Buckshot and bears

The OP is looking for a solution for someone else, probably someone even less knowledgeable than himself if they need the help. A bear on the porch or coming through the window will dramatically impact marksmanship of most, especially one without the ability to find their own shotgun. I have used 12ga slug on smaller animals (wolverine) and it worked well. Buckshot is a 2nd best solution; depending on the second shot seems unsound too. To be fair, folks do pull 5th wheels with 1/2tons too, although usually not after the first trans rebuild.
 
Range and shot placement are the issue here. In one of Gary Shelton's investigations it showed when buck shot was preferable over a slug. The short version is the the slug hit the bear below the eye, sat him down, but he jumped up and continued his attack. Subsequent investigation showed this shot was not fatal.The next shot was buck shot into the main trunk of the bear. It broke off its attack and died fairly quickly. Premise: Had the slug entered the eye and penetrated to the brain, game over. It missed at close range and was stopped by an incredibly durable bear skull. Buck shot in this situation would have probably have had at least one shot enter skull. The buck shot that entered the main trunk of the animal at that close up range would have been equally effective had it been a slug. In direct answer to the OP's original question I would go with a combo, buck shot followed by a slug. This answer based on the fact he stated it was not a hunting scenario but a home protection one. Setting up the ideal shot is not usually an option and you would probably be taking aim at its head coming at you. In a hunting scenario the slug is the way to go IMO.
 
If the trick is to really PO Yogi, then sure it'll do nicely. Closing your windows will work better as nothing will stop Yogi or anything else in its tracks.
Buckshot is for firefights in phone booths. Far too unreliable at any distance. Worse for your FNG. Your FNG needs training and practice. You cannot just hand 'em a firearm, any firearm, and expect 'em to be able to do anything with it. As mentioned, shotguns are not point and shoot firearms.
 
sunray said:
If the trick is to really PO Yogi, then sure it'll do nicely. Closing your windows will work better as nothing will stop Yogi or anything else in its tracks.
Buckshot is for firefights in phone booths. Far too unreliable at any distance. Worse for your FNG. Your FNG needs training and practice. You cannot just hand 'em a firearm, any firearm, and expect 'em to be able to do anything with it. As mentioned, shotguns are not point and shoot firearms.
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So I should dissuade him from getting his license? Why on earth would I do that? Im going to teach him to as well as I can, and encourage him to practice at the cabin over the summer to familiarize himself better with the gun. But hes getting a gun, assuming he passes his course, of which I have no doubt that he will. This is smart man with years of wilderness camping and living in a rural area, he knows all about preventative maintenance when it comes to bears. However he is now going to be in a VERY remote situation and wants to have the definitive answer if he needs it.
 
There is no such thing as a definitive answer because there is always the possibility that one may be more suitable than the other. However I'd say 99% of the time slugs will do the job better.
I would feel comfortable with either, however I'd feel more comfortable with slugs. When I do carry my shotgun I don't even consider buckshot when I have slugs on hand.
Slugs will smash skulls, shoulders, pelivis, reach the vitals from and and all angles plus if need be will shoot through the wall or door and still have killing power. Same can't be said about buck.
 
It makes a difference on what you are using them for. I believe that the slug is a better choice for hunting but for close Really close range work th buckshot is more devastating. You have about 50% more mass that you are throwing at the critter and It only spreads 2-3" at close range so you have a huge wound channel.At 10+ yd the slug At less than 5 yds a heavy charge of buckshot.
I've never tried it but I imagine that at less the 10 ft A heavy load of birdshot would make about a 2" hole almost right through. Never had the the occasion to try it

Neil
 
A local fellow here killed a polar bear with a load of 3" BBs applied to the face, at contact close, when it attempted to get into his house, apparently it wanted rottweiler for breakfast. At the shot it (the bear not the dog) jumped off the deck and rubber legged it about 100' then laid down. I don't normally recommend goose loads for bears, but I'm happy there were no slugs in that gun that day; the fellow was pretty wild, and we were in the direct line of fire. So yes, use Buckshot if there is any possibility of over-penetration presenting a danger to anyone else.
 
doublelung said:
Slug would be by far the better choice IMO
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Not unless its a hardened lead slug like a Brenneke or a copper plated slug .. The standard 1oz soft lead Foster type slug you see at Crappy tire has very inadequate penetration for bear , much better off with buckshot than these. Heres some vids from a fellow CGNr ''Brobee'' who really knows his stuff with slugs , first vid is with a soft lead slug the second with a copper jacketed slug and third with a Brenneke hardened lead slug

[youtube]FKge3FF0Hx4[/youtube]

[youtube]zAq5jNBrRbw[/youtube]

[youtube]EtyPqHyhgJo[/youtube]
 
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Better yet. A bar across the window so a bear won't get in. Remoteness is your friend as the bears are usually better behaved over the ones spoiled by sloppy tourists. Good that your friend wants some protection, but if that is a real honest concern, either install smaller windows, shutters, or bars that are anchored for real to the building, not just screwed to siding. Firearms around bear are usually needed when the person has f'ed up and not been diligent enough. Except for white bear, that is... They are completely different from griz and black bear.
Sure, absolutely, have the smokepole for the unforeseen, but best preparation for the foreseen does not involve running across the room to grab the loaded shotgun from it's storage rack, tripping on a chair, recovering and grabbing shotgun, aiming, yanking the trigger, removing safety, yanking again, sending first round wild, racking, getting the second on target fully penetrating vitals, then playing run from the bear in a room with the family for the next 20 odd seconds before it runs out of muscle stored oxygen, and there you are trying harder to get a second shot off, and not hit the kids, while being just a bit dazed from just experiencing his first shotgun discharge in an enclosed space...
A window bar or two might be the best preparation for the given scenario.
 
mechanist said:
Better yet. A bar across the window so a bear won't get in. Remoteness is your friend as the bears are usually better behaved over the ones spoiled by sloppy tourists. Good that your friend wants some protection, but if that is a real honest concern, either install smaller windows, shutters, or bars that are anchored for real to the building, not just screwed to siding. Firearms around bear are usually needed when the person has f'ed up and not been diligent enough. Except for white bear, that is... They are completely different from griz and black bear.
Sure, absolutely, have the smokepole for the unforeseen, but best preparation for the foreseen does not involve running across the room to grab the loaded shotgun from it's storage rack, tripping on a chair, recovering and grabbing shotgun, aiming, yanking the trigger, removing safety, yanking again, sending first round wild, racking, getting the second on target fully penetrating vitals, then playing run from the bear in a room with the family for the next 20 odd seconds before it runs out of muscle stored oxygen, and there you are trying harder to get a second shot off, and not hit the kids, while being just a bit dazed from just experiencing his first shotgun discharge in an enclosed space...
A window bar or two might be the best preparation for the given scenario.
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i dont know that much about polar bears the closest was around 200 meters and it was enough during the summer on Hudson bay, but i ve seen black bear tearing apart cabins, 18th wheeler trailer so i dont know exactly what kind of building you need to have to avoid any breaking from a nanook ...
 
medvedqc said:
i dont know that much about polar bears the closest was around 200 meters and it was enough during the summer on Hudson bay, but i ve seen black bear tearing apart cabins, 18th wheeler trailer so i dont know exactly what kind of building you need to have to avoid any breaking from a nanook ...
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If they want in bad enough, they just go through the wall, some times they come in through a doorway, the door can be found flat on the floor, and then go out through the wall, just because they can. By the way, a window 8' off the ground isn't much of a deterrent for a bear 12' tall. Around here its common to have shutters studded with spikes, and spiked "floor mats" in front of windows and doors of unattended buildings. Some have installed bars on windows, others use expanded metal, but most don't bother. We came across a cabin one day that had been raided, in an area that had power. The door was knocked in, the lights were on, the music was blaring, and there was a pile of bear crap in the door way. Near as I can figure the bear broke the door down, then by some fluke hit the light switch; turning on both the lights and the music, which literally scared the crap out of him. The place next to it had been hit as well, and the entire back wall was down. Another had heavy plywood shutters, and you could see the wood had been frayed where the bear had worried the corner of it, in an attempt to pull it off, these guys can be pretty smart, and they just have to be rewarded once, then they'll break into any cabin they come across.

This guy was a cabin robber, and Resources had sort of let it be known that he could be killed without question. I spent a few nights out myself, wanting to put a notch on my .416, until a pal of mine sorted him out. He was at home not far from the cabin in question when early one morning he heard thumping on his front door, and sure enough here's the cabin robber on his haunches lunging against the door in the same fashion as when they are attempting to break though ice. So my pal runs to an upstairs window, sticks his head out and yells "Hey!", when the bear looks up he rugged it with his .375; he then made the call to the "BEAR line" saying that the cabin robber was no longer a problem. Later that morning he had a group of tourists in one of Pounder's buses, and by all accounts they got a kick out of seeing the bear that Resources had not yet picked up, and hearing, what I'm sure was a good story.

Pounder has an electric fence sort of thing across the front of his house, which is grounded to a chain link fence which lays flat on the ground in front of the building. By his account, when a bear touches the contact the reaction is immediate, he takes off huffing and puffing looking back to see what bit him. I haven't been tempted to test it out for myself.

An older fellow here had a large visitor one night, that came into his large sprawling house, wandered around the kitchen and left. Bill never even woke up, which according to him was maybe a good thing for all concerned, particularly him. The bear came in, and didn't make a mess or break anything, other than I assume the door,; this is certainly the exception to the rule. Maybe he just appreciated the workmanship Bill had put into that place and couldn't bring himself to mess it up . . . who knows.
 
I'm honestly a little confused by the overwhelming preference for 12 gauges in Canada as bear guns. I carry one daily at work and have had to use it (with CO approval) on problem bear; it is not my first choice by any means, even with slugs. The guys in Banff in all truth likely aren't experienced hunters, and protocols are often followed for no good reason. A .338 Win Mag or .375 makes a 12 gauge slug look abysmal for effectiveness on large, amped up animals. I've shot a big male from inside ten yards with a slug and watched it run a good ways pissed off the whole way, and it was alive for far longer than the bear would need to kill you. The shot had ripped the back side of the heart apart and I was stunned to find they could go that far, that fast, with so much internal damage.They are not the instant stoppers we often view them as, and are actually shamed by a good magnum rifle for lethality (and shot placement, and range abilities). I carry a 12 gauge still as I work remote and they will dispense flares, bear bangers, bean bags, bird shot for food gathering, or kill large animals if need be. It's a Leatherman gun, but if purposely following up bears for destruction or trapping / darting it would not be high on my list of choices. But, they're cheap, the shells readily available, and likely an excellent choice for a cabin.
 
I shot a bear twenty five years ago from the bedroom window using 12ga Imperial SSG 2 3/4. The bear was approx 10 yards, looking right at me in the window and shot him between the eyes. He fell right on the spot folding his front and rear legs forward without falling over to one side or the other. I must say I was impressed at the quick kill.
 
I did some testing up at the camp with my 18" barrelled Mossberg Maverick pump with fixed cylinder bore. Remington 00 buck gave an approximately 18" 9 pellet pattern at 25 yards. That is the furthest I would shoot that through my gun. Next I tested some of this stuff that combines the best of both slugs and buckshot. It has a 1 oz. slug and 3 00 buck pellets. Again I got about an 18" pattern with the slug and the three pellets at about 20 yards. They had perfectly spread out with the pattern being the slug in the middle and the three pellets at the 12, 4 and 8 O'Clock positions making about an 18" pattern. This is my new camp load and I will always have 5 of these in the magazine when I am hiking in the woods!

http://www.theammosource.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_108_114&products_id=1114

These slugs also might be worth looking into as when they hit they break into 3 segments and tear the hell out of whatever they hit with a much smaller chance for blowing through the bear and doing collateral damage behind your target.

http://www.theammosource.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_108_114&products_id=2455

Ian
 
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