Article – Defense Against Bears with Pistols: 97% Success rate, 37 incidents by Caliber

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I engaged in a search for instances where pistols were used to defend against bears. I and my associates have found 37 instances that are fairly easily confirmed. The earliest happened in 1987, the latest mere months ago. The incidents are heavily weighted toward the present, as the ability to publish and search for these incidents has increased, along with increases in bear and human populations, and the carry of pistols.

The 37 cases include one that can fairly be described as a “failure”.

Living in western Montana means bears (and mountain lions, some wolves, maybe a wendigo or sasquatch). I don’t get out in the hills nearly as much as I used to, or want to, but in over 35 years I have run into bears exactly twice. First time I had my HiPower with me and I did, in fact, feel undergunned. (Although the accompanying article shows that FMJ 9mm actually acquits itself nicely.) Second time I had a rifle and felt a bit more confident.

Most people’s knee-jerk reaction to bears is a .44 pistol and I’m no different. I picked up a lovely limited-edition Ruger specifically for bearbusting. What I think is a better choice is a Glock 10mm longslide….the Model 40. While .44 Mag is no slouch, the G40 holds two-and-a-half times the capacity at less weight. But, really, any gun is better than no gun.

The article goes on to mention that handguns succeeded in stopping bear attacks in about 97% of the reported cases. In several the human simply fired a round or two two scare the bruin away…in others, the bear had to be dissuaded in a more terminal way.

Bear spray? I met the guy who invented it years ago. True story: for a while the bear spray could not be marketed as such because it had not been proven to be ‘safe’ to use on bears. BUT it could be sold as people spray for use against criminals because there was no requirement to show it was safe to use against humans.

I seldom carry bear spray. I already have too much crap hanging off me when I’m running around in the woods. I’m not inclined to do an escalation of force in the few seconds I have between being a bears target and being a bears lunch. I ‘d go straight to the nuclear hand grenade if I had one. Until I get my Glock20 I’ll carry the Ruger .44 with some rather penetrative hard cast bullets.

For those of you who wonder about the efficacy of handguns vs. bears this article should prove interesting. But, keep in mind that a handgun is never the first choice if you have the option of using your rifle.

 

27 thoughts on “Article – Defense Against Bears with Pistols: 97% Success rate, 37 incidents by Caliber”

    • No doubt you’re correct, but I’m not likely to carry 10# of 870 slung around my shoulders on the off-chance I meet a bear.

      • Yep, even the pistol grip only shotgun, though lighter, gets in the way when hiking through the thicket. Plus futzing around with sling to bring it to hand – a handgun is faster to aim.

  2. CZ

    I agree with the handgun over the bear spray. My own choice for handgun in bear country ( my retreat area has only black bears, which do kill people from time to time ) is the 10mm also. I have a SIG P220 Elite in 10mm, but that only has a 8 rd mag. I just acquired this week the new S&W M&P in 10mm. 15 plus 1 capacity and I personally like the thumb safety option on that pistol. ( I competed with 1911 style gun for years so taking off safety is natural for me ). But hey any gun as you pointed out so rightly is better than nothing. My one bear encounter on the ground in my woods was working on one of my elevated hunting huts. My small dog went on alert and I looked 20 yds up the trail and a medium sized black bear stood up and looked at us. I only had a Ruger MarkIV .22 but luckily after about 20 seconds of looking our way he boogied off. No harm, no foul there for both of us.

  6. I’m betting the incidents skew towards black bear successes. Not so much with grizzlies, Kodiaks, or polar bears.

    The encounters with the apex bear predators don’t make the news, because all they find are a rusty handgun come Springtime, and bits of clothing in piles of bear scat.

    As one Navy aviator I knew pointed out noted, “Everybody thinks dolphins are your buddies, because of those stories you’ve read of dolphins pushing injured people near shore or rescue parties, right?
    But tell me something: who’s going to write the stories about the other injured folks/pool toys they found, whom they then pushed further out to sea…?    ”
    Point taken.

    Nobody writes about the dog that doesn’t bark.

    • I should have read the whole article, then I wouldn’t have wasted time counting them all.

      27 Grizzly and 8 black. It does mention that black bear attacks are the most common fatal bear attacks. Probably because grizzly and brown bears rarely will eat a person so it will just chomp on you a few times and if you play dead it will go away. Black bears will start eating you, harder to survive from that.

      I’ve generally seen about 2 fatal bear encounters every three years up here in Alaska and a fatal moose encounter every 6-8. I normally carry my .357 LCR. Sure a larger gun had advantages but one that doesn’t interfere with working is one I’ll actually have on me.

      • 1) The black bear population is also likely larger than that of grizzly or anything else;
        2) and they live closer to 95% more of the available population,
        so they’re probably far more commonly the source of attacks overall, even if not in the article.

  7. i believe the record grizzly kill in alaska was one by a little old innuit lady that helped her aged husband run a trap line, killed it with a taped together bolt action single shot rifle. not that i’d try that. around here they do routinely use 22’s on treed bear. yes i know big dif, but bullet placement. rifles, pistols, 22,44, doesn’t matter. i’ve seen several cases that hunters found 30-06 or 45-70 slugs buried in a griz’s skull or shoulder blade from a previous encounter. if its your day, its your day.

    • Bella Twin, she was Cree actually and it was near Slave Lake, in Alberta, Canada. She used a Cooey Ace 1 single shot .22 rimfire. Set the 1953 world record but it’s been past since then.

  8. Up here in Canada, you have to get a special permit to carry a handgun for predator defense, and you have to be a surveyor, field geologist, biologist, guide, or some other profession that can demonstrate the need for such. Everyone else has to use a shotgun.

    Most of the big companies that do resource extraction don’t bother supporting such a request and simply hire a local aboriginal to act as a “bear guard”. Gives the locals a job and reduces liability.

    Those independent contractors that jump thru the hoops get a permit to carry “while on the job”, kind of like armored car guards. Most go for the traditional .44 or .454 revolver, but like CZ, a great many, especially in BC and Vancouver Island were going with 10mm Glocks, till the RCMP decided they didn’t like that and on the bullsh#t basis of “reliability”, would only approve .44 or larger revolvers.

    So it seems CZ’s choice of a 10mm Glock is not a minority opinion.

  9. Here are my two cents…

    The first consideration for bears is getting through all that hair and fat. The object is to get to the internal organs and break bones. Regardless of the calibre, a heavy solid bullet is needed. A heavy solid has a much better chance at penetration and breaking bones than any hollowpoint. Hollowpoint bullets tend to slow down too much upon entry.

    The second consideration is bullet placement. For this, you need to practice, practice, practice.

    As for what to carry, that’s your decision to make.

    I’m north of the 49th parallel, so a handgun is out of the question. I carry an over/under Sulun Arms 12G. With its 9.8-inch barrel and 23 inches length, it rides easily in my pack.

    https://www.firearmsoutletcanada.com/sulun-arms-ss-211-over-under–12ga-2-3-4-or-3–9-8-barrel-ss-211-.html

  10. Ben Lilly, the last of the mountain men, probably killed more bear and mountain lion than most anyone else in North America. He used a 30-30 lever action. Buddy of mine went on a bison ‘harvest’ ,not really a hunt, in New Mexico a while back. Said an older guy had a 454 Casull that he thought would drop the beast with one shot. Shot the poor heifer six times in the neck and had to reload and shoot it some more.

    Animals are tough.

    • I had to put down a cow that had dislocated one of its rear legs. It had already eaten everything within reach and no water for it to drink – it was suffering.

      I backed off and waited about 10 minutes for it to forget me, then snuck up from the rear and shot it through the back of the skull with a .30 carbine I was packing. About 20 yards off. Killed it on the spot, FMJ went through the forehead clearly with no trouble.

  12. Going to Wyoming for third time this year, love it there. Will have my bear spray with me. I prefer the G20 brand dispenser with 200g CorBon pepper pellets. Maybe not ideal but preferable to stepping on my wife’s toes to hobble her up while I run.

  13. i just carry a stick for bear. i trip my wife with it if the bear looks my way. for some reason our hikes together are getting less frequent. must be her bad knee.

  14. If I had to worry about bears, I’d consider a Desert Eagle in .50AE, carried in a shoulder rig. IIRC, the mag holds 8 rounds. Easier to tote than a shotgun, and you won’t have to worry about having set your shotgun down to do something with your hands when the balloon goes up. That, or you can’t get the sling off your shoulder due to heavy brush, or because you tripped and fell down at the start of festivities.

  15. Actually the Danish military replaced their 9mm with 10mm on bases in Greenland because they didn’t work on Polar Bears. They also have rifles, 12 guage and dogs, which in fact (dogs) work the best against bears.
    The 10mm has been used successfully against the bear but it’s a last resort not a first choice.

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