.223 for Black Bear

[mbogo]

The gun you have in your hands is better the gun that's back home.

Shoot for the head with the M4, and keep shooting until the bear drops or turns around.

mbogo

 

[Justin]

Is .223, in it's 55 grain soft point form to be specific, suitable for black bear? My HD rifle is my M4 loaded with .223 remington corelokt and I am wondering if on the odd chance I had an angry, violent black bear on my hands would this suffice given proper shot placement, or would I be better off using my 12ga with 00 buckshot or slugs?

Black bears are omnivores that are generally noted for their shy and non-agressive nature. I'm not sure what you're planning on doing that would cause a black bear to become agressive with you to the point that you'd need to empty a 30 round magazine into one.

The times I've encountered black bears, they either completely ignored me, or we simply went our separate ways.

 

[Freedom_fighter_in_IL]

Like I said earlier Justin, about the only time you will ever see aggression from a BB is if you get too close to a sow with her cubs. MAYBE from a boar if he is on a fresh kill or there is a hot sow around close by. Other than that, a clap of the hands, a little shout, pretty much any noise will run one off. But in the SLIGHT chance of an all out charge. a .223 is not what you would want in your hands. And to all you "mall ninjas" out there saying "empty half a clip into it" well I can already see you have probably never been in the woods nor have you been charged by a Black Bear or a Grizzly. If you had, you would not even dream of saying that crap. You would tell him most assuredly to bring the 12 gauge and leave the BB gun (.223) at the house.

 

[KodiakBeer]

The primary answer is that during their 365 day a year poaching season, they do not care much about ethical and clean kills.

I bite my tongue every time somebody brings up AK natives and .223's. But yeah, there's way too much of that going on and it ain't pretty.

 

[Patriot1/3]

If you have NO other choice than .223. Stay away from the bear. If you only had a 5.56,I strongly suggest M855's.

3" Mag slug does a sweet job on bears BTW.

 

[natman]

Didn't take long to bring up Alaskan natives. The difference is that they are HUNTING and the OP specifically asked about STOPPING an angry bear. Two very different things.

Leave the 223 at home. Use a 12 ga with Brenneke slugs.

 

[Mudinyeri]

I have yet to see an angry black bear. However, if you shoot one with that .223 load, I'm sure you'll get to.

 

[d2wing]

I've shot a few deer with each. I'd take the .223. Slugs do a poorer job on deer than .223. Most of the black bear taken here are under 200 lbs. A black bear charge is extremely rare but it did happen to my uncle. He killed it with a 30-30. Black bear are common here, not large, not agressive not hard to kill and a .223 gives me more confidence than a 12 guage although either will do.
Grizzly and polar bears are a whole different story but I have seen eskimos go after them with M16's. I doubt any of you have compared tissue damage with each. Somehow these responses remind me of Elmer Fudd shaking in his boots. None of the bear hunters around here even consider useing shotguns for bear.

 

[dirtykid]

this could be a tagline in a cartoon,,, it was at that moment he realized he had brought a knife to a bear fight,,, i've had off-vital shots on coyote's with my .223 /55-gr hornady's and a few have managed to get back up a hobble out of view,,,

 

[Hunter72]

I will answer based on this part of the question.

angry, violent black bear

If you are in that situation the bear would have to be at close range, lets say less than 20 yards. A bear can run 25 mph so that means you have a few seconds to react. Now you are obviously in a life or death situation with accelerated breathing, accelerated heart rate, and adrenaline running through you. Good shot placement is going to be anything that hits the animal.

For me I would want whatever was going to give me the best close quarters accuracy, make the biggest hole, and transfer the most kinetic energy into the animal. Since you will be making a split second decision I would say the 12 gauge is the answer. They are designed for close quarters action hence the military badge of "trench gun".

 

[d2wing]

Ok, everyone that has seen a violent angry black bear or coyote charge, raise thier right hand. Ok ladies, pass the kool aid. Yup a coyote might survive a .223 hit but same with a slug. I've seen alot of deer run with slugs in them, much more so than rifles. I've shot both at the same range and angle
several times. I am disappointed in the slugs, surprised by the .223. But to each his own until the liberals get thier way.

 

[336A]

Ok, everyone that has seen a violent angry black bear or coyote charge, raise thier right hand. Ok ladies, pass the kool aid. Yup a coyote might survive a .223 hit but same with a slug. I've seen alot of deer run with slugs in them, much more so than rifles. I've shot both at the same range and angle
several times. I am disappointed in the slugs, surprised by the .223. But to each his own until the liberals get thier way.

My experience with hunting deer with slugs is quite the opposite of yours. Every deer I shot with a slug or witnessed being shot dropped as if their feet were pulled out from under them. I thought I missed a spike horn that I shot at 75 yards because he dropped so fast. He was on the ground before I recovered from the recoil of my Mossberg 500 and had a fresh round in the chamber. That has been typical performance in my experience as well as several family members and friends that are restricted to hunting deer with shotguns and slugs.

By contast all of deer I have taken with a rifle have traveled anywhere from 25yd-75 yd after having taken a bullet to the heart or lungs. I would not in this life time ever hold the on game terminal performance of any .223 round above that of a 12GA slug.

P.S. Here is some good reference data, I could not find any testing that was done with full power hunting ammo for the 12GA. With that being said you can be sure that a full power slug would be more devestating to the gel block. While a block of gel is far from being an animal it does put things into perspective.
12Ga tactical slug. Note that the permenant cavity was 6" for a depth of 10.5"
http://www.brassfetcher.com/12gaugeFedTacSlug.html

.223 Rem
http://www.brassfetcher.com/53 grain Barnes Triple-Shock.html
http://www.brassfetcher.com/62 grain Barnes Triple-Shock.html
http://www.brassfetcher.com/60 grain Nosler Partition bare block.html

 

[Freedom_fighter_in_IL]

I am in complete agreement with 336a here. Living in a Shotgun only state, I have a very good perspective on how slugs perform. I have seen LARGE bucks (I live in Illinois and there deer here are pretty dern healthy to say the least) drop like they were hit by lightning from my 2 3/4 Lightfields! I have never had a deer go out of visual range after taking a hit from one. And those that ran were lung hit.

And d2wing, I am raising my hand on MANY more than one instance. I was raised in the mountains of East Tennessee where there is a VERY good number of Black Bear. Now granted, charges were rare, false charges were kind of common, but actual "You butt is dinner" charges are few and far between. A .223 at close quarters, with the ammunition being what the OP suggested (55gr soft point) is not even going to come CLOSE to stopping a charge on a decent sized boar or even a general sized sow. At 50 feet (that is the area I consider self defense range for bear) a 12 gauge slug is going to roll a bear. A .223 with 55gr SP's is going to irritate it at best. It will not penetrate (proven tests on this ammo shows they will blow up hitting DRYWALL!) at close range. Again, we are talking about DEFENSE here not hunting. Close range is not the world of .223 because it is so fast. The sectional density of a 55gr SP is not stout enough for tissue penetration at ranges below 50 yards. Proven fact in a multitude of tests. Whereas that is where the 12 gauge slug performs the BEST.

 

[d2wing]

I can't account for our different experiences. Most of the shotgun deer were shot on drives, where most of the rifle deer were shot from stands. Maybe shot placement. I dunno. I have seen rifle shot deer run like that too, but overall our results are different.
I've never seen a drt shotgun hit, but I have seen drts with rifles including a .223. I do agree that not everyone has the same thing happen each time, since our samples are limited our impressions can be very different. I don't dispute your experience or conclusions.

 

[d2wing]

A 55 gr sp will not penetrate under 50 yards? I guess I'll have to get the deer out of the freezer and let him go, and take my 14 pt rack off the wall.
Actually those tests you linked to show a .223 penetrates further than a slug. I'll remember that for jello hunting. I know black bears have killed and eaten people so some extremely rare danger does exist but I'd feel silly carring a shotgun for that purpose alone.

 

[HKGuns]

40 posts later and it still isn't advisable to take an AR into a Bear fight. Except of course for D2wing, who doesn't understand the difference between Bear and Deer. Oh, and the Indians in Alaska.......D2Wiing, it may surprise you to know there are a lot of States that won't let you take a .223 into the woods after Deer. I wonder why that might be?

Edit: Make that 41......

 

[Freedom_fighter_in_IL]

I guess he can't figure out that there is about 4 to 6 inches of difference in hide, muscle, and bone on a Bear than there is on a scrawny deer. Not to mention, I doubt very highly that that deer was bearing (pun intended ) down on him with teeth flashing and blood in his eyes!

 

[Vyacheslav]

a .223 would be suitable if it is fully automatic and you have a sharp bayonet

 

[336A]

I provided those links as they have no test data with 55gr SP ammo for the .223. The links provided are actually to you and your poodle shooters benefit and your skewed view on this suject. They are the only projectiles that I would use in a .22 centerfire on any big game animal. Even with these bullets the .223 still couldn't match the terminal effects of the reduced velocity slug.

However I will provide another link for you. Though this is from a 22-250, the terminal on game performance of the same bullet from a .223 can be expected to be the same. This is typical performance of 55gr .224" bullets as they are frangible varmint bullets regardless if it is a V-Max or SP. If a person was to wobble a little bit and hit a rib or the shoulder of a deer with one of these 55gr bullets chances are it won't make it to the vitals. And yet your advocating using this setup on an angry enraged bear which has thicker hide, bone density, and muscle mass than a deer...? PPPHHHUUUULLLEEEEESSSSS
EEEE
http://www.brassfetcher.com/22-250 Handloaded 55gr V-max.html

 

[Al Thompson]

Ditto rolling deer with slugs. Used a 12 ga at Ft. Benning and killed quite a few. Most were in fact DRT. Me and my two hunting buddies never recovered a slug from a deer either. It wasn't until I started hunting hogs that I started getting slug hits with no exit wounds.

As for a .223 on black bear, for defense, not hunting, I'd have that red dot floating over the top of his head (offset) from the get-go. If the bear decides to break my 50 foot comfort zone, I'd crank that trigger as quickly and smoothly as I could, multiple times. And wish I'd toted my shot gun....

 

[Meeteetse]

There is a reason the .223 is not legal in most of the Rocky Mtn. States for "any" big game. It does not work reliably. Anyone who lives, works or hunts in bear country would not consider a .223 a good choice. Is it better than nothing, sure, but a shotgun with slugs is always a better choice and a .30 caliber rifle is even better.

I have taken two black bears, one with a .308 and one with a 45-70 and both bears stopped what they were doing immediately. I feel confident that these calibers would work on a charging black bear also, but I would prefer not to have to find out.

 

[Snowdog]

Though I wouldn't specifically choose the M4 for bear protection personally, I'm quite convinced it will do the job as long as you plan on skewering the beast with at least half the slugs in your magazine

And to all you "mall ninjas" out there saying "empty half a clip into it" well I can already see you have probably never been in the woods nor have you been charged by a Black Bear or a Grizzly. If you had, you would not even dream of saying that crap.

Let me get this right, Freedom Fighter, you are calling me a "Mall Ninja"?

For the record, I live in Western North Carolina. Anyone familiar with the area will tell you that this essentially means I live in the woods/mountains.
I have indeed seen many black bear, about as many as I've seen deer. Anyone who hikes the fine trails we have here in the Appalachians is bound to see a bear eventually.

Several live on the mountain community my in-laws reside and this in Hendersonville, NC (fairly urban for WNC). There is very little conflict between human and bears here; folks here live in nearly perfect harmony with the bear native to WNC. The most common issue involving bear here in Henderson County are bears getting into trash and folks being cited for feeding them (as some apparently do).

In both Cherokee and in Swannanoa I had the opportunity to see black bear "charge" when they were chased from their food source. In both cases, the employees were able to stand the charge and prevail in chasing these bear off. The weapon of choice to confront these bear? A broom and trash can lid in one case and simply stern words in the other.

So indeed I live,work and play in the woods. I have also not only seen plenty of (black) bear, but twice I have seen them charge. As my first post indicated, I believe the .223 obviously a lousy choice if chosen specifically for bear. However, if an M4 is all you have in your hands while investigating some bump in the night and a bear happens to see you as the food source, I suggest that it be fired more than once. How does this philosophy make me a "mall ninja"?

 

[HKGuns]

FWIW, I didn't read that as directed to you snowdog.

 

[Freedom_fighter_in_IL]

LOL, No snow was not directed AT you in general. Just the IDEA of it is all. Like you, I believe I made a point of saying that a clap of the hands or a stout shout will run a black bear off on MOST occasions but in the event that it does not work, you had better hope you have more in your hands than a .223 loaded with 55gr SP's. If a clap or shout does not work, that bear is pissed and you are in it's sites period.

 

[Flintknapper]

If faced with the prospect of having to STOP a bear (any bear), I'd opt for the shotgun every time over the .223/5.56


Don't want to do that "Hatchet Jack" thing....like in the movie Jeremiah Johnson.

I, Hatchet Jack, being of sound mind and broke legs, do hereby leaveth my bear rifle to whatever finds it, Lord hope it be a white man. It is a good rifle, and killt the bear that killt me. Anyway, I am dead. Yours truly, Hatchet Jack.

A mutual kill is not what you are after.


Flint.