Is ballistic an opinion???? The underestimated 30-30 against grizzlies...

[MCgunner]

If it weren't so blamed bulky and heavy, I might just have a decent griz protection rifle in my collection that I've found no other real use for except range fun. It's a Hakim, 8x57 (good as a .30-06) semi auto 10 round capacity low recoil, fires VERY fast back up shots due to low recoil, and has a bayonet on the end of its 20 foot barrel. ROFL! I might just put up with the weight of the blasted thing if I lived and fished in Alaska until I could afford something better. Oh, well, I have 12 gauge shotguns that weigh less, so that'd probably be stupid, but it's a thought. LOL

 

[TCB in TN]

Have never shot a grizzlie, or even a black bear for that matter, but have hunted some BIG russian type hogs, and have been there to watch some even bigger ones dropped. (My biggest was about 375lb boar, saw a buddy take a Russian/feral cross that was well over 450 dressed) they typically have a thick gristle plate and putting a bullet in the wheel house does not always drop them quick, but I have seen them dropped quite successfully with the ole 30-30, and would feel that a short 30-30 trapper slung over the shoulder would be a better option for me in bear country than ANY handgun.

 

[goon]

I'd say that penetration would be the problem with the 30-30. Most ammunition will be made for use on deer or animals of that size so it would probably expand too fast and not penetrate enough. You'd need to find a load that would penetrate far enough to get to something vital. Eventhough the .454 or .44 don't have the same power on paper, what they do have is heavy, tough bullets that don't break apart.
This is an educated guess though - I don't know the actual numbers on how far each penetrate so the 30-30 might already penetrate more. In which case, I wouldn't see why a 170 grain 30-30 wouldn't work as well as anything else.

But the 30-30 is anything but anemic and I'd prefer one to a hand cannon that weighed almost as much as a carbine and had so much recoil I couldn't shoot it accurately. I've never been the greatest with a handgun anyhow.

 

[DFW1911]

Hi Ya'll,

This is a debate I have every year with some friends I go to Alaska with, and every year we pretty much reach a "non-conclusion." We always go into the wilds and rent a primitive cabin for a week, primarily to fish.

We travel to S/E, which is Brown Bear territory. I've seen many, some a little to close for comfort, but never had to shoot one - thankfully.

Everyone in the group carries a 12 gauge w/ slugs as their primary and at least a .44 as either a back up or as their primary arm when fly fishing (which is tough to do while holding a long arm . Many of the guides we know carry the same; the .338 is also very popular.

Here's my question though: wouldn't a decent semi-auto, say a Springfield Socom 16 in .308, put out enough "lead" that it could make up for in volume what it lacks in "ooomph?" Could I get our more aimed rounds on the semi-auto than I can on a pump shotgun may be the real question.

Finally - the conditions. S/E Alaska is a rain forest and it rains all the time. I'm not kidding...I had no idea so many types of precipitation existed until I went there! So rain, salt water, sand and mud are all factors to consider when selecting your firearm.

We clean them every night.

I look forward to your input.

Thanks,
DFW1911

 

[wheelgunslinger]

I just got to see pics of one of my acquaintance's kills in AK.
It soaked up 8 rounds of 375 ultra mag before it went down for good. After the first shot, it charged. The first shot was not done by a N00b, either.

There's just no way I would fool myself into thinking that a handgun, no matter what the ad copy showed, might take down a Griz under that kind of stressful situation.

Rifle or Shotgun. Either with plenty of capacity.

 

[MCgunner]

Someone posted where three guys were fishing in Alaska recently, two armed with 9mm and one with a shotgun. They got charged, the guy couldn't get the shotgun off his sling in time. The bear was charging him. The other two unloaded their hi cap mags on the bear and it dropped feet from the guy with the shotgun who never got off a round, still fumbling to get to his shotgun.

That right there is the reason for a handgun, I guess, though I think something bigger'n 9 would be called for, something ending in magnum or casull or something. IIRC, the bullet that stopped that bear was in the head, a 9mm. I reckon that's good bullet placement, eh? I'm bettin' those guys had to pull their drawers off and toss 'em, though. I think if I did much Alaska fishing in browny country I'd get a short slug barrel for my Mossberg and buy me a stainless Desert Eagle in 50 AE and a shoulder holster for it. The Mossberg is camo, used for the last 20 years for salt marsh waterfowl and is very weather resistant. If the barrel rusted, so be it. I'd wax it up real well. I just don't know if I'd feel happy with my single action Blackhawk .45 colt against a Brown. Black bear is one thing, but.....

Savage made a .30-30 pump for a while, forget the model number. In .30-30, that would be a fast firing gun. Still, at close range, it has nothing on a 12 gauge slug.

 

[tblt]

30-30 against a grizzly I don't think so

 

[Wolfgang2000]

In 73 Uncle Sam sent me on a "trip" to Alaska for 3 years. Upon arrival we all had to go through an indoctrination course that lasted 3 or 4 days. The last day was out in the field.

They told us that if we wanted to fish or hike a "large bore handgun" should be a with us at all time. They also stated that the 357 mag was not considered "large bore".

I know this information is over 30 years old, but I will put it out there and you can take it or leave it.

First I wouldn't buy a 30-30 for brown bear, but if it is all I had, I would work of bullet placement.

Most of the hunters up there (then) preferred some sort of manual action. Why? In case some snow or water froze the action you could "force" the action to get a 2nd round up.

If you fired your M16 at 20 below or colder, if you didn't at least wipe the bolt down, it would freeze. I've seen 105 recoil mech. ruptured because of the cold. And that was after they put the winter weight oil in it.

I had my Marlin 30-30 up there, and it took a Moose. I also saw a 357 mag take a moose, barely. (I should note that I didn't take the moose, I loaned my rifle to a friend that didn't have one. I was using a Rem. 700 30-06 lefty.) I only mention it because just about ANY round can kill, if everything is JUST RIGHT. I wouldn't buy either if I was going to be in brown bear country. But if that was all I had, and it was the difference between being mauled. They would find a empty gun beside my remains if it didn't work. If it did work I would have a great story, right after I cleaned my pants.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

An old sourdough I know hunted grizzley for years with a .30-30. His advice was, "Break bone on your first shot."

 

[Float Pilot]

I have lived here (Alaska) all my life except for periods of active mil duty where I was sent elsewhere on the planet. So I have been gone maybe 10 or 11 years out of 50. The rest of the time was living and working around the State.

1. Shot placement is everything.

2. Back before any of us had any money up here, most of us homestead town Alaskans hunted EVERYTHING with 30-30s, 7mm Mausers and 30-06s. Only the two rich guys in town had anything bigger. One had a Winchester M-71s in 348 Win. and the other a 300 Weatherby.

3. Most folks who are really from here avoided Brown Bears in the old days, because their meat is nasty. (they stink and have worms) Nobody up here called them Grizzlies until the last few years.

4. If you had to go into a Brown Bear area while surrounded by bait smells, such as a set-net site, you carried a pump shotgun full of slugs.

5. The closer you get to Anchorage the larger the calibers of the rifles. People out in the villages still use 30-06s , 30-30s, 12 gauges and 5.56mm.

6. Very few Alaskans get charged by bears. It always seems to be a vistor or a city person from Anchorage dressed like an elf on a running trail. Bears seldom charge anyone who looks like Pouncho Villa.

7. Most bears supposedly shot becasue they charged, were actually shot by folks who are bear jumpy and later needed a story to cover their lack of a tag or out of season kill.

8. The bow hunters and muzzle loader guys who take Browns always ponder the other folks who argue about repeating action rifles.

 

[azredhawk44]

If you had an Email address, I could forward pictures of what is left of
a recent jogger who emptied a handgun into one. SEVERAL 7mm Mag.
bullets into the vital area ended the rampage. On the first victim, only
the upper torso remained. Don't recall how many days of pistol lead to
the several shots additional that stopped further threats.

From Snopes.com:
http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/bearhunt.asp

This is an urban myth. The chewed up hiker and the bear shot with the 7mm auto are totally unrelated.

I got fooled by the same story, Dick.

 

[Cosmoline]

The .30-30 can certainly bring down brown bear. One hunter on Kodiak used a .30-30 and even a .32-20 to drop dozens of the famously enormous bears back before WWII. Can't remember his name off hand but I have an old article about him. Also, the .30-30 was famous for bringing down some griz that had resisted all the old black powder rounds.

That said, I think if you're going to the trouble of hauling a rifle around most folks figure you might as well get one with more punch than the .30 WCF. If you have to choose between a .44 magnum handgun or a .30-30 levergun, the levergun is a much better choice for pretty much any purpose including bear defense.

the guy with the shotgun who never got off a round, still fumbling to get to his shotgun.

My rememberance is he THREW the shotgun at the bear in some weird primal reaction to it, but later picked it up and used it to finish her after that fluke 9x19 had busted her shoulder. There was an ADN article on it.

Here it is, pretty funny reading:

With the grizzly at three feet away, Pennington knew he had to do something. But what? He was deadly afraid of pulling the trigger on the shotgun only to hear the thunk of a firing pin falling on an empty chamber.

So he threw the gun in the bear's face and dove for the deep water of the fast-flowing river.

http://dwb.adn.com/front/story/1633810p-1751603c.html

 

[MCgunner]

6. Very few Alaskans get charged by bears. It always seems to be a vistor or a city person from Anchorage dressed like an elf on a running trail. Bears seldom charge anyone who looks like Pouncho Villa.

Okay, so if I ever get to come to Alaska, I'm wearin' a poncho and sombrero, a bandoleer full of 12 gauge, and bringing one of my Hispanic friends that can shoot and we're going to speak nothing, but Spanish....

8. The bow hunters and muzzle loader guys who take Browns always ponder the other folks who argue about repeating action rifles.

Well, hunting is one thing, but I don't want no stick and string in my hands, even one with wheels on it, if one of them things is charging me head on at speed.

The poor meat quality doesn't surprise me. That sorta reminds me of "trophy" hog hunters that kill the 400 lb boar. The meat is gamey on a boar much over 200 lbs, I pick on the little guys for that reason and the fact I don't wanna quarter the thing on the spot to get him out. Now, a big brown IS a trophy, but a feral hog? I guess the tusks are pretty impressive, though. I have a Javelina head I used to chase my daughter around the house with. A hog is bigger. That "wormy" part would put me off, too.

My rememberance is he THREW the shotgun at the bear in some weird primal reaction to it, but later picked it up and used it to finish her after that fluke 9x19 had busted her shoulder. There was an ADN article on it.

Yeah, I remember now they broke a shoulder that slowed the thing down. I searched for that article once and couldn't find it when one of these bear discussions came up. Thanks!

 

[Cosmoline]

The local knife store has a boar spear from cold steel for sale. I'm thinking of just taking it on the local trails as a debate ender. After all, Lewis of Lewis & Clark fame took his own lance/halbred thing with him after they encountered a few grizzers. Might work ;-)

 

[plumberroy]

first choice for a gun against a charging griz barrett Model 82A1/M107 but that would be hard to carry and still fish lol A handgun on your belt is better than a rifle/shotgun over there leaning against?? my first realistic choice would be a marlin giude gun 45-70 loaded w/hard cast lead bullets as fast as they could be pushed followed by a short barreled shotgun w/brenneke magnum slug or if you could find a 12 ga coach gun that would put 2 of the above mentioned slugs where you pointed . the most important thing in a charge situation no matter what you are carrying is :missing is not an option a law rocket won't do you any good if you miss I would feel better armed by far with a 30/30 than a 44 mag revolver.As far as a 30/30 bullet coming a part there are several good 170 grain molds for 30/30 cast out of a hard alloy they would have no problem getting to/through vitals and bone. At one time I thought that a 30/30 was a barely able to get the job done old timers gun [25 yrs ago] now it is on of my two gotta have rifles

 

[Deaf Smith]

The late Jack O'Connor wrote that Mexicans used the 30/30 on large bear in Senora, and Eskimos thought nothing of using them on Polar Bears!

Keep in mind the range you shoot defensivly on a bear is something like 30 yards and the 30/30 will go right through a bear at that range.

Shot placement is king! Always was, and always will be.

 

[Float Pilot]

My rememberance is he THREW the shotgun at the bear in some weird primal reaction to it, but later picked it up and used it to finish her after that fluke 9x19 had busted her shoulder. There was an ADN article on

it.

Also note that in this case the bear was very small. I have a dog that is larger. I suspect it was more a case of two ##### who ran across a small female bear.


In the Mid 1980s when I was law-dawging down in southeast Alaska at Petersburg, my neighbor shot a garbage raiding black bear inside his garage, at 12 feet with 00 Buck. ( I had chased it back towards his house with my patrol car not knowing it would run back into his garage) The fish and game guys made him skin out the skull. None of the pellets penetrated the skull.

I arrived a few seconds later and there was Steve in his underwear still holding his smoking 870 12 gauge. The bear was jerking around on the ground but he soon died from a broken neck. The pattern was only about 1.5 inches across and the plastic wad was also stuck against the skull.

He had earlier raided Steve's garbage and then ran off. While Steve was outside pcking up trash, I accidentally chased him back over and he ran right back into the garage. Steve just happened to have his 12 guage handy since he had thought the earlier noise was a burglar. Steve said the bear was looking over his shoulder back at my patrol car as he ran into the garage and just happend to look ahead in time to see Steve sending 15 pellets his way.

It was a 300 plus pound bear since he had been dump raiding for some time. Most of his teeth were broken or worn.

 

[JohnKSa]

Argh.

 

[JohnKSa]

Also note that in this case the bear was very small. I have a dog that is larger. I suspect it was more a case of two ##### who ran across a small female bear.

I haven't seen any numbers on the bear's size, how big was it?

According to the article they were fishing when the bear charged them. The shotgunner threw the shotgun at the bear and jumped in the river, the handgunner pulled his 9mm. A lucky round hit the bear in the shoulder socket and dropped it, at that point it was killed with a round to the head, but I've seen varying acounts on who shot it in the head or with what.

There wasn't anything in the article that suggested that the attack wasn't genuine and as I recall, it seems that there were other witnesses to it. One version implied that the bear was killed by a third party with a rifle.

 

[roscoe]

I don't know why there is not a better variety of 30-30 ammo out there. There is only one light load - a 125 grainer, and then a bunch in 150-170 grian. I would think a hot loaded (like the powder used in LeverEvolution) 190 grain hardcast would be the ticket for bear defense in 30-30.

 

[Tokugawa]

Vern and Pilot and Cosmo said it. Never shot a bear but like a 12ga with 1 3/8 oz Brennnke. Like to delude myself it is like one of the old "paradox" cape guns. In proximity to bears, it never felt "too big"!

 

[MCgunner]

I don't know why there is not a better variety of 30-30 ammo out there. There is only one light load - a 125 grainer, and then a bunch in 150-170 grian. I would think a hot loaded (like the powder used in LeverEvolution) 190 grain hardcast would be the ticket for bear defense in 30-30.

Lever evolution is not a deal with powder, it's the use of a spitzer bullet without the problem of capping the round in front of it in the magazine. The bullets have WAY better ballistic coefficients and they lose velocity slower (or retain more velocity) at distance. The simple fact is, you cannot exceed SAAMI pressure limits and the .30-30 being a large rimmed head in a relatively weak action, is limited to under 40K, something like 38,000 CUP IIRC without looking it up. Rounds like the .308, loaded only in strong actions to take the pressures, push over 50K CUP, thus more velocity at the muzzle. No way around that differential.

You could fire a 190 grain bullet, probably around 1900 fps or so, if you could fit it into the maximum OAL of the round without intruding too much on powder space. Length of the action has as much to do with max OAL as much as chamber shape.

Any way you look at it, you ain't gettin' much over 1800 ft lbs at most with the .30-30. A spitzer as used in the lever evolution will see that it retains more of its velocity/energy out to more distance and doesn't drop as quickly just by cheating the air with a better shape, but you ain't gonna improve on that 1800 ft lbs unless you up pressures over SAAMI spec which is not a safe thing to do. You'll wind up with a bolt through your head if you ain't careful.

For penetration, though, I believe Federal still loads a 160 nosler partition in the premium line.

 

[Regolith]

To me, hunting and defense are two different ballgames. If you're hunting, you're goal is to kill the animal with minimal damage to the meat. As such, you're going to want to use just enough gun, and you wait until the animal presents you with an opportunity for just the right shot.

For this, the .30-30 will work, for just about anything in North America. Hell, if you're really good at stalking, and can get within 10 or 20 yards, a .22 will do (though not advisable).

Self defense is another proposition altogether. If its your life that's in on the line, you're looking for what is pretty much an instant kill. That means you're going to want a gun that is essentially overkill for whatever is trying to kill you. Meat damage is not an issue. You're not looking to eat, you're looking to stay alive. Against bear, a .30-30, while better than pretty much any pistol caliber and is sure as hell better than nothing, isn't the best choice. 12 gauge slugs, or a large rifle caliber like .45-70 or .338, are far, far better.

 

[rcmodel]

The fact remains however, that the people who have lived in the big bear country over the last 100 years or so, are generally armed with rifles like the .22 RF, .22 Hornet, .220 Swift, 30-30 Win, .300 Savage, 303 Brit, and others of similar power and status when suddenly confronted with a big mad bear.

But they are used to killing deer, elk, moose, and other big game with less then recommended power level calibers, and usually do it well in order to eat and survive.

Most of the time, they prevail quite nicely.

Sometimes, they don't.

But in my opinion, more often then not, it is not for a lack of power of the arms they use.

Rather, circumstances caught them in a position with a big bear that probably no weapon of any power could have saved them.


rcmodel

 

[TexAg]

LeverEvolution does use a proprietary powder blend that does give the round more velocity without increasing pressure too much, its not just the bullet design according to Hornady.