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Air Force enlisted man 50-some years ago who, bored to tears at his Alaskan outpost, decided to go bag himself a polar bear and drew an M-1 and several clips of mil-spec ball ammo. He found the bear, and the search party found his rifle. In two pieces. They never found him, just a mess of pink snow and some empty clips. People on this thread will correct me, but for polar bear, he probably needed something at least as stout as .338 Win. Mag., and preferably even more gun than that, maybe in the range of .375 H&H. My dad successfully hunted many a Grizzly Bear and moose with his Model 70 chambered in 30-06, the same round the M-1 uses. ANd I'm pretty sure he was using surplus ammo as that's the only 30-06 ammo I ever saw around our house. I still have the rifle and 1/2 crate of ammo that he left me. Maybe the enlisted guy in your story was a bad shot, or, maybe the bear, or it's friend, successfully hunted him. That's one of the real dangers of big game, they see you as dinner thus why most big gamers will not hunt alone.