Bear Protection Shotgun
- Thread starter RedTeam98
- Start date
How many bears have you shot with a rifle, how many with a shotgun?
Did you notice any difference in their response after being shot ?
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thewoodsrunner
Member
I've seen 12 gauge open choked slug guns suggested for grizzly-stopping (which by the way, as with cape buffalo, is a whole different game than grizzly-hunting, and it's surprising to me how few Canadians get this, even in grizzly range. As compared to say the African countries where this sort of knowledge is general.) Apparently some slugs are tougher than others and that's what you want, you don't want a projectile that is going to mushroom, you want maximum penetration in the stopping gun. More commonly i have seen the .375 H&H or Ruger recommended. I have never seen any pro worth their salt recommend a 30 cal for grizzly safety. Not the ubiquitous .300 winmag, not the .30-06, certainly not a .30-30(!). Nor the 33's nor 35's. Recommended is .375 and up. 45-70 is often cited and i once carried one, but after seeing enough real-world examples of lousy performance on really big animals i moved 'up' to a .375H&H, which has never failed for me on the same class critters. If you go .45-70, in a modern Marlin for instance, you gotta handload to .450 Marlin specs - or get a .450 Marlin which should be fine. You want tough, heavy-for-calibre bullets for high sectional density with good frontal area (not spitzer rounds. Not fast expansion rounds.) Medium-low (highest teens) to medium velocities (22-2500) are your friend, high velocities are not. Other candidates - 9.3x62 (.366) perhaps, .404 Jeffery, i've even seen .416 Rigby suggested as not being too much when your ass is on the line with a griz incoming. Carry the right gun and carry spray, that's the word of the pros. The science is that spray is effective on griz in the high 90's percentiles. There's plenty of ol' boys out there who will tell you spray is useless, "just seasoning." Don't listen to those guys, they're only trumpeting their ignorance.
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.375 H&H and .454 Casull.
The Leupold 1.5x5x20 is in QD rings.
My work rig.
But when I was starting out and money was tight this is what I carried at work sites. Because it was cheap and powerful.
I recovered a 338wm 250 grn swift aframe from the far side of a grizzly. Nice wound channel, stopped against the hide on the far shoulder. Smashed through part of that plate attached to the shoulder touched the top of the lungs, severed that big pipe coming out of the top of the heart, missed the leg bone on the far side and stopped against the hide. And retained 98% of it's original weight.
Guides and Big Game hunters were mentioned as an example. Apologies that you are unable to connect the dots.
All of the above. Read more. Learn.
It has been explained why, by several folks right here on this very thread.
You don't get it, and yet it's so simple and obvious.
Use the appropriate and best tool for the job. When it comes to bear protection, that tool isn't a shotgun.
R.
- Location
- AB foothills
This 100%.
Cool thread. Have taken a few bear ( the black variety) with rifles of various calibres and archery equipment and everything worked as it should. Only one bear defence incident about 40 years ago I was hunting grouse and had a bear charging in quickly about 30 yards. I shouted loud maybe twice then put the bead on its nose and squeezed one off. The bear dropped at 4 yards as the load of #6 smacked it at the base of the skull where it meets the spine and made an awful big hole 
. Bear was stone dead and I wasn’t. lol. And ya, I soiled myself. Didn’t have a bear tag but season was open, called the MNR and he told me to go buy a tag. Lol, and I did.
While I do think a suitable rifle is a better choice there is absolutely no question that a shotgun with slugs is also perfectly adequate.
Carry on Nutz, it’s a fun thread.
. Bear was stone dead and I wasn’t. lol. And ya, I soiled myself. Didn’t have a bear tag but season was open, called the MNR and he told me to go buy a tag. Lol, and I did. While I do think a suitable rifle is a better choice there is absolutely no question that a shotgun with slugs is also perfectly adequate.
Carry on Nutz, it’s a fun thread.
My Kanaduh field belt. IMHO gun or spray is not a zero sum game. Stack the odds in your own favour I say..
Painkillers
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Just how dead does this bear have to be exactly? Big hole through heart/lung vs. .30 hole through heart/lung/ far side rib?
RMan, do you talk to everyone like this, or just on the internet? I don't get the impression that Suther is looking to pick on you...
Have a look at geologist's setup above. What is that rifle? 18-20" barrel? Maybe a Mauser or Mod 70 action? If so, CRF and box magazine? Powerful medium bore cartridge? An absolutely perfect bear setup. Probably couldn't have chosen something more appropriate.
At the same time, what's that setup cost? $2500? More? What does it take to be confident and competent with a rifle like that? I don't know the answers to those questions, exactly. But you can see how a 12ga for a few hundred bucks, that is easy to use/employ, that will give you adequate penetration (not great, but adequate enough) might be a great choice, all things considered.
You keep telling him that using a 12ga for bear defense is a "myth". What could that possibly mean? That it's never been done in the history of bears or shotguns? That if you try it, you'll turn into a pumpkin? That the bear will turn into a pumpkin, and still eat you anyway? I don't get it.
I would not choose a 12ga for bear defense in a world of all possible options under all possible conditions. But it's not inadequate. It will obviously work. It has been used successfully on countless occasions. It's cheap. It's easy. It versatile. It's reliable.
Give poor Suther a break.
It's a BRNO 602. Bought many years ago from I think, Crazy Davey.
BRNO/CZs are cheap for what you get. All steel, even the magazine floor plate is machined steel, not stamped steel, MIM or even worse plastic. Machined steel.
The bolt disassembles without tools, valuable for me as I can clean and degrease it in the field so that when the weather gets cold I run it DRY.
Some guys say they need to have work done on their BRNO/CZs to make them reliable but I've done nothing to my 602 other than have a gunsmith chop the barrel to 20", re-install the front sight base and replace the front sight bead with a lower one to make the express sights POA work and removed the front sling stud and replaced it with a barrel mount sling.
Five rounds (six if I press on the extractor which I don't like to do) of 270 grain .375 H&H Failsafes make for a good stopping rifle when the range is short and the presentation angle is terrible.
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My wife's grandfather was an MP in the 60's/70's and he's mentioned having to dispatch a few bears with Remington's 870's and C1's when the bears got into empty and abanded buildings at a CFB down east. I dont remember what one. But he said the shotgun didn't have any issues.
My ex uncle works for DND and on an arctic trip they had shotguns for polar bear defense. It was the first time he had shot a gun(not at a bear they let the team all do some shooting) I remember he was fairly giddy about it.
So shotguns do hold a place in bear defense.
My ex uncle works for DND and on an arctic trip they had shotguns for polar bear defense. It was the first time he had shot a gun(not at a bear they let the team all do some shooting) I remember he was fairly giddy about it.
So shotguns do hold a place in bear defense.
- Location
- West Central Alberta
^^^^ Can you imagine how loud that would be? 
Shotguns sure have a place. As has been pointed out here many times a shotgun is good for non lethal ammunition and it's also good for when you don't want a rifle bullet flying down a street/through a house/through a barn or something like that.
Shotguns can have some great attributes.
- There are plenty of shotguns that come basically pre packaged and set up as a convenient to carry, short and easy to manipulate bear defense gun.
- They are not expensive compared to many rifles used specifically for bear defense.
- 12 g Ammo is easy to find and you can practice firearm manipulation for pretty cheap using target loads.
- They usually take 5 or more rounds of ammo in the magazine.
- For a guy that only has a scoped hunting rifle with a 4 round magazine and a 22" barrel a shotgun is a more convenient to pack on a camping/fishing/hiking trip.
- A 12 gauge slug has plenty of power to smoke a bear at close range.
I would almost say that the best place the shotgun has for bear defense is so you have a gun when you don't really expect to run into a bear. If you knew you were going to have to duke it out with a grizzly you would be reaching for a rifle.
Phil Shoemaker, when asked about shotguns for bear defense said something along the lines of that he would rather take his 270 or 30-06.
Is that both barrels at once? hahahaha
That's actually a decent example of a shotgun to take when you don't expect to duke it out with a bear. It's going to be super compact, way easier to carry than a hunting rifle and if you wait until the bear is close enough that it is opening it's mouth to chomp you, it's going to be effective !
