Posted on 11/04/2010 8:43:43 PM PDT by Saije
Even as Scott Oberlitner squeezed the trigger on the .375-caliber H&H Magnum rifle and sent a massive slug flying toward the hulk of the charging Afognak Island grizzly bear, he sensed it was too late. This was like trying to stop a freight train with a bullet. A miracle was going to be necessary to halt this madness, and there was no miracle. The bullet hit the bear, but did nothing to slow it. There was no time for a second shot. There was no time for anything except the fleeting thought that what was happening couldn't be happening. Then the bear was on Oberlitner.
"I thought it was all over," the 40-year-old Anchorage man says now, just over a week later.
About the last thing he remember doing in the split second before the bear hit him was trying to make a bullfighter pivot out of the way of the charge. It didn't work. The bear hit Oberlitner, and he went down.
From then on, he was powerless. His life was in the hands of fate.
"She bit me on the leg. She bit me on the butt," he said, "and then she threw me on a log and cracked some ribs."
(Excerpt) Read more at alaskadispatch.com ...
There have been a number of bear attacks stopped with handguns.
Bear guides, according to my bear hunting friend, frequently carry .45-70 revolvers and they seem to work.
Although the 375 H&H is a great round I personally would feel a lot more confident with .45-70 or greater with heavy loads.
To show you how dangerous this can be, during one of his trips which was 3 weeks long, 5 hunters were killed by bears. Not for the faint of heart.
Those grizzlies make my guy look like a teddy bear.
Just get a bigger knife.....:)
Wow, those were fascinating pictures and a wild story to boot. My blue jeans would be brown.
Thanks for that. That is just wild and the pictures tell the story. Very cool.
I lived in west AK for many years and only used this:
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v466/hockea/Mvc-016l.jpg[/IMG]
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