Bear and grouse gun??

Open the choke up to improved.

Heres my 870 Wingmaster with 21" rifle sighted smooth bore barrel. I carry it when pushing bush for deer, and blast the occasional grouse at the same time. I can eject the slug from the chamber, and manually insert bird shot by not allowing the lifter to take a slug from the magazine. It works wonderfully, and most of the time the bird is dumb enough to stand still for 7-8 seconds it takes me to do it.

I aim directly at the head of the bird for less then 15m (with bird shot, of course). 15+ I aim centre of mass of the bird. With slugs I can do clover leaf groups at 50m and about a 5" group at 100m. Plenty enough for a bear.

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0faustus0 said:
Ok, so here is the scenario .... lets imagine .... a hypothetical scenario .....

You are walking alone in the forest hunting grouse .... and you have a single shot shotgun or maybe a double with you ... and of course you have bird shot loaded .... hey, you are hunting grouse ... right? And the prepared hunter that you are ... you have some heavy duty slugs in your pocket somewhere in case that you should meet a bear. And because you have taken slugs along you left the bear spray at home ...

It is the most beautiful fall day .... you enjoy the fresh air ... the sun is warming you skin .... and then suddenly you hear a cracking branch behind you .... and you turn around ... and there is a black bear charging you at full speed and around 15 meters out. What do you do now? You probably have 2 -3 seconds till that bear is on top of you .... not more.

a.) Sh** in your pants and pray;
b.) Try to get that slug loaded into your gun;
c.) Shoot a warning shot into the air;
d.) Ditch the gun and pull out your knife and tomahawk (oh yes, I always carry one);
e.) Shoot the bear with bird shot at 10 - 15 meters;
f.) Drop to the ground and play dead, hoping the bear will leave once it is convinced that you are not a threat any more;
g.) Run for the next tree and try to climb it;
h.) Wait the 2 -3 seconds till your muzzle can touch his chest or head and then pull the trigger (with bird shot);

And lets assume there are no other options ..... you only have a.) to h.) .... which one do you choose and why?

:D
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E I'd shoot em with Bird shot at 10-15meters away and if that didn't stop em i'd switch to barrel 2 with a double, pump the action for a pump, pull the trigger again for a semi or get ready for the swing of the buttstock with a single. I don't think killing the bear would always be required. Spray with some 7.5 to the face at 10-15meters should slow them down as well as bear spray. If the bear is Super Hungry (like JAWS) Hollywood style then it would be a pickle but I don't see that happening
 
0faustus0 said:
Ok, so here is the scenario .... lets imagine .... a hypothetical scenario .....

You are walking alone in the forest hunting grouse .... and you have a single shot shotgun or maybe a double with you ... and of course you have bird shot loaded .... hey, you are hunting grouse ... right? And the prepared hunter that you are ... you have some heavy duty slugs in your pocket somewhere in case that you should meet a bear. And because you have taken slugs along you left the bear spray at home ...

It is the most beautiful fall day .... you enjoy the fresh air ... the sun is warming you skin .... and then suddenly you hear a cracking branch behind you .... and you turn around ... and there is a black bear charging you at full speed and around 15 meters out. What do you do now? You probably have 2 -3 seconds till that bear is on top of you .... not more.

a.) Sh** in your pants and pray;
b.) Try to get that slug loaded into your gun;
c.) Shoot a warning shot into the air;
d.) Ditch the gun and pull out your knife and tomahawk (oh yes, I always carry one);
e.) Shoot the bear with bird shot at 10 - 15 meters;
f.) Drop to the ground and play dead, hoping the bear will leave once it is convinced that you are not a threat any more;
g.) Run for the next tree and try to climb it;
h.) Wait the 2 -3 seconds till your muzzle can touch his chest or head and then pull the trigger (with bird shot);

And lets assume there are no other options ..... you only have a.) to h.) .... which one do you choose and why?

:D
Click to expand...

I had a close encounter with a black bear sow & cub when I was out bird hunting with a SxS once. The bear was only 15-20 feet away. Even if I'd had slugs in my pocket, there was no way I was going to risk fumbling around opening the gun and changing loads at that distance. As is turned out, I didn't have to shoot, but my plan was to let the bear get right off the muzzle before pulling the trigger. IIRC, I was loaded with 1 1/8 of #8's, or something similar. I was a good wing shot back then, and I'm confident that bear would not have touched me. Nice thing about a double is you get a very quick second shot if the first one doesn't work.
 
0faustus0 said:
Crowca3, can you explain a bit more? Not sure if I understand ....

??? :confused: :confused: :confused:
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This is what happens with bear defense threads. They are doomed.
What would be awesome is if a conservation officer would respond to these threads. To say stuff like, I'm officer Friendly and not looking to entrap you but, " in fact Timmy, you can hunt grouse with birdshot in the chamber and SSG or slugs in your pocket because you have a large game license during the open season"
As regards is Ontario the stupidest, no I would say fairly reasonable. On the Hole. Uh, whole.
 
If upland hunting in country where bear encounters are frequent, and problem bears not unheard of, the magazine should be full of slugs, and a round of low brass birdshot is either in the chamber or is first up, if the chamber is carried empty. Should a dangerous bear situation occur, you should probably have a plan to quickly get a slug into the chamber. Whether you cycle the action a couple of times, or prefer to drop a slug load through the ejection port doesn't matter.

As per the suggestion that you turn and are faced with a charging bear at 15 yards, my advice is to get a slug into the chamber then wait and see what the bear is going to do. If the bear is in fact running towards you, you won't have long to wait since from a dead stop he can cover 45 feet in about 3 seconds, perhaps a bit less. The purpose of the defensive bear gun is to prevent the bear from touching you; the idea being that the bear cannot hurt you unless he touches you. If after say 2.5 seconds you still perceive the bear to be a threat, prevent him from touching you. If you shoot him in the brain or the spine, your immediate problem is solved. Keep in mind a bear's brain is no wider than the width of his snout, and is no deeper than the distance between his eyes to his ears. If your shotgun bead is mounted directly on the barrel, and you aim for his head, you'll probably spine him.

The old timers had lots of really bad ideas when it came to bear defense Some suggested the first shot should be birdshot to blind him for instance. If you have time to shoot, you have time to kill him, so there is nothing to be gained from torturing the bear. Another piece of advice that leaves something to be desired is that you cut the hull of a shell just above the brass most of the way through, but not enough that it easily separates. The idea here is that the cup formed by the wad below and the hull above, holds the shot together and upon impact, acts like a slug. If you've ever examined the chamber of a 12 ga shotgun, you'll have noticed a significant reduction in diameter between the chamber and the bore; it would seem to me that the pressure spike that would occur the moment before the shell is swaged down to fit the bore would be significant. Perhaps in the days of paper shells the practice was safer. It would be prudent just to have a pack or two of slugs with you.
 
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Id get a Browning BPS Upland Special if I wanted a duel purpose shotgun. Short enough barrel to pack it around for bears. Long enough to hammer grouse on the fly. That gun is no longer in production so you would probably have to find someone with new/old stock or a used one.

Since you already have a gun and its a short barrel camp gun, Its really good for bears but mediocre for grouse. Assuming its an 18" bbl, it can't be as bad as the cylinder choke .410/22 Savage M42. Patterned that thing at 25 on a pie plate and it barely even touches it. A 26"bbl 20ga on IC does better. Lesson learned that if you're going to hunt grouse with a .410, then a full choke is the only option if you want any kind of decent range.
 
My understanding.If deer hunting you cannot carry shot smaller than # 1 buck. If you are deer hunting with bird shot in your pocket you can be fined. Shot gun deer hunters carry noise makers that do not meet the size minimum of # 1 buck which you can be fined for.Bird hunters with buck shot while grouse hunting can be fined also during a open deer season for guns.This is my understanding but check the regulations for yourself.
 
Crowca3 said:
My understanding.If deer hunting you cannot carry shot smaller than # 1 buck. If you are deer hunting with bird shot in your pocket you can be fined. Shot gun deer hunters carry noise makers that do not meet the size minimum of # 1 buck which you can be fined for.Bird hunters with buck shot while grouse hunting can be fined also during a open deer season for guns.This is my understanding but check the regulations for yourself.
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I guess I can see this. The CO finds an individual actively hunting deer with birdshot even though it is a noise-maker. More likely an add-on charge for the various infractions a group doing a deer chase with shotguns as noise-makers might find laid against them.
The Ministry's regulations as detailed in the online .pdf are not clear on many of these subtleties. If I was hunting grouse after a day of pursuing deer and carried slugs in case of who-knows-what, I would explain my circumstance to the CO, show my deer or bear license, ask for the charges in writing, and tell him/her to get the hell off my land.
 
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