Is This a Big Bear Round?

[Garandimal]

Think this is the Thread post:

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GR

 

[Garandimal]

Not reasonably, no. Windage is too big. My point was simply about what you use if you want to stop a bear.

If you're looking for a bear protection/long range crossover round, I would look hard at any of the big .375s and use the 260gr Accubond for reach and the 300gr Weldcore for stopping. Alternately you could use something like the .325WSM with 220gr Weldcores for both applications. The .30-06 would be way down my list but barely viable. The .270 would not make the list.

.270 Winchester for plains game

Interesting read.




GR

 

[Llama Bob]

it might actually be as close to "ideal" as possible, working within the confines of the original supposition.
Or possibly a .338, but the only ones I've shot we're a very light Lapua, and an ultra, neither of which I ever wanna do again.

The knock on the WSMs for this application is the rebate rim and potential for finicky feeding. If you have a CRF gun you know works well, neither would be a deal breaker IMO.

The .338s are an option. You generally end up in a 250gr for bear stopping umph, but then it takes a lot of case to drive one of those fast. The factory stuff only manages in the 2500-2700 ft/s range, which is how people end up with things like .340 Weatherbys.

 

[Llama Bob]

.270 Winchester for plains game

Interesting read.




GR

The .270 is a reasonable plains game round choice. It's on the light side for the bigger stuff even with 150s, and since the 7mag is chambered in the same guns I'd go with that if buying a rifle for the large plains specis. But the .270 will work.

Bear protection is a more demanding application than plains game and it's hard to recommend the .270 there except as better than some smaller alternatives.

 

[Goosey]

I always find it interesting to read old books and magazines and see what they thought way back when. The turn of the 19th century when smokeless powder came on the hunting scene is pretty interesting.

Take this from Teddy Roosevelt:

"... a 45-75 half-magazine Winchester. The Winchester, which is stocked and sighted to suit myself, is by all odds the best weapon I ever had, and I now use it almost exclusively, having killed ever kind of game with it, from a grizzly bear to a big-horn ... the bullet, weighing three-quarters of an ounce, is plenty large enough for any game on this continent."

He seems to think it worked fine for large animals. And when he purchased it in 1881, it was indeed one of the most powerful repeaters commonly available. But if you look up the ballistics of the old .45-75, you'll find it used a 350-grain, fairly soft lead bullet with (by today's dinnerplate standards) a small meplat, and less muzzle energy than a 7.62x39.

A couple decades after that, you can find plenty of people enthusing about the effectiveness of their new smokeless powder rifles, on all sorts of game. Using .25 and .30-calibre Winchester '94s or 6.5 Mannlicher carbines to take grizzly bear, either in moments of opportunity or planned trips. And of course other letter writers somewhat skeptical of the smallbore fanatics.

Townsend Whelen says the Krag .30-40, for a while, was the most popular rifle in Alaska. And I would not be at all surprised to see 0.277" 140 TSX match or even handily out-penetrate turn-of-the-century 220 grain softpoints.





I'm also sure the mountain men, some of whom killed many grizzly bears with their muzzleloading rifles, would have thought a .270 was a weapon of wondrous effectiveness.

But nowadays, it's very common for people to recommend a .375 magnum for going after brown bear. And no doubt a .375 magnum is much more effective. So does the question of whether something is a "bear rifle" depend on the time and context? A race car transported from 1920 would still hit the same speeds in 2019, but a Toyota Corolla would leave it in the dust...

 

[Llama Bob]

Standards definitely have gone up over time, but if it's my hide in front of the bear I have NO problem using the most effective rifle I can get. Whelen would be amazed at the difference between his .50-100-450 (450gr at 1450ft/s) vs the same chambering in my modern 1886/71 (500gr+ at 2000 ft/s+). Of course with a shotgun butt, recoil pad and mercury cylinder mine is probably a lot more fun to shoot than his was.

 

[Goosey]

Standards definitely have gone up over time, but if it's my hide in front of the bear I have NO problem using the most effective rifle I can get. Whelen would be amazed at the difference between his .50-100-450 (450gr at 1450ft/s) vs the same chambering in my modern 1886/71 (500gr+ at 2000 ft/s+). Of course with a shotgun butt, recoil pad and mercury cylinder mine is probably a lot more fun to shoot than his was.

My post might have been misleading, the excerpts are from a magazine article by one James H. Kidder. Although, on a hunch I looked up his name and found Whelen mentioned Mr. Kidder and his findings in his book "The American Rifle", in a section on "Killing Power".

 

[d2wing]

I think I would very well armed with either a 7 MM mag, or 30-06. I choice I already made for Elk hunting. The success rate defending against bear attacks with even 9 MM pistols is 100% according to that article I referenced. Not that that would be my choice. I don't think you need a huge heavy bullet like a .375 Magnum. Of course some of you are big fan boys of stuff like that and that is fine but history and scientific tests show that an 30-06 is plenty. However being overgunned is better than undergunned. I said before Grizzlies were nearly sent to extinction with black powder rifles, many of them shooting muzzle loaded round balls. But spend your money and take your choice, Note that Alaska Brown bears and stateside grizzlies are a different game. Also plains hunting and mountain hunting are different as well.

 

[DM~]

A 7 Rem. Mag., loaded with 175NP's is BIG medicine against big bears...

Those 175NP's will expand well, and really drive in deep...

DM