Posted on 08/24/2013 7:26:28 PM PDT by marktwain
So, my good friend Johnny Walker is in Kodiak, Alaska teaching kids how to ride horses and shoot guns while riding horses. He had to rent the horses for his project and the deal was, he had to help the rancher round up some cattle first. Seems like the bears were eating too many of them.
Johnny: “What do you do when you see a grizzly?”
Rancher: “Shoot ‘em. Shoot everyone I see.”
Johnny: “What do you shoot them with?”
Rancher: “My two, forty, three.”
Johnny: “Really? Why do you use a .243?”
Rancher: “Well, I can find ammo for it anywhere and at anytime. And, it kills them.”
Johnny told me he didn’t feel so bad with a .45 Colt on his hip after that conversation.
Andrews had heard quite a bit about Kodiak Bears, so he decided to try his hand at hunting them. As I recall, this was prior to WWII.
He is hunting along a beach on Kodiak Island, and a bear pops up from behind some driftwood. He is carrying his favorite rifle, a Mannlicher-Schönauer in 6.5mm. He shoots, and the bear disappears behind the driftwood. He gets a little closer, and the bear pops up again. He shoots again, and the bear disappears.
As he gets close enough to the driftwood pile to see over it, he sees the bear running away, so he shoots again, and the bear piles up.
He climbs over the driftwood and is surprised to find a dead bear on his left. He looks to his right, and there is another dead bear. The bear that was running away is also dead. Three dead kodiak bears with three shoots from his 6.5MM.
I do not see why a .243 (6MM) would necessarily be such a bad choice...
My 6MM Swedish Mauser is the most accurate thing I’ve ever fired at a target over 200 yards. As for killing bears, it’s all about shot placement which is something you can easily direct with yards being your friend. Close in with a bear who is charging you, or another person, I’ll go with the hand cannon and full clip, thank you very much!
Walter Dalrymple Maitland Bell killed several thousand elephants using the 6.5 Swedish or a 6.5 MS or 7mm Mauser.
The reason for his success was he used the heavy for caliber 160 grain fmj round nose parallel sided bullets which were common military ammo for the late 1800s. He used the same type 175 grain bullets in 7mm Mauser.
Those bullets penetrate better than any other type. Bell knew where to shoot them and those heavy bullets went right through them.
Back in the old days when Field & Stream was worth reading they had a monthly feature of stories of survival in the wild in cartoon format. One I remember was an old woman who lived in the wilderness. Every morning she would grab her bucket and her .22 pump rifle and trudge out to the well. One morning as she is walking along looking at the ground she comes upon a shadow and at the bottom of the shadow are two rear feet of a bear standing on its hind legs. Without looking up (it's bad jiu jiu to look a bear in the eye) she worked that .22 and pumped ten shots straight into the air above her. As she is running back to her cabin she hears a noise and looks back to see the bear flat on its back breathing its last.
I am still kicking myself in the arse for passing up a Valmet Hunter in .243, years ago for $650
Back in 1978 I was in a pawn shop and bought a Swedish mauser sniper rifle.Dated 1900 on the receiver.That old rifle shoots as well as my M1A Nation Match at 500 yards.
Why did he have to kill so many? Seems wasteful.
Use Enough Gun: Robert Ruark, On Hunting Big Game
[sigh]. Lots of fun memories reading Ruark as a kid. Especially the water buffalo parts. (Shudder).
Of course, you can kill anything with just about any rifle. You can also bow hunt for Kodiak near. People do. I wouldn’t. But people do. I’m sure it would make a fine inscription on a headstone: “He killed almost every bear with a .243. Almost”. :-)
Longest thing I’ve ever handled though! I bought mine @ Woolworth’s in 1988 for $89. They had them in cardboard barrels along with M1 Garands.
Ruark is excellent.
More people should read him.
I found my copy of “Under a Lucky Star” by R.C.A. I misremembered. He took two shots on the running bear.
It turned out to be a big sow and two near grown “cubs”. He was walking along a “partly dry stream bed”, not the beach, and it was a log jam, not driftwood. It was likely sometime between 1910 and 1920.
In my copy it is on page 120.
I have a number of rifles ranging from Ruger 10/22 on up to M-N 7.62X54R.
While the Mosin is by far the most bang for the buck, my Mossberg ATR in .243 Winchester is the most accurate, flat trajectory and gives you the best chance of landing a high energy load on target. (In my not-so-humble-opinion.)
I knew I was going to love this rifle when out of the box, with the iron sights I shot a 2” group at 100 yards. Now that it’s scoped and bore sighted, it’s not uncommon for the shots to overlap holes on the paper.
To top it off, the rifle, with sling and scope was only a hair over $300. (Although that was a few years ago.)
“Karamojo” Bell
He was a commercial elephant hunter. He killed them for the ivory, and became quite well off. Enough to buy an estate in Scotland and retire.
Lots of elephant hunters did not make it to retirement. They succumbed to disease, natives, other animal attacks, and of course, to attacks by the elephants they were hunting.
No one I know who hunts big bear uses calibers as low as some here offer up
Given most bears like lions are shot within charge range ....pinpoint pronghorn accuracy is not a factor
Energy displacement is
Just out of curiosity, I checked Gun Broker right after I made that last post.
That same Mossberg ATR in .243 Win is going for around $280, rifle only and $320 with scope.
Seems the price hasn’t changed much at all.
I can also attest to the fact that Mossberg (made in USA!) has excellent customer service. I have had two occasions to interact with them, having in all five of their products and I’ve been very impressed with how they stand behind their stuff. And the turnaround is fast!
I hope you replaced that cardboard barrel with a steel rifled barrel. It’ll be more accurate and last longer.
In 1966 I killed an elephant in Vietnam with a single shot from an M-16.
I have never been on a big bear hunt but I do read a lot.
There seems to be a rough agreement that the .375 H&H is the minimum for the large brown bear or Grizzly.
You still often read of guy killing them with small calibers.
Amen to that. Suggesting that anyone should hunt big brown bear with a .243 or similar round is very stupid and could end up fatal for those who take that advise.
Call any of the bear guides in Alaska and ask them what they suggest and what their minimum caliber is. I guarantee you that it will have a lot more energy than a .243. I can't figure out if advise like this is due to total ignorance or just plain stupidity. I'm a gunsmith, a life long hunter, and yes I have hunted brown bear and grizzlies. Someone was talking about 160 gr bullets as being heavy bullets. No they are not. They may be heavy for a, "undersized bear caliber" but they are not heavy for anything suitable for hunting big bear. Try a 338 wm pushing 220 gr or bigger and stay completely away from any bullet that does not expand. It seems that some people think that the lighter smaller calibers are more accurate than the bigger bore rifles. Not true at all. Take a look at what the snipers are using at 1000 yards + and what the 1K meter and 1K yard comp shooters are using. You will not find any small bore rifles in that bunch. I've also often been ask what it the best handgun to pack for emergency use in big bear country. That answer is simple, none. Pick up a cheap 12 gage and stoke it with it with heavy slugs sling it across you back and don't even go to the bathroom without it. Leave the handgun at home and pack more slugs. I'm sorry if I offended anyone in this post but even suggesting that it is OK to use a small bore rifle on big bears is just stupid.
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