Bear defence gun 44 or 454

[MidRoad]

First off, I've never hunted or shot a bear so I'll not comment on the appropriate gun or round for one. My one and only bear encounter in the wild was a 150# black that I saw at 50 yards while squirrel hunting several years ago. That was thrilling.

460 shooter, excellent post on the limitations imposed on the people who work in our parks system. Typical that administrators are more prepared to have an employee injured than explain to the public why they are equipped for a job.

The argument about bees and wasps is the classic approach. Each and every day 330 million people in the US are in an environment where they can potentially be stung. For the same reason that lightning is more likely to kill you than a bear, yep, almost everyone in the US is potentially exposed to lightning. Now, how many are in bear territory on any given day? I honestly don't know but I'll bet it's a heckuva lot less that 330 million. Changes the odds or probability calculations a bit.

As far as the effectiveness of pepper spray on bears, I don't know. My experience with pepper spray is on humans. I've personally used it on people 60+ times. In my experience it was about 80% effective meaning that those I sprayed either stopping fighting or their effectiveness in fighting was diminished. The other 20% were not affected and an old fashioned fight was on. Is spray on humans comparable to spraying a charging bear? I suspect the bear will have a higher drive and be more resistant than a person. I still think the spray should be one of the tools in the tool cabinet.

The part about everyone being exposed to lightning is a good point. Sure they take the whole population into account with " 1 in xxx odds" numbers. But you are right . Can't be attacked by a bear if your not in bear territory,can't be bitten by a shark if you don't swim in the ocean, and die in a plane crash if you don't travel buy air. Statistics seemed to be skewed in some sort of way,no matter how you look at it. However if you are constantly in big bear territory your odds and exponentially higher than someone who doesn't live by bears . So if ya live by bears why not be prepared to protect oneself even if you think the odds that the interwebs tells ya are in your favor....

 

[Hermet]

More people die from drowning in pools than gunfights but this isn't a pool forum either.



I tried .22 shotshells for carpenter bees and was disappointed. A decent metal badminton racket works pretty good though.

I have no experience with bears (all of our local predators have two legs) but shooting bugs I know. A good airsoft pistol is the right tool for the job. Hitting a small flying house eating bug on the wing is good practice and more sporting than whacking them with a racket.

 

[Homerboy]

I’ve used pepper spray on people and it always worked. I live in NE PA and black bears are common. I usually see 3-4 a year in my yard or driveway. Who knows how many I DONT see? They just meander by and pay no attention. One time I looked out my window and saw a cub walking up on side of my driveway. I looked to the left and mama was about 25 feet away in the woods bordering the driveway. Being between them would not have been a good thing.

So I bought that UDAP bear spray. It comes highly recommended. I don’t know if the strength is more than the pepper spray I used to carry, but I do like how it shoots a high pressure cone of spray rather than a thin stream. Wind direction is certainly an issue though.

But hitting a moving animal from a panicked draw and shoot would be much harder than sweeping that blast from the spray. I have that spray with me when I’m outside and tell my wife to do the same. More for use on a loose dog or it’s owner.

But if I was in best country out in the middle of nowhere, I’d surely have a pistol as well.

 

[d2wing]

If I decided I need to carry pepper spray, I would also carry a firearm. As it happens it sighted in my 44 mag Super RedHawk today. It is plenty.