Will a flintlock stop a bear?

[flintlock75]

I have been hunting in Alaska for 30 years and have had only 2 encounters with brown bears, one was a sow with 3 cubs the other was a boar on a moose kill. both animals false charged and then retreated and i backed off from them. Both times i was carrying a ML as well as a modern pistol for backup. I only had to fire a warning shot once to change the bears mind. There is no place you can hunt in Alaska that dosent have bears. I have been hunting with flintlocks for moose and Caribou and Bears for many years. After reading all the previous posts one would think that hunting with any muzzleloader were bears are is a bad idea. If that were the case then why hunt with traditional ML at all. I hunt with flintlocks all the time in remote areas and will continue to do so. If a bear jumps me i will shoot it with whatever gun i have in hand, it might stop it or not but it will be a fatal shot for the bear and will "kill the bear that kilt me".

 

[smo]

IMHO if a flintlock would not stop a bear,We would not be having this conversation right now. The bears would have won a few hundred years ago. :wink:

 

[jan buck]

back in the mid 90's a scheels store opened in our area and inside they have a full mount of a grizzly standing on its hind legs. what an impressive animal.
i have read articles about bear charges ect, and in some hard cast bullets were the way to go in .44 or .454 casull. most bear hunters agree that a charging griz shot into the frontal shoulder [face on] will break the bear down and drop him. follow up shot most likely needed to finish the job.
hard cast ball in 54 or 58 or larger would do the job if you kept your cool and placed the shot correctly. i'll :blah: stick with my deer hunting.

 

[Grizzled Roberts]

Well said! :thumbsup:

 

[Stumpkiller]

IMHO if a flintlock would not stop a bear,We would not be having this conversation right now. The bears would have won a few hundred years ago. :wink:

Oh, I dunno about that.

If that were the case I guess we can say a pointy stick can stop a sabre-toother tiger. Heck with a bear. Imagine a 900 pound cat mad at you! That's 30% heavier than a current Siberian tiger. Zowie! We had them hereabouts 10,000 years ago.

The record shows cave bears, a grizzly and then some, were around 27,000 years ago and they were possibly driven to extinction by a combination of climate change, loss of easy prey, flint points and patience.

Sucks to have to hibernate when your enemy doesn't. :wink:

 

[smo]

IMHO if a flintlock would not stop a bear,We would not be having this conversation right now. The bears would have won a few hundred years ago. :wink:

Oh, I dunno about that.

If that were the case I guess we can say a pointy stick can stop a sabre-toother tiger. Heck with a bear. Imagine a 900 pound cat mad at you! That's 30% heavier than a current Siberian tiger. Zowie! We had them hereabouts 10,000 years ago.

The record shows cave bears, a grizzly and then some, were around 27,000 years ago and they were possibly driven to extinction by a combination of climate change, loss of easy prey, flint points and patience.

Sucks to have to hibernate when your enemy doesn't. :wink:

Dang Stumpkiller, I didn't want to go that far back in time :nono: I'm having enough trouble just remembering the last couple of hundred years myself :grin:

 

[rabjr]

I should think that one would not have a problem if he kept his head cool and waited until he could stick the barrel of the gun into a Grizz's mouth, then hope like hell the prime is ok. :wink:

 

[larry wv]

Can imagine a foot of barrel in a grizzleys mouth and a flash in the pan and have to reprime. :shocked2: That would suck. Larry

 

[mark/wi]

It sounds to me from reading all this we should all stop going off in the woods, unless we had the gun with the wheels on it. How do the guys that live gbears make it? :wink: Mark

 

[hanshi]

It sounds to me from reading all this we should all stop going off in the woods, unless we had the gun with the wheels on it. How do the guys that live gbears make it? :wink: Mark

Well, there ya' go!

 

[Huntin_Dawg1215]

Hay, How well did that work for you?

 

[Zoar]

I was watching an old documentary made in 1922 (no sound, but it did have captions) last week. It's called "Nanook Of The North". This documentary is all about one hunter/fishermen living in the farthest northern regions of what is Canada, also called Arctic Quebec. Nanook hunted Polar Bear regularly and this particular year he killed NINE polar bear. He killed them with a harpoon spear, reportedly.

BTW---I highly recommend this film. It was one of the first 25 films to be selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant"

 

[rabjr]

I was watching an old documentary made in 1922 (no sound, but it did have captions) last week. It's called "Nanook Of The North". This documentary is all about one hunter/fishermen living in the farthest northern regions of what is Canada, also called Arctic Quebec. Nanook hunted Polar Bear regularly and this particular year he killed NINE polar bear. He killed them with a harpoon spear, reportedly.

BTW---I highly recommend this film. It was one of the first 25 films to be selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant"

Dosan't mean Nanook was very smart.... :haha:

 

[BrownBear]

Dosan't mean Nanook was very smart.... :haha:

I dunno about that.

Until fairly recently subsistence hunters would break into bear dens or drive bears out and spear them, even when they owned guns. Guns and ammo were expensive and sometimes hard to come by, while spears were free and readily made. I'd say "smart" kinda depends on the reasoning and the needs.

 

[rabjr]

Dosan't mean Nanook was very smart.... :haha:

I dunno about that.

Until fairly recently subsistence hunters would break into bear dens or drive bears out and spear them, even when they owned guns. Guns and ammo were expensive and sometimes hard to come by, while spears were free and readily made. I'd say "smart" kinda depends on the reasoning and the needs.

I'm sure he knew what he was doing to kill 9 that way. It was more of a joke than anything.

 

[BrownBear]

I took it that way Swampie, and agree. I just thought I'd throw in a little more detail about spears and bears. Down here in the Southwest where I'm at right now, they'd call bear killing with spears Heuvos Grande.

Another popular technique for bear killing in the early days of guns was to go out on a moonlit night and put something white on one side of a bear trail, then hide out in the bushes on the other side. When something blocked out the white, pull the trigger. Kinda break you from wandering after dark, and I wouldn't be in too big a hurry to go out the next morning till the fellas tracked down the bear and finished the job! :shocked2:

 

[rabjr]

I took it that way Swampie, and agree. I just thought I'd throw in a little more detail about spears and bears. Down here in the Southwest where I'm at right now, they'd call bear killing with spears Heuvos Grande.

Another popular technique for bear killing in the early days of guns was to go out on a moonlit night and put something white on one side of a bear trail, then hide out in the bushes on the other side. When something blocked out the white, pull the trigger. Kinda break you from wandering after dark, and I wouldn't be in too big a hurry to go out the next morning till the fellas tracked down the bear and finished the job! :shocked2:

I guess when your hungry enough, you can come up with some very creative ways to take dangerous game like that. And they probably see nothing wrong with it.

 

[BrownBear]

Yeah. Hungry is the operative word. When there's no grocery store and a long winter ahead, "sport" is a pretty weird idea.

 

[brubincam]

-----will a flintlock stop a bear ? "IT's BEARLY POSSIBLE"----- :idunno:

 

[Steve Boyleston]

Lewis and Clark recorded many incounters with Grizzlies and many rounds to stop them. The best thing I guess at close range throw the rifle at the Bear, run like hell and jump off the Cliff into the river, head first - swim a half a mile under water. Get out and call a Taxi- one last thing don't forget the toilet paper- you will need a bunch of it- just my input-The Great Pinyone.