Best Caliber for Bear
 

I hunt bear in PA, alot of the shooting we do, is from mountain to mountain, or across rivers, shooting 3, 4, and 500 yards, yet alot of shooting is done in heavy cover too, What caliber would you recommend

RE: Best Caliber for Bear
 

Dangerous game, both long range out to 500 AND close in with heavy cover to bust through - tough combo eliminates a lot of calibers.
To do it right, you'll likely be adding a rifle to your deer gun collection - recommend 338mag or 375HH or equivalent (Weatherby's if you're flush), premium ammo - say High Energy from Federal. Bullets: go heavy and partitions at a minimum. Course someone it going to say that deer rifle you bought for little ole Bambi will do it all, just snipe their heart out - not too realistic.

Neither the 338 or 375 really kicks a much different from a HEAVY loaded 3 1/2 inch 12 gauge NON-auto, big teddy bears really. Odd that a 16 year old water fowler can handle the heavy 12 gauge, but suddenly in the case of a strong magnum rifle everyone seems to believe it takes a man of steel to deal with the recoil. My twins (19) both shoot 338mags (no muzzle breaks) for elk and weigh in at 160lbs. "Recoil? Dad, its just not a problem!" Factis most folks is just too plain cheap to add new tools to their hunting toolbox - it's much less expensive to rationalize the deer gun.

EKM

Good judgement comes from bad experience! Half of elk hunting is knowing what NOT to do!

Edited by - ELKampMaster on 11/28/2002 22:20:04

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RE: Best Caliber for Bear
 

Jman,

EKM is right. At the ranges you could possibly be shooting the .338 is probably the lightest you should look at.

Campchef

RE: Best Caliber for Bear
 

I'm in agreement that .338 should be the littlest round that you look at, I'd say either go wildcat, .375 H&H .416 rigby, or .50 bmg. I've seen a .50 bmg perform on deer at a mile, and it did more than well enough on the accuracy and power. Only thing I'm curious about is, why take a 500 yard shot? Look at any projected trajectory chart, and even the flattest shooting rounds are falling around five feet at those ranges!! Once they pass 300 yards, the bigger boys are falling fast, and the .338 has lost most of what made it great, speed that is, so it's falling pretty fast itself. Don't even look at the .300 win mag, it's not that much better than the .30-06, and no .30-06 should be going after a bear at over a quarter mile.

My advice isn't the round, it's the hunt, get closer.

Screw the 10 ring, keep them in the zero!!!

RE: Best Caliber for Bear
 

Don't forget my favorite big game round, the .404 Jeffrey. Still a few Ruger 77's floating around in that caliber. But don't worry, the .375 H&H is plenty...

RE: Best Caliber for Bear
 

338mag or 375HH? We are talking black bears here right?

RE: Best Caliber for Bear
 

Please consider going back to the start of the thread and read the criteria. Thanks!
EKM

Good judgement comes from bad experience! Half of elk hunting is knowing what NOT to do!

RE: Best Caliber for Bear
 

Maybe what you want is more than one shot. I've heard all the anti gun folks say you can convert a semi automatic rifle to a fully automatic assult rifle and that it can be easily done at home for about $30. That's what you need! you can walk the shots on target at 500 yards <img src=icon_smile_tongue.gif border=0 align=middle>.

Good googly moogly, if it were as easy as the anti's say it is I think I would have knows SOMEONE to have done it by now <img src=icon_smile_wink.gif border=0 align=middle>.

&quot;Hey ya'll, watch this&quot;

RE: Best Caliber for Bear
 

I still think you would be over gunning. There no critter in the east that you need a 338mag or 375HH .