Posted on 04/13/2022 5:25:56 AM PDT by marktwain
I have been researching the effectiveness of pistols when they are fired as a defense against bears for several years. The research started as an attempt to find cases where pistols were ineffective.
In October of 2016, a poster on freerepublic.com claimed (post 28 at the link) that there were numerous failures when people attempted to use pistols as a defensive tool against bears. The author knew there were several cases where the use of a pistol resulted in an effective defense.
Because access to handguns, bear spray, knives, rifles, and shotguns all involve similar problems, only cases where a handgun was actually fired are considered. None of these systems do any good if they cannot be accessed in time to be used to stop an attack.
Months, then years of searching the Internet, books, and official sources for documented cases of failure found three documented failures and over a hundred documented cases of success (there were 10 cases where combinations of pistols and other potentially lethal items were used).
In June of 2021, the count of documented cases where pistols or handguns alone were fired in defense against bears stood at 104. One of those was discovered to be a duplicate and corrected. Since then, another 20 cases have been found. Those cases raise the number to 123. Of the 123 cases, three documented cases exist where the firing of the handgun did not stop the attack by driving off or killing the bear or bears involved.
When the number of cases reached 100, publishing the whole on the Internet at AmmoLand became time-consuming and unwieldy. With this update, additional cases will be published as time permits. The statistics will be updated. The last update will be available, but not incorporated into a
(Excerpt) Read more at ammoland.com ...
It actually looks more like human scat.....
Fred Bear wrote about this very subject in one of his books.
Interesting. Do you have any more information? I would like to read what he wrote.
...except or the little bells, and the reek of pepper spray!
Steve Isdahl has a funny story about a black bear on his front porch. Look him up, I gotta go to work.
I really didn’t want to discuss it with him.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Why not? Bears are well known for being quite reasonable. I learned that from watching Yogi and Boo Boo as a child.
Guard that picnic basket though.
(raccoons are bears too)
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Thanks. I did not know that.
I feel ya. Only two animals have scared me... a momma moose with a calf and a wild boar.
Never miss an update by Mr Weingarten.
Always amazed at the warning shot aspects of the report. In this update, one shooter used six round from an eight-round magazine. Crazy.
If a bear isn’t deterred, or if it returns after a single warning shot—as I have experienced—it will be shot. (Not an attack, by the way)
“I’m curious to know the calibers of the 3 failures.”
“Here is a link to an article about the three cases.”
The three were a .22 rim fire (against a polar bear), and a .38 and a .357, both of which are believed to have missed, or just grazed the bears.
So it’s true! Bears DO $h!7 in the woods!
Yes, black bears are definitely far less a threat than grizzlies.
I’ve had two (known) encounters: one at 10 feet, and another at 40. The first passed in the opposite direction on a narrow path and the second ran up a tree when my neighbor’s dog barked at them. Two large black bears TOGETHER are typically sister-bears. (There were two bears—I saw only one—and it was BIG).
‘Glad my mini-dachshunds weren’t there. They would have chased after the bears!
Black bears make up for it with numbers. About the same number of people killed by both species.
I suspect far more black bears are killed in defensive shootings, and are never reported, because black bear predatory attacks tend to be hesitant, first testing the new prey to see if it is dangerous...
I lived in bear country (still somewhat do) and hand loaded 270gr DeepCurl bear loads in 44 magnum. I know they can do the trick as they were designed for large game, but there is that multiple shots to make the trick work that I am not so sure I can pull off every time. I suspect I’ll get 2-3 rounds out before a bear is on me, and maybe get in another 2 rounds. I carry, but I prefer avoidance and situational awareness to stay out that pie fight.
Glock 20 has become to go-to pistol for bear defense in Alaska. The only debate now is ammo...Buffalo Bore 220 gr or Xtreme Penetrator 140 gr. As the article pointed out, one of the cases was the only known successful reloading of a handgun during a bear attack, and they were firing semi-autos. Forget about reloading if you have some ancient relic wheel gun that only holds five or six rounds.
Kind of funny... but I remembered that Thomas Jefferson's matched flintlock pistols were state of the art... at the time he owned them...
I have black bears around my house and some are quite large. I carried a .357 with hunting rounds for years and finally bought an old Virginian Dragoon in .44 Magnum which I carry now. If I go automatic I carry a Glock 29 .10mm.
The smaller calibers will kill the bear but the question is will it kill you before it dies.
My former co-workers husband is a big fly fisherman and he frequents the streams in the Great Smokey Mountain National Park and he had a couple of bear encounters that were interesting.
One trip he was walking in, not far from his truck and heard a noise to his left and looked and saw two small bear cubs and he immediately wondered, where is momma and he found out from a loud snort about thirty yards away to his right, he had come between her and the cubs. He slowly started walking backwards in the direction of his truck and momma never charged but ambled over toward the cubs. He made it to his truck and decided discretion was the better part of valor that day and went home.
Another day he was a good ways into the mountains heading towards a stream a buddy had told him about and it was hot and he stopped to rest and get a drink of water and leaned up against this ancient oak that was massive in size. He took a couple of drinks of water and put the bottle back in his pack and had one hand leaning on the tree catching his breath and he heard a noise on the other side of the tree and he thought, oh there’s another person here and he leaned forward and at the same time a large black bear leaned forward and they were just a few feet apart and both startled at finding the other was there. He said he about messed himself and started walking slowly away keeping the tree between them and the bear did the same thing in the other direction. He said he would deviate to the side for an angle a little while walking to see where the bear went and see the bear heading in the opposite direction.
May take a minute... I gotta find the book. Mr.Bear knew quite a bit about bears.
This kind, for example.
Now you may think "Aw, that's cute". But you have to ask: Where's Mama?
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