.338 BAR or Benelli R1 4 Bear

How about converting a .338WM BAR to .375 Taylor (.338WM necked up to .375)? That would be a heck of a bear rifle if it is possible.

I usually bring some sort of mongrel dog with me into the big bad bear lands. Long guns and or handguns might come in handy once upon a time.

Since the .375 Taylor uses a .338WM case necked up to .375, I believe all that is needed is a barrel reamed to .375. I believe that it can be done if you've got the coin to have a custom barrel made.

16n69 said:

Why bother with all that...if the .338 win. Mag. is not enough for brownie, than instead of all that necking and reeming, I could just use a .375 H&H and call it a day

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Because no one makes the .375H&H in a semi-auto. I thought you were after the most potent bear medicine you could get in a semi-auto. From what I've read, the .375 Taylor is approximately equivalent to the .37H&H ballistically. Since the .375 Taylor uses .338WM brass, you should be able to rechamber a .338WM BAR to .375 Taylor and essentially have the ballistics of the .375H&H in a semi-auto.

what about something like an AR-15 in .458 socom? 45-70 ballistics in a semi-auto. You could even SBR it to make for a very handy, lightweight bear rifle.

You are forgetting the reliability factor, the recoil factor, and the weight factor.

The areas where the big bears live has some of the wettest, harshest, coldest climate on the planet. Your gun will likely have to function after being soaked for days and you may have to chip ice or snow off the action even in spring or early fall. Getting in and out of boats and around the rivers and lakes where they live is a guarantee that mud will be encountered.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, comes close to a stainless CRF bolt rifle in a synthetic stock for reliability in harsh conditions. If you want to hot rod your loads, no other action can as safely and reliability handle hot loads as well as a bolt gun.

Lever actions and semi-autos are the most complex, and least rugged and reliable of all actions. And the least suitable to handle hot loads.

A bolt action is also the lightest and most compact of all actions, which means a lighter and easier to carry rifle.

As far as speed for repeat shots is concerned the semi-auto will have a slight edge, as will a pump, but levers and bolt guns are equal if you are actually trying to hit something. It takes longer to recover from recoil with most rifles and get the sights back on target than it does to work the action on any of them. With low recoiling rifles such as AR's, pistol caliber levergns etc. repeat shots can be pretty fast. But by the time you get into something big enough to stop a griz the recoil is so stout that there is very little difference in the speed of firing repeat shots.

That is why double rifles in large calibers have been the prefered choice for stopping large animals for a long time. They are the only action in a large enough chambering that is quicker than a bolt gun for repeat shots. But because of 5 figure price tags not many can afford them. There is a very good reason the CRF bolt gun in a suitable caliber has been the prefered gun by a very wide margin for over 100 years now. I'll stick with what has proven to work.

precious 3-5 seconds brownie is closing the 10-20 yds.

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You won't have 3-5 seconds. Maybe three at best. The biggest speed killer for rifles is probably the type of optics usually mounted on them.

In my opion in the high stress situation of a bear charge a bolt becomes less reliable then a semi. Semi auto's dont freak out and short cycle bolts or have a mental break down because they are about to get eaten. If you are calm enough to get off a second shot with a bolt having to cycle the action rapidly certianly wont help keep things calm and smooth.

If semi autos are reliable enough for war, where the target really is trying to kill you all the time, then they are reliable enough for the unlikely even you get attacked by a man eating bear.

You are talking about spending $1500 to $2000
With optics for an event that is highly improbable.

I happen to own a liteweight BAR in .338. I also happen to have lived in AK near Delta Junction way back in the 60's. Still have the old 1947 M/70 in '06 that I took my fair share of game with while there, but had I the option at that time for that BAR I have utterly no doubt I would go that route. That cartridge will shoot as flat as any '06 and four rounds of it ought to drop any of the brown bears I ever saw........I recall one time going thru heavy brush on the McClarin after Moose when I happened on pie plate sized fresh LONG clawed prints when I'd have given a month's paycheck for that autoloader!!! Those tracks were not even remotely damp even tho we were socked in with rain that'd been coming down for hours.........I backed out of there real quick like!!

Far as repeat shots go, Browning's design is a hulluva lot quicker than any bolt gun and has the very real plus of NOT having to dismount it to get that 2nd round out. Recoil is......how best to put it........LONG, but not hard. Fact is it's a LOT easier for me to shoot offhand than from a bench with thing, and I damned sure aren't a kid anymore.

The only critters that've fallen to my rifle have been eastern whitetails and an occasional hog, tho it might just get a go at elk this year if all goes right. Incidentally, the last WT killed with that rifle was at about 250 in a deep hollow in W.Va..........hit the beast slightly higher on the shoulder than I intended and he just did a flip, landing in a spread eagle'd dressing position.........Hulluva a gun!

The cycle time of the rifle is nearly irrelevant, really, compared to the time to actually get the rifle into aimed fire.