favorite black bear HUNTING caliber

We have shot them with 243win, 30-06, 303brit, 375ruger
All have done very well.

My favorite is not based on caliber but in the rifle.
My 375ruger is the M77 Alaskan if I could own that same platform in multiple calibres I would.

Just handy and solid.

For what it's worth. The fastest kill shot was with the 30-06 and 165g interlocks. It dropped so fast I lost sight of it.

243 with 100g partitions blew threw the lungs and the bear made it 15yrds.
 
Man, lots of guys shooting little blackies with guns probably better suited to charging coastal brown bears!

Anyways, after shooting, and seeing shot, dozens of black bears, including many with medium magnums like 300 win, 338 win and .375 H&H, my personal favorite is the .270 win with standard cup and core 130's - 150's. Absolutely flattens them on the spot far more reliably than much more heavyweight cartridges.

Loadings delivering 4 000 ft/lbs of energy with controlled expansion bullets are just too much of a good thing for basically people-sized thin skinned game, and the vast majority of the energy from those loades simply blows on through the other side of the animal and does nothing at all...

A black bear is only 12" - 18" across the chest, depending on that animal's size...if your loading has not dumped most of it's energy BEFORE reaching the 18" mark, everything after that is just for internet bragging rights...
 
My friend has shot many blackies with a .270, FWIW.

I don't own that caliber, but if I went out tomorrow for a meat bear, I would bring the Norc M1A in .308 or my 45-70 lever gun with 350gr cast. Probably the latter.
 
Northman999 said:
A black bear is only 12" - 18" across the chest, depending on that animal's size...if your loading has not dumped most of it's energy BEFORE reaching the 18" mark, everything after that is just for internet bragging rights...
Click to expand...

How about an exit hole which makes it easier to blood trail.

Not all black bears weigh 150 lbs and very few "bang flop" with a double lung broadside hit (damn I hate that phrase).

The only Internet bragging I see in these threads is guys trying to convince those that are new to hunting that using a small caliber somehow proves they're a seasoned hunter.
 
As with most medium to large big game, I wouldn't feel undergunned with a 6.5, and I wouldn't feel overgunned with a big case .375. In any case, a short, quick handling, well balanced rifle, with a good trigger, and a low powered variable scope is, within reason, more important than bore size or bullet weight.
 
Took my first black bear this spring by means of foot snare and dispatched him with a K31 in 7.5x55. I know it's not hunting but I would figure the results would be very similar on a baited bear at a slightly further distance with a shot from a tree stand. The shot was aimed at the heart and upon butchering I found the heart to be perfectly liquified. At first I thought I had buggered the shot since the bear let out an enormous moan and I thought damn he needs another. The bear then took a deep breath and just collapsed and that was that. Think I'll be using the same hornady interlocks in this rifle this fall for black bear hunting since my rifle seems to like them at the range and it's a way to keep the memory of my great grandfather alive(this rifle was his service rifle). Think I'd be using it for stand only hunting since the thing weighs a friggin ton.
 
Of the 50+ bears I have personally taken, all but one were with a bow... my lone rifle bear came last fall. But, having guided bear hunters for 20 years... I have scouted, hunted, tracked, dressed and skinned another 250 bears for clients... I have made many observations regarding platform, cartridge, shot placement and hunter personality & experience, that have bearing on the outcome... I can assure you that my experience leads me to believe that of those factors, hunter personality and experience have the greatest bearing on the outcome, many times significantly affecting shot placement.
 
Northman999 said:
Man, lots of guys shooting little blackies with guns probably better suited to charging coastal brown bears!

Anyways, after shooting, and seeing shot, dozens of black bears, including many with medium magnums like 300 win, 338 win and .375 H&H, my personal favorite is the .270 win with standard cup and core 130's - 150's. Absolutely flattens them on the spot far more reliably than much more heavyweight cartridges.

Loadings delivering 4 000 ft/lbs of energy with controlled expansion bullets are just too much of a good thing for basically people-sized thin skinned game, and the vast majority of the energy from those loades simply blows on through the other side of the animal and does nothing at all...

A black bear is only 12" - 18" across the chest, depending on that animal's size...if your loading has not dumped most of it's energy BEFORE reaching the 18" mark, everything after that is just for internet bragging rights...
Click to expand...

Kinetic energy might not be totally meaningless in terms of killing game, but its nearly so, without the context of bullet design and construction, and the measure of the bullet's expanded frontal area. Most cup and core bullets that measure .30 caliber or less, that impact at near the muzzle velocity, are more likely to penetrate 12" of tissue, never mind 18". IMHO, its the exception to the rule that a still hunter gets a broadside shot on a bear, more often than not its quartering or straight away, and in both circumstances, deep penetrating bullets are beneficial. When a bear is shot over bait, an exit wound produces a more visible blood trail, makes tracking easier, and when the increase in tissue destruction is measured in inches, more is always better, as undamaged tissue doesn't bleed.
 
northman999 said:
man, lots of guys shooting little blackies with guns probably better suited to charging coastal brown bears!

Anyways, after shooting, and seeing shot, dozens of black bears, including many with medium magnums like 300 win, 338 win and .375 h&h, my personal favorite is the .270 win with standard cup and core 130's - 150's. Absolutely flattens them on the spot far more reliably than much more heavyweight cartridges.

Loadings delivering 4 000 ft/lbs of energy with controlled expansion bullets are just too much of a good thing for basically people-sized thin skinned game, and the vast majority of the energy from those loades simply blows on through the other side of the animal and does nothing at all...

A black bear is only 12" - 18" across the chest, depending on that animal's size...if your loading has not dumped most of it's energy before reaching the 18" mark, everything after that is just for internet bragging rights...
Click to expand...


bingo!!
 
Northman999 said:
A black bear is only 12" - 18" across the chest, depending on that animal's size...if your loading has not dumped most of it's energy BEFORE reaching the 18" mark, everything after that is just for internet bragging rights...
Click to expand...

The old "energy dump" theory.
 
I have never hunted Black Bear before but would love to take one with my Thompson Center Omega inline muzzleloader shooting a 290gr Barnes TEZ powered by 77gr (weighed) of Blackhorn 209.
 
I shoot gophers deer black bear and moose with my 375

I mean the whole idea when the trigger is pulled is to kill it right?

Yeah they all kill them. Who cares. Everyone has their ideas of what's ideal.

Ideal in my opinion is it kills what your pointing at. If it dose that then use whatever flavor you want.
 
ill take you guys word, am impressed with the amount of people mentioning the Whelen!

Is it really a Great Cartridge for Black bear? what makes it such a great Blackie cartridge?

excuse my Q, never had anything to do with a Bear, only drop bears down here

WL
 
WhelanLad said:
ill take you guys word, am impressed with the amount of people mentioning the Whelen!

Is it really a Great Cartridge for Black bear? what makes it such a great Blackie cartridge?

excuse my Q, never had anything to do with a Bear, only drop bears down here

WL
Click to expand...

In my opinion the Whelen has many things in its favor making it a good black bear cartridge. It probably doesn't really offer a lot over the .30-06 load with suitable bullets but I will try and articulate why I like it for black bear. Black bears can get large, most years I see bears that exceed 400lbs in the spring and come fall when they have fattened up those bears can be truly huge. The .35 Whelen offers heavier bullets with large frontal areas at useful velocities and in my experiences cartridges pushing bullets larger than .30 cal tend to produce better blood trails on fat bears. A 300+lb bear can be a slightly different animal than an average whitetail or Fallow deer.
I am not saying that anyone else's favorite cartridge isn't just as suitable, I've seen enough large bears killed with enough different rifles (and bows) to know better than that. It is just for me the .35 Whelen seems to strike a nice balance between recoil, suitable bullets and velocity.
 
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