Posted on 10/16/2014 1:51:37 PM PDT by marktwain
I love my Colt Python Stainless 6”!
Are you Rick Grimes?!?
...Wasn't enough to do the job.
The bear was apparently stunned, because it had left the area by the time rangers examined the scene.
Stunned the bear, which later left the scene.
I thought he must have shot him straight on the nose, but then I read the part the bear being stunned and having left later. I wonder where he hit him?
The job was to stop the attack. It worked.
But, you see, according to Obala’s federal government bureaucrats, it is illegal to discharge a handgun in a federally-designated natural park area!
(It is, however, apparently legal for a person to be eaten alive by a bear inside a federally-designated natural park area. However, it would also be illegal for a fat person to provide more than the Michelle’s federally-designated maximum-allowed calories per day to that bear inside a federally-designated natural park area ....)
In 1980 I backpacked in Glacier for a week. At that time, one could apply for two-week gun permit to carry in the park. The application was filled out by hand, sent by postal service and arrived back in about a week, with approval. I have it around here somewhere...
I’m glad the gentleman was well-prepared. I’ve read a lot on bear spray, visited sites selling it and stores and used pepper spray once myself. It’s interesting that the spray was not enough against the bear.
This is an interesting story because it seems to say a gun or pepper spray by themselves was not enough.
I suspect two possibilities.
One, he hit the bear between the eyes, and the shot knocked the bear out without penetrating the skull. Bear skulls look a lot like a skid plate when viewed from the front.
Look at the bear skull at this link, and you can see that if the shot hit the bear between the eyes, but above the nose, the angle is very shallow.
http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2013/10/maneater-of-boundary-waters-canoe-area.html
Two, the shot hit a glancing blow to the spine, which momentarily paralysed the bear.
Supposedly, when you hike, you should have bells or something and that keeps wildlife away. I think that does work. Does it work always? I don’t know.
The “studies” hyping bear spray have some problems:
http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2014/10/wybear-spray-v-bullets-flaws-in-studies.html
It would be my luck that the bear liked spicy food.
John “Pondoro” Taylor designed a system of measuring big game rifles effectiveness based on a “Knock Out Value” of what it would take to incapacitate an animal such as an elephant.
Bullet weight in grains x bullet diameter (decimal inches) x velocity (FPS) / 7000 = KOV
That said, a KOV of 12 for a 158 grain bullet at 1400 FPS is pretty feeble for a grizzly.
This dude was lucky.
If you’d like to be on or off this Outdoors/Rural/wildlife/hunting/hiking/backpacking/National Parks/animals list please FR mail me. And ping me is you see articles of interest.
Personally, I would have emptied my Python into the grizzly, reloaded and continued shooting with every round I had at my disposal. Of course I’d probably be making little rocks out of big rocks for doing so, but a grizzly bear is not an animal to trifle with.
I wonder if charges would have been brought if the hiker had shot the grizzly while it was attacking a bald eagle???
EODGUY
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