9mm bear loads

[Orcon]

When you guys finally hash out a good 9mm bear load can you hep me pick out a 22 rimfire bear load? I'm thinking probably LR or maybe the magnum, not sure though. I will be carrying a two shot Deringer because I don't like heavy things. K thanks.

 

[Skinnedknuckles]

I did some looking for FP hardcast 147g bullets and am not having any luck so far, may have to go the factory route and buy some BB.

Not talking bullet proof grizzlies here, smallish to medium Colorado black bears and lions only.

Also not trying to start a debate, just hoping to find a feasible load combo.

Take a look at Missouri Bullets, Bayou Bullets, Master Cast Bullets, and HSM. All have hard cast FP bullets (included coated bullets) but most seem to be TC instead of RNFP designs. Bayou even has a 150 gr SWC!

Win 231 is not going to get you the velocity you need, and I doubt Unique will either. No idea what 2400 would do in the 9mm case, but I doubt it would be pretty. I've been trying Longshot and like it for the heavier bullets, but I haven't been pushing +P levels. Some of the other slower powders like HS6 or maybe AA7 would be more what you need but I haven't used them.

 

[horsey300]

When you guys finally hash out a good 9mm bear load can you hep me pick out a 22 rimfire bear load? I'm thinking probably LR or maybe the magnum, not sure though. I will be carrying a two shot Deringer because I don't like heavy things. K thanks.

Winchester 40 gr white box. Most overpenetrating .22lr I ever used, aim for each front "knee", should slow em down enough to jump on and ride em back to the truck.

For 9mm, incendiary rounds might be in order, shoot the ground between you and hope they swerve, then call the fire department.

 

[jmr40]

Phil Shoemaker a noted brown bear guide, fishing guide and writer in Alaska feels the BB 147 gr hardcast is adequate. In August he killed a large male brown bear that attacked a fisherman he was guiding with this load.

http://www.wideopenspaces.com/alaska-man-kills-charging-brown-bear-with-a-9mm-pistol/

Shoemaker posts a lot on 24hourcampfire and added lots of details over there several weeks ago. While he felt the 9mm was borderline he feels good loads in 357 are more than up to the task.

I respect him, and would not feel under gunned with good 9mm loads and black bear. But I'd want a minimum of 357 or 10mm for the really big stuff.

 

[Rule3]

Phil Shoemaker a noted brown bear guide, fishing guide and writer in Alaska feels the BB 147 gr hardcast is adequate. In August he killed a large male brown bear that attacked a fisherman he was guiding with this load.

http://www.wideopenspaces.com/alaska-man-kills-charging-brown-bear-with-a-9mm-pistol/

Shoemaker posts a lot on 24hourcampfire and added lots of details over there several weeks ago. While he felt the 9mm was borderline he feels good loads in 357 are more than up to the task.

I respect him, and would not feel under gunned with good 9mm loads and black bear. But I'd want a minimum of 357 or 10mm for the really big stuff.

Ya that article is part of the BB advertisement I posted early.

I supposed if we search the web we can find an article that some guy killed one with a Swiss Army knife or a guy on a motorcycle survived a head on crash with a 18 wheel semi truck.

 

[armoredman]

To be honest, I thought the thread title was a joke, but OK, if it's all you have, it beats harsh language. i am going to go with the popular treand, fast hard cats pointed bullets for deep penetration.
In cat country, I wonder if a camail and gorget might be handier?

 

[murf]

I'd go with the buffalo bore load. Bullet shape, weight and hardness are critical here and, I think, Mr. Sundles gets it right.

murf

 

[RetiredUSNChief]

Given what you're shooting at with the 9mm, FMJ ball is the type of ammo you need, in the heaviest bullet you can get. That's going to be about 147 gr, though I've heard of people casting heavier. You need penetration capability, not expanding bullet capability.

Keep in mind that there are serious issues with getting (relatively) high bullet velocities with a heavier bullet.

One is the simple physics...a heavier bullet requires more (or faster burning) powder. And a heavier bullet is a longer bullet (that nearly 25% increase in mass from 115 gr to 147 gr translates into longer a bullet). A longer bullet means less case volume for powder.

Propelling a heavier bullet at higher velocities means more pressure, and more stress, on the gun. This means increased wear as well as increased possibility of a stress failure. Is your gun going to handle your dream load?

These are the limitations you need to solve.

Keep in mind that when it comes to reliable penetration to vital organs through bone, fat, and muscle of large predators, mass over velocity is king. Meaning more mass plus velocity is the order of priority as opposed to more velocity plus mass. A more massive bullet is harder to deflect from its flight path when it hits tissue and bone at any velocity, whereas a lighter bullet is much easier to deflect at any velocity.

This is why many are advising chosing a different gun.


Besides...a handgun in bear or cat country, in my opinion, is really the gun that stays in your holster with you when you have to drop your rifle to start climbing.

 

[typhun]

I was in MT last month and hiked the week before into the same wilderness area where Todd Orr had his grizzly encounter but on a different trail head. I was carrying a Glock17 loaded with 18 rounds of BB 124g +P+ penetrator and two spare mags loaded with the same. At the time i felt reasonably comfortable. But i will also add that i just purchased a Redhawk .44 w/4" barrel. That loaded with at least a 240g hard cast SWC carried in a chest rig will be what i use from here on when hiking Southwest MT.

 

[macgrumpy]

If you read the article that has been posted a couple of times the guy that successfully dropped the grizzly had decades of experience as a professional hunting guide, normally carried a .44mag, put 6 shots in to the bear at a range of 6 to 8 feet, used the heaviest +P ammo made, and he was lucky that the bear didn't advance on him.

So if you think that you are just as good, just as experienced, and just as lucky as him then I'd say your choice of caliber is reasonable, personally I doubt that it is and suspect that you will agree if you ever have to use that 9mm on a grizzly.

But if you insist then I'd recommend using the heaviest +P load you can find. Don't forgot though, you're going to want to shoot that ammo in a pretty substantial sized pistol so that recoil will be as manageable as possible and the handgun won't be prematurely worn out.

 

[RussellC]

Given what you're shooting at with the 9mm, FMJ ball is the type of ammo you need, in the heaviest bullet you can get. That's going to be about 147 gr, though I've heard of people casting heavier. You need penetration capability, not expanding bullet capability.

Keep in mind that there are serious issues with getting (relatively) high bullet velocities with a heavier bullet.

One is the simple physics...a heavier bullet requires more (or faster burning) powder. And a heavier bullet is a longer bullet (that nearly 25% increase in mass from 115 gr to 147 gr translates into longer a bullet). A longer bullet means less case volume for powder.

Propelling a heavier bullet at higher velocities means more pressure, and more stress, on the gun. This means increased wear as well as increased possibility of a stress failure. Is your gun going to handle your dream load?

These are the limitations you need to solve.

Keep in mind that when it comes to reliable penetration to vital organs through bone, fat, and muscle of large predators, mass over velocity is king. Meaning more mass plus velocity is the order of priority as opposed to more velocity plus mass. A more massive bullet is harder to deflect from its flight path when it hits tissue and bone at any velocity, whereas a lighter bullet is much easier to deflect at any velocity.

This is why many are advising chosing a different gun.


Besides...a handgun in bear or cat country, in my opinion, is really the gun that stays in your holster with you when you have to drop your rifle to start climbing.

Yes, this answer! Never hunted big game, and never will. I have always understood as the quote poster says, hard bullet, deep penetration. I would add ability to break bone.

Physics are against it with 9mm. Not to mention the Shield is not really a +P gun.

Not bashing the Shield, I own one but it is what it is.

Russellc

 

[entropy]

Waiting for the .25ACP bear load thread......

 

[RecoilRob]

I cast a Lyman 147 RNFPBT that come out about 154 lubed and sized that really shoot great out of any pistol or carbine. Using 3.8 231 which gets them to almost 1000 from a 4" barrel and remains in the standard pressure category. Not really understanding why another 100 fps is going to do all that much more than these already will do, and perhaps leaving them at standard pressure would tend to be more reliable?

Let's face it...with a handgun it's not so much the energy you can deliver, but WHERE you poke the hole that will make the difference between success and tragedy. The Lyman bullet looks very nice and they fly well and seem to penetrate deeply, so if you have confidence that it's going to work...be calm and put them where they need to go. Up the snout or in/through the neck or throat gives a decent chance of hitting the spine would be the play IMHO. Body shooting seems a risky thing and these little 9mm's aren't really going to get much attention like a shotgun slug would, so pinpoint precision should be the plan if you choose to be armed with such a lightweight gun.

You could do worse than the cast 147's though if someone said I was limited to 9mm that would be my choice too. Just now I was trying to think how it would compare to the Super Redhawk with 454's (300 @ 1700) and of course the 454 would hit harder, but I don't know how far it would penetrate vs the 9mm. Probably far enough...so again it's down to where the bullet was delivered, and with the 9's you have a bunch more tries and much less recoil to have to deal with. I'll admit to shooting the 9mm a bit better than the 454 most of the time, and rapid firing a cylinder while keeping them in a tight group is not an easy thing to do. So despite the mocking of the OP question, it's made me think a bit about this situation and believe you are better armed with that flavor of 9mm than it seems at first blush. If you can't shoot a 454 worth a damn....then you'd almost certainly be better armed with the milder cartridge. I'll try hard to not encounter any bears as avoidance is the best medicine.

 

[Rule3]

If the OP is BOWHUNTING he has a better chance with a high tech broadhead arrow than a 9mm from a short barrel

 

[mdi]

Personally, I don't think a 9mm is better than nothing. If the only weapon I had available was a 9mm personal defence gun, I would try for avoiding a bear, not shooting him. I don't think a 9mm will do more than make the bear madder. While I haven't encountered any bears in the woods, you have to consider a few facts. All the reports of bear attacks I've read, the bear came "outta nowhere" before the victim could do much, and I believe I've read that bears can run at 30 MPH+. So,by the time a bear attack has begun, it's too late to pull a handgun. Bears are big, and when they get mad, their adrenaline is flowing, not much is going to "put one down", mebbe a 30+ caliber Magnum rifle, but stop a charging bear with a pocket SD handgun (3.1" bbl.)? Even a .480 or .500 Magnum? I think I'd wear bells and sing while I'm in bear country, just to let them know I was in the area and I'm not gonna surprise one...

 

[Manny]

If I were going to carry the Shield I would definitely get the Buffalo Bore ammo and supplement it with some good bear spray.

As some often interject on threads like this, chances of needing a gun for bear defense are pretty slim anyways, and there are often some fairly knowledgeable folks who pooh-pooh ANY handgun for bears, insisting that bear spray is better. Not to mention those folks who contend there is NO need for a weapon at all, or at least not anything more that a .22 rimfire for foraging. Others will argue that you need at least a .375 H&H. I guess everyone has their own mental picture as to what such encounter would entail.

For myself, I can definitely see the benefit of having a discrete gun such as the Sheild available to deal with other issues that may arise on such a hunting expedition. If the alternative is empty hands than the Shield with the best available ammo beats that by a wide margin.

 

[RussellC]

I queried Starline brass when I bought my Shield, in regard to a warning they post with their 9mm brass info. They state you should not load near +P or +P if using in a S&W Shield. Concerns "unsupported case"....not sure if it was rectified or not...I have shot some fairly hot loads in mine.

The correct tool should always be used for the job at hand. For Bear, 9mm, while it might work, just isn't the right tool.

Russellc

 

[Muddydogs]

OP I understand where you're coming from, I carry a Kahr CW40 while hunting mostly just because I want to. I have .44's, 357's and even a couple .40 XD's but I carry the Kahr due to its weight. I know my chances of a bear or cat encounter are so slim there not really worth worrying about, spent 20 years working in the woods and have been up close and personal with a few black and grizzly bears but never needed a firearm, so I just carry my normal defense load. A 9mm or .40 cal against a charging bear is kind of like peeing into the wind even with the biggest bullet they can shoot unless you get lucky with shot placement in which case a .22 would suffice. My thoughts are I want a load I can shoot accurately while controlling recoil so if it ever came down to me having to put rounds into a bear I could put all 7 rounds on target.

 

[Dog Soldier]

I was guiding an Antelope hunter back in the 1970s in Central Wyoming. He shot a goat but it did not go down. In his haste he lost his extra ammo. I was carrying a S&W 39-2 9MM a personal protection firearm. We were not in Grizz country.
He ask to use my 9MM to finish the goat off. The 9mm loads were 124 grs. JRN bullets. It took 6 rounds at 15 feet to put the animal down. The Antelope is a light thin skinned hollow haired animal. I can not imagine taking on a 600 pound Grizz with any 9MM handgun.

 

[RetiredUSNChief]

There is something to be said for the concept of "making do" with what one has on hand. We all do this to some extent.

But there really is no substitute for having the right tool for the job if you want the best chance of doing things right the first time without causing other problems.

A handgun of any kind against a bear or cat attack is iffy enough. We all know that handguns are at the low end of the firearm power scale for self-defense in the first place when it comes to humans. The same is true for defense against large, wild predators...even more so, in fact.

A 9mm of any kind, regardless of the ammunition loaded in it, is going to be quite a bit lower on even the handgun power scale, much less overall firearm power scale.

If that is all you have as a handgun, then by all means, make do. Regardless, do NOT consider the handgun to be your first (or only) line of defense against bear or cat attack. Defense should be layered and consist of both passive and active means if you want to maximize your chances of survival.

A wild animal attack of any kind is pretty rare, more so if you're actively seeking NOT to encounter such an attack in the first place. Your primary goal in defence is, therefore, avoidance.

Your pistol should be pretty much your last line of defense, in the event all else fails. Even if said pistol is the world's most powerful pistol loaded with armor piercing, heat seaking, incendiary, 1 kiloton explody bullets.

Oh, and by the way, have fun during your bow hunting!

 

[buck460XVR]

Win 231 is not going to get you the velocity you need, and I doubt Unique will either.

A max load of Unique will get you about 1000fps with a 147 projectile. This is from standard 9mm pressure loads, not +p or +p+. More than enough for cats, and probably enough for small to medium Blackies.

Personally, I don't think a 9mm is better than nothing. If the only weapon I had available was a 9mm personal defence gun, I would try for avoiding a bear, not shooting him. I don't think a 9mm will do more than make the bear madder. While I haven't encountered any bears in the woods, you have to consider a few facts. .

I started bow hunting for deer in black bear country when I was 12 years old. 50 years of walking in and out of the woods in the dark, with nuttin' else but my bow, I have yet to encounter a bear that attacked me, nor have I ever carried anything for back-up against them. In the fall, sows are not as protective of cubs as in the spring and cubs are better at avoiding human contact. Older bears generally have been hunted in the fall and avoid human interaction as much as possible. Odds are so high against any type of true black bear attack, the idea that a 9mm is not better than nuttin' is absurd. 8 hardcast rounds @ 1000fps will certainly do the job if the one pulling the trigger does theirs. While I too would rather carry a .357 or .44, if I had nuttin' else, for the most part, I'd feel perfectly safe with the 9mm(especially since I feel quite safe with nuttin'.). Folks with absolutely no experience encountering bears in the wild, have little clue what to expect from them. This is what sells BB Bear defense ammo. I would not be afraid to use 147gr FMJs in place of the hard cast. I would not want an expanding round.

 

[Dog Soldier]

A hunter disappeared in bear country. He had his ringing bells hiking shoes and Bear Spray. The searchers found only a pile of bear poop on a flat rock. It consisted of silver bells, hiking shoes and smelled like Bear Spray.

The idea of Bear Spray is to save the Bears. Be aware it has nothing to do with protecting humans. My Bear Spray is the LAR Grizzly .45 Win Mag. semi auto pistol it can spray eight 300 grs. .45 slugs very fast.

 

[Skinnedknuckles]

A max load of Unique will get you about 1000fps with a 147 projectile. This is from standard 9mm pressure loads, not +p or +p+. More than enough for cats, and probably enough for small to medium Blackies.

From a 3.1" barrel?

 

[OC-Trainer]

View attachment 224259

Maybe they should change that sign, cause history tells us it is the other way around.

We found no significant difference in success rates (i.e., success being when the bear was stopped in its aggressive behavior) associated with long guns (76%) and handguns (84%). Moreover, firearm bearers suffered the same injury rates in close encounters with bears whether they used their firearms or not.

https://www.researchgate.net/profil..._in_Alaska/links/02e7e538de22de7a17000000.pdf

Bear spray is a very effective deterrent when used properly. In a 2008 review of bear attacks in Alaska from 1985–2006, Smith et al. found that bear spray stopped a bear's "undesirable behavior" in 92% of cases. Further, 98% of persons using bear spray in close-range encounters escaped uninjured.

http://wdfw.wa.gov/hunting/bear_cougar/bear/files/JWM_BearSprayAlaska.pdf

The idea of Bear Spray is to save the Bears. Be aware it has nothing to do with protecting humans.

Say who, you? What citation can you provide that backs up this claim?

My Bear Spray is the LAR Grizzly .45 Win Mag. semi auto pistol it can spray eight 300 grs. .45 slugs very fast.

If it is so great, then why has it been discontinued since 1999? Also, see link above.

To the OP- This link below was performed by two U.S. Forest Service employees, in search of the best firearm and load for protection against bear. The results are pretty eye opening. It is one of the reasons I carry a 12 gauge shotgun with slugs (and 2 cans of bear spray) when in bear country and this is what virtually every guide carries today.

http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/gtr152.pdf

 

[Dog Soldier]

The Bear Spray is made to protect bears not humans. LAR Mfg. Division of Remington arms Salt Lake City, Ut. They are primarily a Military contractor. Like the Colt Python, the Pre-64 Winchester the German Luger etc. all became to expensive to manufacture.
Any of these discontinued firearms are selling for very high prices. I am not familiar with the prices of Collector's cans of Bear Spray.