Thankful For My Ruger Alaskan .44 Mag / Black Bear Protection

I am thankful I recently bought the Ruger Alaskan .44 Mag for black bear protection. I live in a mountainous area where we get black bears roaming in our yard. They usually come between the hours of 8:00 PM to 6:00 AM the following morning once a week during the months of March through October.

Well tonight/early morning I came within seconds of having an encounter with a black bear in my yard. As usual, my wife and I took our three dogs out on leashes to the "dog yard" to do their thing before going to bed. It was completely dark in the area with faint lighting coming from a porch area, and light coming from spotlights down in the walkout basement area. We typically stand in the upper area to the left of the basement area. The basement lighting really only serves to warn us of any bears approaching since many times they come from that direction. Tonight was no exception.

Since it was completely dark and since my neighbors turned off their outside garage lights that would alert me to a threat coming from that direction, we did not stay long outside....I just didn't feel comfortable even though I was using my flashlight to light up areas. As soon as I stepped into the house and closed our kitchen door, two Ring cameras went off.

Here is the walkout basement video showing the bear walking to where we were standing in the "dog yard". It showed up before I even had time to turn off the spotlights https://ring.com/share/582539ca-6b6c-49d4-b2d3-0283d5e8ba2b

Here is the main floor video looking down into the walkout basement yard https://ring.com/share/b12df66c-e47d-4f94-852b-fbd278e80c9b

Plan A is bear spray and Plan B is the Alaskan. While I hope to never have to use either, I'm glad I have the Alaskan....

I'm glad to keep missing running into one of these guys......https://ring.com/share/e64d10ee-75e9-4579-afa3-d2bc91b34e7c

DustyGmt said:

Where I used to live was very, very desolate, heavily wooded, black bear country. I had a few encounters myself, along with my dog. My dog could be sitting in a dead 3am sleep and as if shot with a bolt ears perked, leaping off the bed to the door frantically pawing at the door going dizzite, alerting us and seemingly trying to say "let me at em". 110lb pit bull vs 400-500+ lb black bear, not something I wanted to see. I would also hear them hooting and howling almost every night, very close to the house. Sounded like a pack of them, not sure how many stay together but I know I'd see different ones on the regular.

I definitely carried for nightwalks with the dog and felt safer doing it. Sometimes a .357 or glock 17. They don't seem all that impressed with gunfire as a means of telling them to back off in an attempt to scare em up off the property, especially if trash was involved. They seemed unafraid of humans for the most part. A couple times I literally had to grab my dog and basically lift him by his collar to drag him into the house to keep him out of confrontation with black bears, and skunks, lol.

It's weird how a couple times right before I walked around the corner outside the house at night I knew when I was going to encounter one because I would get hit with this powerful, musky, stinky odor and sure enough, as soon as I smelled it and turned the corner, face to face with a big ol black bear.

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Wow! Our little 5lbs dogs have not been alerted to anything whereas our Royal Standard Poodle (that I trained for therapy work for schools, hospitals, etc. before the pandemic) has alerted us to something she sees or smells in the distance. Her alerts are not the typical reaction as she was trained not to react to other dogs or animals (when she is wearing her "working" harness)....so in my case, her "alert" is when she stares and is motionless whether it is in the daytime or nighttime. She will not whine or bark at other animals.

I'v tried using a different collar and not her "working" harness to see if she would change and bark and want to go after deer literally 10 yards away, but she just stands there perfectly motionless and silent.

I've been fortunate enough to never have been close enough to smell any bears. However, I easily smell javelina at our AZ home....

DustyGmt said:

Btw, those are some very brownish, reddish brownish, black bears. Was it just the lighting or do they take a brownish color like that during a certain time of year or?

All the black bears I have have seen are black as night, with a lil brown on the nose. I have seen some small anorexic looking black bears and some big ol, bumblin rumblin black bears that look too fat to move then when you see how fast and agile they can be it's scary, they can turn on a dime and move through thick woods with such agility and speed it make ya think twice. I saw one that I'd not be surprised to learn it was 600+ lbs......

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Up in CO in my area, the black bears come in all kinds of color....blonde, brown, cinnamon, black, or some combination of those four colors. Since they have different colors during the same time period, I'm guessing it has to do with their genes rather than the time of year.

huntsman said:

OP are you rural enough that touching off a round won’t bring the law down on you?

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Unfortunately, no. Many of my neighbors describe how cuddly these bears are and have no clue about the threat of a potential encounter. They would quickly call the SO. I hope none of them are feeding the bears...

Sour Kraut said:

Exciting times! If it were me…I would have more lighting in the yard for those nightly excursions.

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You are absolutely correct! I need lighting in the upper left area of the video. I've called a few electricians and it seems they are overwhelmed with work. I probably should just run an outdoor extension cord to the area and plug in some temporary lights as opposed to waiting on an electrician to install more floodlights. Thanks for the reminder!

Mainsail said:

If you are, pick up some rubber ball 12ga. Deterrence will prevent the bear from making that area his own.

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I like that idea. Too bad the sound of firing it would cause my neighbors some alarm.... I wonder if they make a paint gun round that doesn't have any color paint in it? That may accomplish the startling/scaring away affect while not making a lot of noise. I could be in a safe area on my balcony/porch above the yard.

scaatylobo said:

No idea if they are legal,or a 'thing' you might be interested in.

But I found for sale on the net,a 12 gauge blank firing perimeter alarm.

If a bear were to trip it,either he would LEAVE asap.

Or at the least you would have a LOUD heads up.

They are also made in the "Ramset" nail driver blank caliber [ 25 & 22's ].

If legal [ and I dont see why not ] the only draw back is you or the wife setting them off.

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Good idea if it weren't for the deer....they would be literally going off daily. We get probably at least a dozen deer daily in our yard. Not only are the deer walking in the same walkout basement area, they like to walk up to our sliding glass door looking at their reflections....especially the fawns. Every other night I get alerts on the same cameras when a doe is with her fawn(s) walking through our yard.

DustyGmt said:

I can back that up, we are ever scarce and overbooked, lol.

One thing I might suggest, it would depend on the electrician but speaking for me and the guy I work for, we would prioritize a call where there was any question of safety/security. Maybe if you mentioned to the electrician that you've been having bear activity and that your yard is poorly lit where you frequently walk your dog, he might bump you up ahead of someone else. Might not work but it's a pretty quick job so it might be worth a shot.

ETA: In the meantime you could also install a solar powered flood motion. No electrician necessary

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All great ideas I never thought of! Thank you!

Meeks36 said:

Never seen one while living in southeastern NC. Heard one while taking a smoke break. 11 pm outside woods across the street heard a very low but powerful growling. Never heard anything like it before. Then saw some tracks the next day. From that point on I carried my G27. Better then a stick.

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That bear growling would scare the hell out of me! I imagine the fear would be the same as when I heard a mountain lion scream when I was taking out our dogs at our AZ home.

In CO, we have had only one mountain lion appear on our cameras. As for mountain lions, I think either my P229 .40 or bug (P365) would be sufficient and since I'm already carrying those, there is nothing to add. Whereas in CO, I always wear the Alaskan .44 in a chest holster when going out in the yard at night.