Seven Rounds To Stop The Grizzly
BY Herschel Smith
3 years, 6 months ago
He saw the grizzly coming at them. He dropped the arrow and bow and drew his Taurus .45 1911 semi-auto. He yelled at the bear and started backing away. As the bear saw the two other hunters behind the lead, it momentarily paused, giving him time to rack the slide and chamber a round. The Taurus had eight rounds in its magazine.
The pause was momentary; not a full stop of the charge. The lead hunter was able to start shooting from a range of six feet. The grizzly grabbed the lead hunter by the left thigh and the hunter went down with the bear on top of him.
As the bear closed with the lead hunter, the middle and last hunters had seen the bear, dropped their bows, and drew their pistols, a .44 magnum and a 9mm. They started shooting.
With the lead hunter down and the bear in his lap, he put the .45 against its head and shot his last rounds. The bear went limp. The lead hunter was able to crawl out from under the big bear.
Shortly afterward, the bear was seen to move, and the hunters fired two more rounds into the chest cavity from the side. The hunters estimated they had fired 19 cartridges at the bear; 8 rounds of .45, 6 rounds of .44 magnum, and about 4 rounds of 9mm.
[ … ]
At the scene, they collected 12 cartridge cases, including 9mm, .45, and .44 magnum.
The wardens found seven bullet wounds in the bear, five of which were from the front, and two of which were from the side. They recovered four bullets from the bear in three different calibers.
Good Lord. That bear was hard to put down.
Yet more lessons learned. Pistols, not bear spray. Next, the bow hunters thought they had discharged 19 rounds. They actually discharged 12. Finally, don’t always assume you’re going to hit your target in that sort of situation. They connected with 7 out of 12.
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On May 25, 2021 at 12:06 am, 41mag said:
Buffalo Bore ammo would like to have a word with you.
On May 25, 2021 at 1:32 am, Ratus said:
“…giving him time to rack the slide and chamber a round.”
No.
Don’t do this.
Always carry a fully loaded gun, if you are going to carry one.
On May 25, 2021 at 7:35 am, cj crane said:
My 1911 is carried with round chambered, cocked and locked.
On May 25, 2021 at 7:40 am, Don Curton said:
“Next, the bow hunters thought they had discharged 19 rounds. They actually discharged 12.”
Don’t confuse the number of rounds fired with the number of cases found. Seriously, spent cases disappear like a magic trick. I reload. At an outdoor range I’ll fire one full magazine (7 rounds) and search for ten minutes, only finding 4 cases. That’s on a well manicured, even, short cut grass field.
(At an indoor range, all my pistols mysteriously begin chucking the spent cases forward of the line where I can’t retrieve them. Dang!)
Far easier to unload your revolver and count the number of fired cases, or check the magazine and see how many rounds are left. I’ll bet they did fire 19 times, which makes the hit ratio that much worse.
On May 25, 2021 at 8:53 am, Herschel Smith said:
@Don,
Yes I understand. I thought about making the ratio connecting / discharged with the [discharged] being 19, but that would make the ratio lower and I thought I would be gracious.
On the other hand, if they counted the number of rounds NOT in their magazines, that’s not an “estimate.” There should be no reason to estimate this integer value.
On May 25, 2021 at 10:48 am, Whocares said:
This is epic CQB. Ought to be studied and taught by the military.
On May 25, 2021 at 11:41 am, Fred said:
Good to see Mr. Weingarten at it again this summer. Not sure if he’s doing an overall round count but this will skew any numbers more toward the fact we all know; browns ain’t no joke.
On May 25, 2021 at 3:38 pm, TRX said:
> They connected with 7 out of 12.
Many PDs would be happy to claim that kind of marksmanship.