Bear hunting

Ross that's a serious thing that can happen.  Grizzlies and Brownies are a different breed of cat.  But I sure would you prefer a sixgun over a sharp stick anyway.  A good penetrating round in the right place will usually do the trick. But, in the heat and the speed of a confrontation, things often go wrong.  One friend of mine commonly hunted black bears with a 44.  Use to take 3 a season, Bob and his big family liked wild game.  He would usually get bear, moose, and a couple of caribou each year and squeeze that next to the salmon.  He had been doing the Bears for years with the 44.  One time I talked to Bob in the spring one year he was a little shaken talking about his recent hunt.  It took all six chambers to put down the black bear, with the sixth at his feet.  Most of the Bears here are 250 to a 350 unusual to be bigger.  He said that he was off with his first shot and it went down hill from there.

Another friend who now lives down in Valdez was hunting out on the northern west coast for grizzly and when in whatever village he was in a woman asked him to kill this darn bear that was creating a problem.  She said it was the same bear her son had shot in the entrance way of the cabin.  Seems that the lad reach out with a handgun an shot the bear in the head, point blank.  So Ken went out to the village dump and had a look around, nothing.  Well looking around the village and widening the search Ken ran across the likely bear.  Upon skinning the skull later on there was a lead slug right between the eyes where that little groove starts for a short ways.  When Ken related the story to me I was skeptical.  So he had just moved, still in boxes, but he found the box with the skull.  There was a slug mushroomed perfectly between the eyes but up a tad.  It was stuck fast.  

So my preference when out where a critter with teeth and claws that might object to your presents, is always a handy, fast (read short) rifle of reason power of 35 caliber and up.