karwelis said:
i know where i live, "big bear california" Grizz was hunted from 1860 to about 1900. hence the name big bear. and a lot of those Grizz were taken with billy holcombs 50 cal hawkens. part of how ole billy made his living was hunting Grizz. apparently grizz is good eating. and sure it makes some difference whether your hunting the bear, or being hunted by the bear. however couple things about bears
1 they would rather leave you alone
2 tend not to be agressive towards people(unless somethings wrong)
3 and this is my favorite,, are very scared of dogs. which is why i have a well trained trail/hunting dog.
i really do not understand why some people think these rifles that we love so much wont/cant stop big game. and this has become a bit of a pet peeve of mine, on a couple other forums (which i wont name here) there is one guy in particular that likes to sound like some kind of guru with front stuffers, and he likes to say that past 50 yards they wont penetrate. which i dont understand, i mean there are all kinds of recorded shots by buffalow hunters and such at 200+ yards. i mean think about it were talking about a 200 grain patched round ball traveling at 2100 ft per second. that matches up pretty darned good with a lot of modern hunting loads.
As I previously stated there is a difference between stopping and killing. Read Lewis and Clarks Journal entries about shooting Gbears then think about "stopping" as opposed to "killing" and how long some bears lived after being shot through the lungs, hey were really surprised at how tough the bears were. They also did a lot of panic running at times after shooting a Gbear.
Not everyone that hunted Grizzlies for fun or profit survived. William Sublette's younger brother hunted CA Gbears and got mauled twice, the second time was fatal. I think its here
asoac.org/bulletins/87_burke_hawken.pdf
in this PDF file.
There is no way I would take a dog into Gbear country for protection. It takes a pretty savvy dog (actually a pack) to hunt/confront bears with any success. One dog is unlikely to survive. This based on stories of my family hunting the lowly black bear with dogs in 19th century Arkansas. Considering the Gbears around here deal with wolves on a regular basis I would not count on the dog to do anything but serve as a way to irritate the bear.
You don't want your dog bringing a Gbear back to you. My grandfather had this experience with cougars when as a boy he decided to go coon hunting by himself. Not fun when you got 2 cougars and only a ML rifle and an old coon dog on a leash, the younger dogs ran past him and went home, the old dog stopped and he put a leash on him. Kept his back to a tree till sunup, afraid to shoot his one shot.
Bears, black or brown USUALLY leave people alone/avoid them. But I often hunt in an area where the gov't likes to drop off "problem" Gbears from the nearby National Park. So one cannot rely on stumbling on a bear that fears or even respects humans. You might find one that has decided that he has had enough traps and needles and will jump the next pest he finds in the woods. So betting my life the bear is going to be afraid of me is silly.
Bears on gut piles/kills are not something you want to encounter. They will surely protect it.
So far as stopping animals the best read concerning this is probably Jame Forsythe's "The Sporting Rifle and Its Projectiles" from the 1850s-60s. Its available on the WWW as a downloadable file IIRC. The English considered the 54 (32 bore)to be suitable only as a light deer rifle. Both Ruxton (24 bore) and Stewart (20 bore) used larger rifles during their time in the American West.
Dan
