recurs. The greatest N Frames ever made were the Model 27s and 28s. I have one that is a pre Model 27 and it's great. The 29s like the 19s were not designed to shoot heavy loads in large amounts.

[gold40]

I SUSPECT the hard cast bullet would work better, BUT....

......Since none of us have ever shot a grizzley with a rifle or handgun, these opinions are pure conjecture. I'm always amused about how many people offer advice and opinions on topics where they have zero first-hand knowledge. Usually they just repeat something they once read in Field & Stream many years ago. Or, they opine that "Bigger is Better."

I SUSPECT that very few grizzleys are killed with a handgun in any given year. There was one recent news article about a guy using a .45 auto to kill a Grizzley Bear in Alaska that was attacking his girlfriend. They both ran, as did the bear. Game wardens later found the dead bear only 100 yards away from the shooting site. This one recorded instance doesn't prove that a 1911 is the ideal bear protection.

[popplecop]

The old saying is "Always save the last round for yourself"! Don't know about grizzley bear but a hardcast 300 gr. bullet works on black bear. If I were to be in the area where a bear might try to eat me, I'd have a 12 ga. pump with slugs.

[Catfish]

I some how missed giz. and was thinking balck. If your worried about a griz. leave the .44 at home and take a .500 S&W. While I was in Alaska afew years back a guy told me about a friend of his that dumped 6 round form his .44 mag. into a griz. befor it maulled him real bad. They were all well placed according to him, and the bear died on top of him. BUT, he said the guy was lucky to get out of it alive and 5 year later he is still not recovered completly and probly never will.

[GoodOlBoy]

Don't make a dang that none of us have shot one, I ain't never shot an m1abrhams tank and I know what it would take for it as well. I have seent 45 colt cast lead mild load go through a 600lb hog from shoulder to should without slowing down... I would venture to say that a 600lb hog is pretty hard put down as well.

GoodOlBoy

[Rapier]

A very big, very heavy, hard cast SWC.

At 2 feet in the dark who is worried about accuracy at 25 yards or so on the range? All the bullet need do is exit the bore with great exuberance, ready to par-ta upon Mr. Bruin's noggin.;)
Ed

[Larryjk]

I worked in Alaska and we had trouble with bears all the time. Blacks were no problem, just dump a round under their nose and they dove back into the timber. However, grizzles don't give a crap if you are carrying a pistol. We had .338 Winchesters around for them. I would pack a shotgun everywhere I went. Yes, a pain in the butt, but better than the bears. Grizzles have no sense of humor and usually have a bad attitude.

[skeet]

That's the way it was whern i was workin up there. Every body carried a rifle or a shotgun with slugs.. If ya had trouble with 'em it was always at spittin distance. Most of the time they would take off but as Larry said..they seemed to have a bad attitude all the time. These were interior grizzlies though. Never had to deal with the big coasties

[PJgunner]

OK, this is based on little experience but lot's of thought. Experience is one Black Bear with the .38 Spl. hey, it's what I had. Gun was a 38/44 outdoorsman with 38/44 level ammunition. That's a .38 Spl. loaded to near .357 mag. level and the cartridge was the forerunner to the .357 mag. The bear was in the process of dragging a female camper from her tent when I shot it.
Second instance was a wild boar in full charge. I took that one down with two fast shots.
So what does this have to do with the question? Both animals were shot and killed with hard cast bullets, the Lyman #358156 to be exact and both cartridges were loaded to absolute maximim for the guns used.
A deer shot broadside with a Remington 240 gr. jacketed hollow point shed the jacket in the shoulder blade while the lead core went on through and lodged in the off side lung.
Another deer shot with Elmer Keith's pet load (240 gr. cast bullet over 22.0 gr. of H2400) in the same general location, bullet punnched though the shoulder blade, passed though both lungs, punched through the off side shoulder blade and as far as I know may still be going.
I'f I'm going to carry a handgun for bear protection, it will be one of two Rugers I have. One is a Super Blackhawk in .44 magnum that has a standard Blackhawk grip frame. Barrel is 4 5/8". Bullet will be a hard cast 300 gr. semiwadcutter loaded as hot as the gun will safely stand. This is strictly a very short range deal as the bullet will hit about 6 to 8" high at 25 yards.
The second gun is a Ruger Super Blackhawk Bisley with 5.5" barrel in .45 Colt. Bullet at this point is a 250 gr. Keith style SWC. I would preer a 300 gr. bullet but the Lyman #457191 casts at 457" and sizing in to .454" just about wipes out the lube grooves. It too shoots about 6 to 8" high at 25 yards.
Now if I were in Grizzly country, and I had to get up in the middle of the night to do my business, I believe I'd pack a rrifle or shotgun and the handgun as back up. Sometimes a sneak attack just might have your butt on the ground to where you can't bring a rifle into play.
Now in the tent, the handgun would be what was close to hand. have tou given any thought as to how you would swing or even work a rifle while that bear is gnawing on your tender frame while you're trapped in that sleeping bag? Nope, my thoughts are that handgun loaded hot with heavy hard cast bullets would be the way to go.
The bear that was dragging the woman from her tent was dragging her sleeping bag and all. I shot that bear twice right behind the ear double action.
he fact that those heavier than standard bullets in the .44 and .45 shooting high at 25 yards won't mean squat when that bear's head is only a few inches from the gun's muzzle.
The important thing, I would imagine is if it's you that's being chewed on, try to mainain enough presence of mind tp not only grab that gun, but try to place your shots in that bear's head. It's gonna be hard enough getting an arm out to get the gun and do what has to be done when all the while you're freaking out and soiling that sleeping bag.
Paul B.

[Rapier]

Yep, I think it is pretty much like being inside your car's trunk, in the pitch dark, in a sleeping bag, at bad breath range.

I would also sleep with a parachute cord lanyard around my neck and the 44 looped to it. If I got drug out of the tent the gun would come with me.
Ed

[bulletpusher]

To Mister Gold40,

No, I've not shot Grizzly Bear or any other kind of bear as far as that goes. But I've hunted more dangerous game and I'm hear to tell you that I would rather have more penatration than expantion anyday of the month.

Expanding hollow point handgun bullets are great when they work correctly and I would be willing to bet that most of the time that they do work the way they were designed. But the way my luck and most peoples luck works in a dangerous situation, that little expanding hollow point will explodes the moment it hits what ever you shoot it at. That one non performing little projectile could be the differance between getting eaten or eating.

Just my buck and a quater.
Bulletpusher