Shot in the bears eyes

[Two Elks]

Do as I did when I first went to Alaska, upon advice of the Alaska Fish & Game, "get a large can of bear spray and eat, sleep and s**t with it". Fish and Game assured me that the spray would protect me better than any gun. (I wanted to carry my 44 Mag). Lucky for me I have never had to use it. But I trust what they advised.

 

[tom_in_vt]

I’m sure that a shot load to the face would not be fun, but I wouldn’t bet my life on it stopping a brown bear.

 

[French Colonial]

I find some of the comments and replies to this baffling, It's like several people did not take the time to actually read what was written. Where did anyone advise anyone it was a good idea to hunt bears with shot.

And distortion over time?
The original manuscript was written in the 1700's. If you are using the original manuscript how can it be corrupted over time? 1000 years from now if you are using the original document it has not changed!

Distortion through language translation?
You do not trust the translation from French to English, like it is what? Some new thing? They just invented it with Google?

Do you trust the translations of the Jusuit Relations? They were not written in English.

Do you trust the translations of the Kaskaskia Manuscripts, in many cases actual court documents, done by Dr. Margaret Kimball Brown and Dr. Winstanley Briggs? Do you think they do not know how to translate French to English?

Its a head shaker for sure.

Try reading a book

 

[Billy Boy]

Timothy Treadwell Wikipedia
Read it yourself

He became such a part of the grizzly family's life they invited him for supper one night…

 

[mooman76]

It was one grouchy old bear. He even stated on film that if one of the bears killed him, that one would be the one. Unfortunate for his girl friend though that just tagged along that year.

 

[nhmoose]

Shooting a bear in the face or eyes with shot today is a very, very desperate attempt at self defense. I pray it helps solve the problem with the second or third rapid shots needed. Plant to use it no.

Planning to use shot to the face or eyes is reprehensible and I hope whatever is trying to kill you succeeds. Next time use buckshot or slug for that purpose.

Note the difference in my post.

 

[4575wcf]

When the critter is upon you and the rubber is about to meet the road, I imagine you are going to hit the thing with a fish pole, can of beans, flyswatter, of whatever else you happen to be holding. If all I had was a shotgun and birdshot I would give 'im a magazine full.

 

[LME]

A charging bear doesn't scare me at all but I could mess up a perfectly good pair of underwear really fast!

 

[bud in pa]

The world record Black bear was killed in N.C. it was 880 LBS.

some years ago the local paper had a report from the fellow who ran PA's bear program. His name escapes me, as do many other things at this age. Anyhow he had a bear collared in Francis Lewis Dam in Luzerne county. the bear according to him was 20 years old and by fall he estimated that it would go 1000 pounds! Gary Alt is his name, there is still hope for me, and others who were born 2 years before the invention of dirt!

 

[Archer 756]

Question , why does it seem that we can not stay on the subject of a forum. Page after page of info that has nothing to due with the title of any forum.

 

[LME]

some years ago the local paper had a report from the fellow who ran PA's bear program. His name escapes me, as do many other things at this age. Anyhow he had a bear collared in Francis Lewis Dam in Luzerne county. the bear according to him was 20 years old and by fall he estimated that it would go 1000 pounds! Gary Alt is his name, there is still hope for me, and others who were born 2 years before the invention of dirt!

Its hard to estimate the weight of something. Stories have a way of changing as time goes by kind of like fish and gas mileage. The bear killed in N.C. was weighed and confirmed.

 

[B P Arn]

I had breakfast at White Castle yesterday. Yup.

Good stuff.

 

[4575wcf]

I am having a good bit of fun with these bear threads, but the polite thing to do is get back on topic so here goes. When you have a muzzleloader loaded with shot and you need it loaded with something else, there is little choice but to shoot it out. Probably this fellow did just that, thinking to buy enough time to get a ball in the gun or get up a tree.

 

[longcruise]

The book Fleur de Lys and Calumet, which is a translation from Penicault's Narrative of French Adventures, on page 37 tells of the adventurers stumbling across a bear at close range while being loaded with shot a

As above, there is no suggestion of the bear being adversarial. Just that it was encountered. These men were not unfamiliar with black bears and would have been aware that they are not by nature dangerous. They wanted the bear and followed the course of action that would achieve that. Blinded or not, it apparently didn't attack. If it had it probably would have been noted. There was time to reload so the bear was not fleeing and probably was mystified by what had happened.

Another possibility is that it never happened. Just a story told around the fire! I feel like they were better story tellers back then. I'm trying to be as good, so remember that when you read my stories.

 

[4575wcf]

There are few things in life more useless in the heat of the chase than a shot out muzzleloader. When you've fired your shot, missed, and the woods are full of departing critters you sometimes wish for a repeater.

 

[deerstalkert]

As above, there is no suggestion of the bear being adversarial. Just that it was encountered. These men were not unfamiliar with black bears and would have been aware that they are not by nature dangerous. They wanted the bear and followed the course of action that would achieve that. Blinded or not, it apparently didn't attack. If it had it probably would have been noted. There was time to reload so the bear was not fleeing and probably was mystified by what had happened.

Another possibility is that it never happened. Just a story told around the fire! I feel like they were better story tellers back then. I'm trying to be as good, so remember that when you read my stories.

i will dispute that statement until they lay my crooked legged old bones in the same ground the BLACK bear that gave me the crooked leg. after that i won't care.
that said i would never try shot in the eyes. between them maybe, if he was getting really personal, like within swatting range. a ounce of lead is pretty persuasive. i live with both types of bears here on almost a daily basis during the warm months. I was put in hospital by a Black Bear that took exception to me stumbling across him while he was eating a dead steer. he scored but so did i.
his pelt is in my gunroom.

 

[B P Arn]

It's getting pretty deep here, fellers.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

There exists on page 276 of my Stackpole copy of Ned Roberts' Book "The Muzzle Loading Caplock Rifle" a picture of a flintlock rifle dated Jan 30, 1833 with an original hunting bag and horn. And an obvious small priming horn, and a patch knife. Unless the guy was carrying salt for his game, I would think this settles the priming horn short starter debate.

No because, alas, the rifle is dated to 1833..., the bag is not dated as to when it was made, and is in fact listed as an "old time" hunting bag, not even antique, and thus...neither are the accessories with it...

LD

 

[French Colonial]

I encourage all of you to read the book. Books are cheap if you value knowledge because you get to benefit from the time and research others have spent HOURS gathering.

If you are interested in colonial history there are some great books about the time of the French in middle America and that is one of them.

There was a love hate relationship between the French and the English and some differences (English settlers tended to live on the farm and travel to town, French tended to live in town and travel to the farm) but much of technology regarding firearms and other things was shared everywhere.

The French voyagers saw the western part of America long before any English man did and were the first western explorers. Much of it was based out of Canada but there was a lot from middle America as well. They were in the western mountains and traveling with their trusty flintlocks long before Lewis and Clark.

Do an Amazon search for any of Dr. Margaret Kimball Brown's books with the very hard to find but worth it "The Village of Chartres in Colonial Illinois" and the equally hard to find Dr. Winstanley Briggs doctoral dissertation being the holy grails. There are inventory lists of deceased individuals and shipping manifests so there is no doubt what people had access to on the frontier.

 

[4575wcf]

Why would Dr. P. A. Matterson, obviously a collector of Kentucky rifle's when they were reasonably available, display the rifle with anything but the hunting/possible bag that came with it? Around 1900 some few of the original owners still survived, and such combinations were probably not all that hard to find. My paternal grandfather told of hunting with a muzzle-loading side by side in his youth, but I was nine yrs old when he died at eighty three, so I never got to ask him about it. A couple hundred years isn't really all that long.