Recommendation for a bear gun.

[Longwalkhome]

I'm surprised that no one has recommended that he hangs out with a friend in bear country. An older, slower friend.

Yep then he could use a 25 auto for bear defense, just shoot his friend in the leg.

 

[Longwalkhome]

Just a point of view, black bears are like hogs only with teeth and claws. In their territory they root for food and only get near humans when food is short. With millions of border jumpers its going to drive the wild animals out of their food source territory. Most people have never seen a bear in the wild because bears don't like humans.

 

[Val1884]

Just a point of view, black bears are like hogs only with teeth and claws. In their territory they root for food and only get near humans when food is short. With millions of border jumpers its going to drive the wild animals out of their food source territory. Most people have never seen a bear in the wild because bears don't like humans.

I don't like humans either..must be why I find so many bears while hunting.

 

[Bobbygun]

Since he has a "trusty .44 mag", maybe you could find a suitable .44 Special load that he can handle better. Possibly something from Buffalo Bore. While I usually hunt bears with a .300 Weatherby Magnum, I'm often running around in bear country with a .44 Magnum full of @oremike 's .44 Special rounds loaded with Rimrock Bullet's 200 grain "anti-personnel" wadcutters (same bullets used by Buffalo Bore), and I don't feel naked by any means.

 

[Sxsnuf]

This ^^^^^^^!
If Dad's got a revolver he knows and feels good about, why throw something else in the mix?

 

[DirectDrive]

Why not get him a Glock 10mm ?
G20
Easy to shoot accurately.

Take Pops to a range that rents and do a try out.

 

[oremike]

There are lots of good recommendations here from 357 and on up. More important than the size of the hole is where you put it and how deep it goes. The common thought is to aim for the spine and break it with a Truncated Cone type hard cast bullet. Pop's might be more comfortable with a heavy load 357 revolver or may be more familiar with a 1911 in 10mm.

 

[drstrangelove]

I have a friend that has a bearskin rug with 3 20ga slug holes in it, the last one fired at point blank range. He's a very lucky dude. He had to crawl out from under a dead bear. Use the most powerful weapon you are willing to carry.

 

[po18guy]

Good suggestion, but looking for a sidearm.

Mare's leg? Since he has a .44 that he is used to, get Buffalo Bore .44 Special loads. Fat more controllable and still potent enough for the black bear.

 

[Alexx1401]

Hey team,

I am looking for a good bear gun for my dad who lives in Prescott, AZ. A guy was just mauled and partially eaten by a black bear (very rare) about ten minutes from their place. Dad knows his way around firearms, but at 81 I'm a little reluctanct for him to use his trusty .44MAG as that sucker kicks like a scalded mule and last time he had it at the range, I could tell he was having trouble controlling the recoil. I like a revolver for this task and am thinking 10mm. I've never shot a 10mm revolver, but I already know it's more manageable than the .44. I know the ten is a lower energy round but I think it will penetrate enough to give the bear second thoughts if not turn him into a nice rug.

Any suggestions? Thank you in advance.

The 10mm will do fine on the small bears up there. Many seem to be mixing up the browns and the smaller black bear you are talking about. They are so small and normally timid many seem to forget they can and do kill. It is rare but it does happen. We are not talking about anything like the larger bears though. If your Dad can find a place with rentals have him rent a 10mm auto. Recoil will be far easier than the .44 he has and the round will put down the little bears up that way if needed.

 

[OldBroad44]

He owns a .44mag revolver . All he has to do is switch to a lighter load.
I suggest Grizzly Cartridges .44sp 260 gr WFNGC Wide Flat nose gas check. It has a very wide flat nose with sharp edges. 950 fps. 521 ft. lbs. This has .357mag power level with a wider much heavier bullet with a much larger meplat (flat part of nose) than the .357. A review I read said it penetrates through 6 feet of pine board. The bullet is super hardcast.
Here's a link to the manufacturer, who is a NW company:

44 SPECIAL 260gr WFNGC - Grizzly Cartridge, LLC

Caliber: 44 SPECIAL Bullet Wt: 260gr Bullet Type: Wide Flat Nose Gas Check Velocity: 950 fps Rounds: 20 M.E.: 521 ft lbs. Made in the USA: Yes Recommended for: Hunting ...

grizzlycartridge.com

All semiautomatic "flat nose" loads have only small flat noses with rounded edges so they will feed. They look like a hybrid of a real bear load and a classic round nose, a design notorious for deflecting rather than penetrating. A 10mm would give you only the same power level as a .357 mag but with a bullet that I think likely to be much less effective on bear. The .44sp I suggest should be way better than either the 357mg or 10mm. I am suspicious about whether the 10mm is adequate to reliably penetrate the head of a charging bear instead of bouncing off like the round nose it resembles. And just today I happen to see a trial that suggests my suspicions are warranted.

The problem with stopping an attacking bear is you must hit it in the brain to get instant incapacitation. Anything else other than a spine shot, which is far chancier to do, might be lethal, but not lethal fast enough. It would take several seconds for the bear to bleed out even if you destroyed his heart. Plenty of time for the bear to crush your skull or neck with one bite or remove your throat or face with one swat. So you need to hit bear in the brain. Essentially between the eyes. Problem is, the grizzly bear's skull in that area is 2 - 3 inches thick or more. Difficult to penetrate. Worse yet, the area is sloped to about 30 degrees. This greatly encourages round nose bullets to deflect off the bone and just make a superficial wound in bear's skin. You will read over and over that bears can be killed with a 22, a 9mm, etc. Well, its easy to kill a bear with a shot into the head from the side, such as when you are hunting bear or harvesting a treed bear. The skull on the side is much thinner and not sloped.

So we really care about penetrating when we test potential bear loads. And there are many calibers and loads that get tested as to how much wood, water, or meat they can penetrate. The problem is, the targets all are presented with the surface perpendicular to the bullet path. This measures how well the bullet penetrates but not how well it penetrates a 30 degree sloped surface. Often the tests are also done with HPs or JHP or JSP. Even with .44mag these bullet styles are not only shaped more like a round nose, they also may open up and fail to penetrate.

In the test below, the tester uses two ceramic tiles and three layers of plywood arranged at 30 degrees to represent the grizzly bear skull. It's only about half an inch of ceramic and maybe an inch of wood. Way less serious than grizzly skull. Maybe its more like a black bear skull. But its still interesting and meaningful. The semiautomatic bullets were metal jacketed. None of them including the 10mm, even penetrated into the wood. They shattered the two ceramic tiles and bounced off.

Then the guy tried a .500 bear load. It blew through ceramic and plywood. No surprise. So would an atom bomb. Big deal. What we needed was a test of true bear loads in .357 mag, 44sp, .45, .44 mag, and .454 Casull. Hot hand loads in .44sp and .45 are famous among the old timers as stoppers of bear and boar (which also has a thick sloped skull). Based on that I would predict that true bear loads of all the revolver rounds would slam through the test target. Except maybe the .357. However, we need somebody to try it. Maybe just with 6" of pine boards. I don't think the ceramic helped. And by the time a bullet goes through 6 boards its likely to vear off and exit boards so that more boards won't help. As it stands, what we have is a relatively simple test that all the semiautomatic loads failed. That is, the semiautomatic bullets, including the 10mm, which look so much like round nosed loads, seem to act a whole lot like round nosed loads.
Here's the link:

 

[clanhanson]

Bear spray... then Glock 20. Panzerschreck if you don't mind the weight.

 

[joken]

I have a G40 that is a soft shooting 10mm. I'd have him try a G40 or G20. 16 rounds of 10mm .

 

[ilikegunspdx]

I have a friend that has a bearskin rug with 3 20ga slug holes in it, the last one fired at point blank range. He's a very lucky dude. He had to crawl out from under a dead bear. Use the most powerful weapon you are willing to carry.

It does kinda make one think a rifle (even a short handy one) nearby in addition to the sidearm would be nice to have.

Fe 300 blackout 8.5" with folder takes up very little space. Even an ar10 12" with folder is a handy size and packs a wallop.

Energy wise:

10mm - 600 ft lbs
300 blackout 8.5" - 1050 ft lbs
.308 12" - 1915 ft lbs

They make short 12 gauge ar10's now also but I don't know anything about them.

 

[Stomper]

Hey team,

I am looking for a good bear gun for my dad who lives in Prescott, AZ. A guy was just mauled and partially eaten by a black bear (very rare) about ten minutes from their place. Dad knows his way around firearms, but at 81 I'm a little reluctanct for him to use his trusty .44MAG as that sucker kicks like a scalded mule and last time he had it at the range, I could tell he was having trouble controlling the recoil. I like a revolver for this task and am thinking 10mm. I've never shot a 10mm revolver, but I already know it's more manageable than the .44. I know the ten is a lower energy round but I think it will penetrate enough to give the bear second thoughts if not turn him into a nice rug.

Any suggestions? Thank you in advance.

For bear I was going to suggest a 16" gun from off the Missouri, but then you mentioned having manageable recoil for an 81yo…..

 

[Gus McCrae]

I think you are over thinking this. you see him as an old feeble man who can't control his weapon of choice. ive been in a lot of bear fights over the years and have sorted out a lot of bears at bad breath range. if your dad is familiar with his 44 mag and can hit to point of aim load it up with some hardcast magnum loads and let him make the first shot count trust me. After the first shot of a bear bay your plans go out the window and you are running on guts and instincts. put a good reflex optic on it if he can master it and be done. don't try to get him to learn a new gun at this point. Fear the man who only has one gun he will know how to use it. dont count out bear spray instead of inferior load in a handgun.

 

[Andy54Hawken]

Thinking about this some more...
And I would go with a .44 Special loaded with hard cast bullets.
As folks suggested before...seems like a good easy fix.
And maybe a change of grips for his revolver...again I would suggest Pachmyar's Presentation grips.
Andy

 

[Stomper]

I think you are over thinking this. you see him as an old feeble man who can't control his weapon of choice. ive been in a lot of bear fights over the years and have sorted out a lot of bears at bad breath range. if your dad is familiar with his 44 mag and can hit to point of aim load it up with some hardcast magnum loads and let him make the first shot count trust me. After the first shot of a bear bay your plans go out the window and you are running on guts and instincts. put a good reflex optic on it if he can master it and be done. don't try to get him to learn a new gun at this point. Fear the man who only has one gun he will know how to use it. dont count out bear spray instead of inferior load in a handgun.

Thinking about this some more...
And I would go with a .44 Special loaded with hard cast bullets.
As folks suggested before...seems like a good easy fix.
And maybe a change of grips for his revolver...again I would suggest Pachmyar's Presentation grips.
Andy

I still think a 16" gun from the Missouri is better….

 

[Spitpatch]

Bingo, @Andy54Hawken.

From nearly direct experience, I can say that my Dad's "just in case" gun in his pickup (and often a carry gun) was a Charter Arms Bulldog .44 Special. I handloaded some XTP's for him (hard cast may have been the BEST choice), and he did kill a Black Bear (off the highway with a broken leg) with one shot. Even Dad was amazed it worked so well.

 

[Andy54Hawken]

Well at least we ain't talkin' bout no bare gun....

Don't look Ethel ....But it was too late...
Andy