Ridge Runner

Finaly have calmed down enough over your bear pistol thread to post some information that may be informative. I started bear hunting in 1978, wasn't many back then but we hunted hard, we for the most part use dogs, I have been part of seeing many bears taken with alot of different firearms. I stated in your original thread that they were not hard to kill and I hope to explain why I stand by my statements in that thread. Here in wv, we unlikee pa have a 5 week season where we use dogs to hunt bear, we have the option of being a bit more particular of what bears we harvest, we do not line up and drive bear just like most states where they drive deer as they do in pa, running shots are rare but are taken on occasion. When we decide to harvest a bear they are almost always stationary setting in a tree unless we find the males who have an attitude and are reluctaant to climb, then they are dealt with by the most experienced hunters and marksmen in the group. I have as I have stated before taken 14 myself, of which 1 was running, the first hit with a 348 win. 200 gr bullet was not a good hit, the second shot put him down as soon as I could get a clear shot to avoid hitting the dogs. have taken 5 more on the ground which either were bayed up and stationary or just slow walking they were taken with the 348, 280 (2), 6mm rem, and 7mmstw. none of those 5 as much as took a step and 4 of them bounced when they hit the ground and never as much as kicked. I will say if you hit one bad, they seem indestructable. As far as the treed bears, the ranges are close, shooters and rifles are varied. Most of the treed bears are shot by young hunters, have been under the tree assisting with shooters as young as 5 years old, rifles run the gamut from 223's, 243's, 30-30's and the like. if the bullet is placed where it needs to be, the bear is dead when it hits the ground. so maybe this explains why I say they are not hard to kill if you put the bullet where it needs to be. The guys who trapped them back in the 30's used a 22 almost exclusively. This has been my experience.