Can You Stop a Charge Better with Pepper Spray or a Firearm???

I always enjoy seeing that vid Mike :)

One of the ways that we practice is by placing 5 clay pigeons facing towards us ranging from 10-50 yards and timing how fast we can take them out from different shooting positions and different circumstances. I know for myself my big bore, close range shooting speed and accuracy has improved greatly by doing so.

Lots of practice can never hurt. Well maybe just a bit in the shoulder from time to time ;)
 
Ok, I'm going to ask it here, say you don't have the large hand gun or shot gun... what rifle caliber and/or bullet weight would you say is the cut off for being too small to dream of using on a charging griz or black bear??
 
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A 30-06 with heavy 180gr to 220gr bullets would be the smallest cartridge/caliber that I would want to use.

This is definately not the smallest cartridge that would kill a grizzly though a well placed shot from almost any centerfire round will do the job just not as efficiently.

A buddy of mine shot his grizzly with his 270 Win and if I remember right 150gr Accubonds for example.
 
I have faced a couple of Black Bear charges that I am convinced would have resulted in serious consequences had I not been armed with a rifle and ready. One of these bears had already been shot by someone else, and was definitely in a very bad mood, and not really disabled in any way. He was looking to get a piece of anyone he could, and only a quick, well placed shot put him down (he weighed 427 lbs) Bears move incredibly fast, and I feel a lot more comfortable with a rifle in hand than if I had to use pepper spray. Regards, Eagleye
 
manbearpig said:
You folk that have actually been in bear attack situationss (Boomer, huntinstuff, Gatehouse, etc):

would you stake your life on a 'less than perfect' CoM shot with an appropriate centerfire, or a perfect application of bear spray?
assuming the bear is actually charging - not huffing around or bluff charging - its actually going for you.
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I would rather have the worst rifle than the best can of bear spray.....

A rifle doesnt care which way the wind blows at 25yds, pepper spray does.

A rifle sends a bullet into the body causing heavy or fatal damage.

Ive never seen a bear survive a head shot or chest shot with a rifle.

The bear is bringing lethal weapons to the fight. You should too.

So you incapacitate or blind the bear for 15 minutes or so with your pepper spray.....what then? Great if you are a mile from your car. But what if you are out in the backwoods camping/fishing? Now you have an empty can of pepper spray and a bear who is recovering ...... and he can track you down.

Kill him and be done with it.
 
Boomer said:
Under conditions of thick cover where I could only see patches of the bear and would be unable to identify exactly what I was shooting at, I can't say with certainty what I would do, and what I might do one day, I might not do another. If I was forced to take an imperfect center of mass shot, I would certainly work the action as fast as was humanly possible in anticipation of what would surely follow. When you anticipate a dangerous confrontation, you must adjust your mind to a particular course of action. This way your actions are an automatic and immediate response to a particular stimuli in a stressful, fluid situation. Pepper spray has no place in my world.
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Best post ever.



I did find myself in a very vulnerable position one time were I could not see the bear, only "patches" of it. We were bow hunting and I was backing my friend up with his rifle(bipod & sling:rolleyes:). He had not only forgotten his clip but also his quiver, so there I was holding a single shot, bullets in one hand and arrows in another perched up on a 3 foot high stump with him on another stump 4 feet in front of me. Not easy to maneuver, with no where to go AND he was partly in the line of fire. We had a sow, that knew we were there walk across in front of us at 8 yards. Although we were high up I could not see much of her, the direction she was facing or her body language. Luckily she passed in front of us without incident then came around into the open at 25yards away down wind. Got a really good sent of us and came towards us (slowly). Once she was out in the open and I was able to draw a bead on her head I felt a lot better and let her come to 15 yards before I shouted her down.


I told my friend that if she had come at us when she was hidden behind the bush at 8 yards I would have let her come until she broke cover, which was literally at our (his:D) feet.

He got Mad.


I felt at the time, and still do, a shot into the bush would have been a wasted shot and the best thing to do in this situation would have been to wait until I could see her.



BTW he did get a bear that day, a cinimon at 16 yards wich he shot way to far back. I had to follow that bear up but that is another story.
 
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Here is a thought shared with me from a fellow in the States...

Just to let you know how fast those grizz can move they can cover 100ft in 3 seconds and they can outrun a quarter horse in the 1/4 mile.

The best shot in the world on an attacking grizz is when their mouth is open and when shot directly there will hit the spinal cord.

and another fellow shared this...

I have read and been told that to drop a charging grizz you want to hit the tip of the nose, that will fracture the skull and the bullet will travel through and into the heart lung area.

So you may want to keep that in mind during your training sessions as well remember you want/need coffee cup size groups at 25 yards if you are going to be able to effectively stop a charge.
 
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personally both should compliment eachother, if the bear keeps comming at me id unload as many shots into it as possible, if it gets withing bear spray range i give it a blast of that too and then side step behind a tree or obstacle. i doubt a wounded and blind bear would have much luck finding me.
 
Rifle or Pepper spray

Here is part of an article on bear attacks from Outdoor Life Feb. 2006.

The article is about people hiking, fishing, camping etc, obviously if you were hunting you would have sufficient "deterrent" with you.

"Always carry at least two deterrents in bear country. One should be bear pepper spray, the other a flare pistol, air horn or firearm. Carry one deterrent in your hand; the other should be available immediately, like a handgun in a holster or a shotgun slung over your shoulder.

Bear pepper spray might not be as macho as a firearm, but it provides the confidence to stand your ground and has proven track record in Alaska.
Pepper spray is effective because the sudden, loud hissing sound of the spray and the sight of the billowing cloud of red-orange mist frighten bears.

Smith maintains a database of more than 500 bear-human conflicts in Alaska. Bear pepper spray was used in 65 cases and deterred 61 curious or aggressive bears, for a 94 percent success rate.
Of 258 incidents in which firearms were carried or used for bear defence, they were effective in 175 of them, for a 65 percent success rate.
Smith suggests a shotgun and rifled slugs when lethal force is required."



Well, for myself I think that I would rather be armed with a rifle than an aerosol can, but the article is interesting. What do you think?
 
doorkeeper said:
Bear pepper spray was used in 65 cases and deterred 61 curious or aggressive bears, for a 94 percent success rate.
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im no expert, but i question these sortof statistics. anyone experienced in these matters care to speculate on this?

how many of those are actual life-threatening charges/attacks... not just curiousity, proximity and even bluff charges?

wouldnt people with guns tend to be more prepared/experienced and be more apt to wait, and only use the gun if absolutely necessary - when the bear actually charges? and some, like Gatehouse, would actually have tags for the animal and not even report it.

meanwhile some jumpy tree-hugger sprays at a merely curious passing bear and it runs off, they run to the nearest CO/ranger and report it and they chalk up one more 'life saved by pepper spray'.
 
Here is another comment and a couple of video's from another fellow in the States.

I can see how I can use this in defense practice, I'm thinking that it would be great fun to put a setup together like this at the club and put on a shoot... :cool:

That sled has too move faster though...

Here's a couple of video's of a shoot we had this last weekend at my house. The targets are of a Cape Buffalo. We were practicing for a hunting situation.

I made the sled from some 2 inch tubing and bolted the wood frame to it. I used 100 feet of cable and a UTV to pull it. The setup was, at the first shot I would hit the gas. I had markers placed so I knew where to stop to keep from running over the shooter.

The first video is of me with an EMF 92 in 45 Colt.

The second is of a friend with a 1886 Win in 45-70.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LFwiTfKFEE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0p8lO2YXOQ
 
Pepper spray was successful 94% of the time huh. What happened to the victims of the bear encounter in the other 6%? 6% of 500 incidents is about 30 failures, although we might assume that a few of these were brought about by the improper use of the product, and perhaps a few where the product did not function properly. It might also be reasonable to assume that the majority of pepper spray incidents occurred inside parks where the carrying of a firearm is prohibited, but where bears are conditioned to a human presence at certain times of the year.

The comparatively high failure rate with a firearm though perplexing could be attributed to many reasons. Insufficient training and poor marksmanship are high on the list, although they do not define the failures. A bear that is wounded and runs away was unable to carry through his attack, so it could be argued that such a situation was a success from the point of view of the individual who was attacked. If the carrying of pepper spray is common in parks, the carrying of a firearm throughout the rest of gun friendly Alaska is more common. The firearm could be carried in such a way that it could not be reached in time to prevent the attack. There could be ammunition failures. Shotgun shells standup poorly to wet conditions and should be changed out frequently, at least once a month. Primer failures are certainly not unheard of. There could be firearms that were in mechanically poor condition, or that were inappropriate for killing a large dangerous animal or that were loaded with inappropriate ammunition. Again shotguns seem to be the most egregious in this regard as people insist on loading them with shot rather than slugs in the mistaken belief that this practice improves the chances of hitting the target.

The major failing of pepper spray, next to the fact that it is non-lethal, is it's limited range. In order to be fully effective, the bear must be within 10 feet, never mind what it says on the can. When the bear is within 10 feet he is committed to a course of action. By contrast when armed with a firearm, a decision can be made concerning the bear's intentions, and deterrents (cracker shells or rubber bullets) can be applied at longer ranges, before the bear has made up his mind concerning what to do about you. If the bear closes to within 10 yards he can be killed at whatever point the shooter and the conditions determine as appropriate.

All of the foregoing assumes that an individual has some warning of the bear's presence, and has time to react. Such is not always the case. Attacks while sleeping are particularly frightening to consider, and under such conditions I would much prefer to rely on a big bore revolver than almost any other weapon or deterrent. If the bear stalks you for a predacious attack, only luck will save you. These guys are patient and very good at what they do, and it is unlikely they will give you the opportunity to respond in any way. Fortunately such attacks are rare.
 
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Boomer said:
Pepper spray was successful 94% of the time huh. What happened to the victims of the bear encounter in the other 6%? 6% of 500 incidents is about 30 failures, although we might assume that a few of these were brought about by the improper use of the product, and perhaps a few where the product did not function properly. It might also be reasonable to assume that the majority of pepper spray incidents occurred inside parks where the carrying of a firearm is prohibited, but where bears are conditioned to a human presence at certain times of the year.

The comparatively high failure rate with a firearm though perplexing could be attributed to many reasons. Insufficient training and poor marksmanship are high on the list, although they do not define the failures. A bear that is wounded and runs away was unable to carry through his attack, so it could be argued that such a situation was a success from the point of view of the individual who was attacked. If the carrying of pepper spray is common in parks, the carrying of a firearm throughout the rest of gun friendly Alaska is more common. The firearm could be carried in such a way that it could not be reached in time to prevent the attack. There could be ammunition failures. Shotgun shells standup poorly to wet conditions and should be changed out frequently, at least once a month. Primer failures are certainly not unheard of. There could be firearms that were in mechanically poor condition, or that were inappropriate for killing a large dangerous animal or that were loaded with inappropriate ammunition. Again shotguns seem to be the most egregious in this regard as people insist on loading them with shot rather than slugs in the mistaken belief that this practice improves the chances of hitting the target.

The major failing of pepper spray, next to the fact that it is non-lethal, is it's limited range. In order to be fully effective, the bear must be within 10 feet, never mind what it says on the can. When the bear is within 10 feet he is committed to a course of action. By contrast when armed with a firearm, a decision can be made concerning the bear's intentions, and deterrents (cracker shells or rubber bullets) can be applied at longer ranges, before the bear has made up his mind concerning what to do about you. If the bear closes to within 10 yards he can be killed at whatever point the shooter and the conditions determine as appropriate.

All of the foregoing assumes that an individual has some warning of the bear's presence, and has time to react. Such is not always the case. Attacks while sleeping are particularly frightening to consider, and under such conditions I would much prefer to rely on a big bore revolver than almost any other weapon or deterrent. If the bear stalks you for a predacious attack, only luck will save you. These guys are patient and very good at what they do, and it is unlikely they will give you the opportunity to respond in any way. Fortunately such attacks are rare.
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I'm speechless..........May as well lock the thread after that as the original question has been resolved. Nice work Boomer.

x2 on the "firearm not readily available" and "poor practice and marksmanship".
 
You mean too say people actually get paid to do bear protection services...

Some people have all the luck... :D
 
Such work tends to be tedious, and although there is always a potential for excitement, bear security is seldom exciting. My preferred position is to bring up the rear of the column during one of Pounder's walking tours, and look after the stragglers. From this position I normally have a good view of the procession to the front and might possibly observe a threat before the guys out in front could. Sometimes I get the feeling that I am only there so that the clients who have never seen a rifle before can get their pictures taken holding one, but such is the nature of the job. Providing bear security for contractors at a work site is even more tedious as your position is static. Once an hour or so you conduct a perimeter check, depending on the specific site and that is the only moving around you are able to do. Still, if there is a problem you want a competent individual to deal with it, and I am pleased that Pounder holds me in such high regard.
 
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