Handgun for Bear...What Would You Choose From These?

Missouri has more black bears then people realize. Last year l looked out the window and thought oh our neighbors, have a new dog no wait that's a bear. I called the conservation dept and told them I was not concerned about it, but I had a bear on my property. A few minutes later get a call from the local agent and she ask if I can see a collar on it? No, well then does it have white on its nose? No, are you sure? I say I am on my deck just 15 feet away from it. She says well I guess that's the fourth one you have in your area.

For here in MO it would all be about shot placement.

DT Guy said:

I have plenty of FS guns, actually; 9MM and .45 ACP, mostly. They're just harder to carry concealed, which will be what I'm doing for the vast majority of this trip.

The property is White County, East of Sparta. The TN DNR website says there are bears near the Cumberland plateau, which I think (?) is the area we're in, or near it.

Larry

Click to expand...

Take two guns then, your favorite CCW for the parts of your trip where that is appropriate and when walking your new property carry a full size handgun in a comfortable OWB open carry holster. No reason to conceal it there. Carry the gun you shoot best in a comfortable and accessable holster.

Of the options listed, 45 acp.
If you are able/willing to add another option, 10mm, Glock 20SF
10mm is also available in 1911's - pictured are 10mms Ruger, Ruger, Kimber, Colt.

If bears are a genuine concern, then what you want is just the heaviest, hottest load you can carry, in the longest barrel you're comfortable carrying.

Of your list, i'd go either .45 or .357, and +p on the .45

For either of them, i wouldn't want less than a 4" bbl.

That said, i have found that in real life, bears are a vastly overstated threat, especially in parts of the country where Grizzly, Kodiak, or Polar bears basically don't exist.

Well I know from experience that the 9mm, with Hornady 124 XTP will effectively down a black bear, in the above scenario I would have much preferred my. 357 with 158s, or better yet my. 41 mag with 210s. I voted. 357, for stopping power, deer compatibility and ammo versatility. Set up a shooting range and do some log bowling with butt cheap. 38 cast loads. Make it the camp gun for all to shoot freely. You will become amazingly proficient with it, and if you stretch your firewood targets out to the 75 yard mark, proficient at ranges you never thought possible.

I did encounter the aftermath of several problem bear shootings when I worked for the Michigan DNR. All involved rifles, with one shotgun and slugs, so doesn't really touch on stopping power. What was interesting was that every instance involved one or two precision shots to end the threat rather than what we would think of as defensive shooting. 2 were livestock depredation intervention, 3 were property damage with imminent threat to life and limb. Keep the precision shooting in mind with your handgun choice. Your odds of being charged in tight cover are low, but your odds of shooting one in the face as it's trying to peel the door off your trailer or eat your dog are significantly higher. My incident was similar. I had lots of time to draw, aim, and make a decision.

The densest population of black bear (the only species of bear in TN) is greatest in the Great Smoky Mtns area, or other higher elevations of the state. That doesn't presuppose you'd never see one down Sparta way, digging in somebody's trash can; they have come out of "normal" habitats, mainly looking for food. They are opportunistic omnivores, which means they'll take whatever is easy to get, and they are intelligent. They learn quickly where to find a meal, and populated areas are full of easy pickings. They can become nuisance animals because of this. The average size of a male black bear in the Southern Appalachians is around 350 pounds, although they can exceed 500. females are smaller.

Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about seeing one, it's not like they're on every other street corner, just read up on bear behavior and follow recommended actions if you come up on one in the boondocks. For your listed guns, I'd take only the .357 Magnum. If you'd listed 10mm instead of .40, that would be sufficient as well, but a .41 or .44 Magnum would be optimal, from a long barrel (6") to maximize velocity. Just don't put yourself in a circumstance where you have to find out if whatever you had with you was enough.

I'm in Cumberland county the next county east of you. Yes we will have a bear sighting once or twice a year but they are pretty rare. The last one wasn't out in the woods but right in downtown Crossville near the court house. The bears are much more common farther east over by the Gatlinburg /Smoky Mountain State Park area and the mountains in that area.
It's probably more important to learn about their habits and how best to interact with them in a rendom encounter. Personally the snakes are way more of a concern than bears. Cotton mouth and rattlesnakes are much, much more common.
Any how, welcome to TN, enjoy your acreage.

jmr40 said:

If you've never spent a lot of time around bear it is easy to get the impression they are huge. The ones we see on most TV shows and movies are trained brown bear that are truly huge. In the wild, most black bear are 150-200 lbs.

Click to expand...

Maybe in Georgia. But then your deer are smaller down there, too. The 535 lb. MN black bear I mentioned earlier? Big enough to warrant a full body mount, (it helps that his father is a taxidermist ) but not near the state record: 687 pounds; there have been some trapped in MN weighing over 800 pounds. The absolute minimum I carried with me was a .357, with 158 FP on top of a compessed load of Blue Dot. Here in WI, I have seen a couple over 300, but nothing down here where I hunt that would warrant anything over the .45 ACP I carry with me. Up between Luck and Superior, they get nearer that 500 class.

None of the above. 44 mag minimum. Rather have a Marlin 444, 45-70, or 35 Rem. Or an 870 and Brennekes. Or a gun bearer carrying a 470 Nitro.
Just pullin' your chain. 44 mag.

DocRock said:

Fantastic photo! Especially after I got skunked on my bear tag

Click to expand...

Glad he didn't seem like he wanted to climb down. We got the trail cam set up and went on our merry way, constantly looking over our shoulder.

jmr40 said:

There are old wives tales, and there are facts. This is the most comprehensive list of bears vs handgun encounters that I'm aware of. According to this it just doesn't matter much. In fact they were not able to find many instances where a handgun didn't stop a bear, brown, black or grizzly.

Update: Handgun or Pistol Against Bear Attack: 93 cases, 97% Effective (ammoland.com)

Click to expand...

Sadly, while mostly correct, this list is a sort of old wive's tail in and of itself. Weingarten takes some very creative license in what he determines to be successful incidents of using pistols successfully in defense against bears. Take incident # 2, for example...

Johnson picked up a stick, and pummeled the brute, and the bear dropped the woman and charged him. It was waylaid by the lunch, which it began to devour.

Click to expand...

In the meantime, Fletcher got a .22 pistol from the plane, walked to within a few feet of the animal, and killed it.

Click to expand...

Then to add some dramatic flare to bolster the significance of the role of the pistol in the situation, he adds...

I suspect it was not a casual stroll to the plane or a slow walk back to the bear.

Click to expand...

In reality of this story, the stick saved the day. The attack was over once the bear was dining on a pic-a-nic basket. Johnson simply walked up and executed the bear while it was eating. That is not a use of a pistol stopping a bear attack.

In example #3, the victim had the shoot several times at the attacking bear noting that the bear only got madder and madder with the first shots. Yet, the bear was eventually stopped, so Weingarten considers this to be a success. HOWEVER, when he discusses the use of bear spray, he considers attacks where the bear pressed on the attack after being sprayed as a failure despite the bear eventually being driven off by bear spray.
https://www.ammoland.com/2017/09/bear-spray-failure-bow-hunter-mauled/ In other words, what he considers to be a successful use various depending on whether or not he likes the tool being used. Weingarten is not a fan of bear spray. Of very much interest here, he also notes it was the failure of not getting the pepper spray to work (instead of using a pistol to prevent the attack) that resulted in him getting injured. However, Weingarten discounts 2 cases at the end of the article as not being relevant because the people could not get their guns to fire at the bears.

I am not going through the entire list again. I think I have made given that 2 of the first 3 examples noted are dubious evaluations as are the exclusions at the end. Weingarten's 'facts' are fraught with interpretative opinion. Weingarten has an agenda that guns are good and bear spray is bad.

There is some good information in the article, no doubt, but you can't trust the numbers and it helps, in some cases, that you go back to the original sources.

If I was going to kill a bear it would be in a fair fight with my bare hands, mono on mono. But out of your choices I would go with the 357.

You'd better be the guy in your avatar if you plan on fighting a bear mano a mano.

I agree that dangerous encounters in TN mountains are much more likely to be with humans. All of the guns on the list will do for humans as well as average sized bears so of the guns listed I would carry the one I shoot best. If I can shoot all of them equally well I'd go with the 357 Magnum because it's the most powerful or the 9mm because it has the highest round capacity. I like revolvers for trail protection & I shoot them well so for me the 357 Magnum has the edge for this situation.

Now, if one was going hiking or fishing in Juneau or Kenai, that was the sort of thing i had in mind when i made this...

.358W semiauto, 10lbs with full 10rd mag, though i would probably swap the scope out for a dot.

48.5gr of TAC gave me 2400fps from a 225gr Partition, and a nice cloverleaf at 100yds.

Rebuilt it into a buddy's receivers not long ago, because he's a far more avid hunter than I, and i decided a 20" .308 was more practical for me.

He's planning to take "Thumper II" to Idaho bear camp next year...

Sorry to get off topic.

I have no experience with black bears other than seeing a couple in zoos. On that basis I chose .357 from the available choices in the poll.

entropy said:

Maybe in Georgia. But then your deer are smaller down there, too. The 535 lb. MN black bear I mentioned earlier? Big enough to warrant a full body mount, (it helps that his father is a taxidermist ) but not near the state record: 687 pounds; there have been some trapped in MN weighing over 800 pounds. The absolute minimum I carried with me was a .357, with 158 FP on top of a compessed load of Blue Dot. Here in WI, I have seen a couple over 300, but nothing down here where I hunt that would warrant anything over the .45 ACP I carry with me. Up between Luck and Superior, they get nearer that 500 class.

Click to expand...

Pretty much. Most of the black bear I've seen have been under 200 lbs here in WI, but the one on my wall was around 300. Up here I carry the 10mm loaded hot, but that's mostly because it gives me a reason to, with black bear I'd be fine with a .45, .40 or even 9mm. Especially in southern states.

When I was up in western AK and got uncomfortably close to a few 900+ lb coastal browns, I preferred a .44 mag loaded hot.

Edit: As general council for bears. Make noise, don't leave food/trash out and keep an eye out for cubs. Then you'll be fine as most will just run away long before you re them anyhow, especially black bears. In the woods or on the tundra on AK I as always far more concerned with startling a moose than I was with tangling with a grizzly.

I had a problem black bear encounter...3 am one tried to climb through a kitchen window over the sink when I lived in NM. I grabbed a pan that was handy and smacked the bear on the head as hard as I could. He took off like lightning. Game and fish trapped him on my property and he weighed out at almost 350 lbs. So my vote for the poll is a stout frying pan, second choice is .357 magnum.

I say carry the 40 loaded with hot underwood ammo. Not Buffalo bore unless you like spending money needlessly. It what I carried through the NC woods. And guess what? Never saw a bear. Saw track's. Heard one infront of my house late one night. But never saw one.

I lived in TN for many years, and hiked the area around and in the GSMNP back in the late 90s up to 2005, and from what I saw and encountered, just make a lot of noise. I ran across a female with four cubs once just outside of Cades Cove; she stood up and looked right at me, I shouted (did have a .40 but still in my holster) and ran off with her brood. Besides, I was taking the photo with a Nikon F5 and a large pro lens and that alone was pretty good close in combat protection when swung on a neck strap.

Compared to some of the grizzlies I have come across out here in WY, MT, she was nothing.

But I still say, and I have proved to myself out here, BEAR spray works.






And why all the bear gun posts?

I went with .357 out of what was listed, but I'd probably pick 10mm over all of them.