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Forums10
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Apr 29th, 2024
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Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 12,743
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 12,743 |
There is of course considerable difference in something being capable of "Killing" & something capable of "Stopping". Re Karamojo Bell's experience with the 7x57 or the Indian Girl with a .22 long single shot against a "Big Bear".
Miller/TN
I Didn't Say Everything I Said, Yogi Berra
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Joined: May 2008
Posts: 8,158 Likes: 114
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: May 2008
Posts: 8,158 Likes: 114 |
Yes-especially Robert Ruark who advised to "Use enough gun" A USMC buddy guides for bear in Montana- carries a Mauser Magnum action in .416 Rigby- express sights and Barnes ammo- I asked him once why the .416-and not a .375 H&H Mag or .338 Win Mag- he told me that off them were good choices, but the .416 was "extra insurance" and added "dead clients don't tip as well as the ones that come back to the airport alive"--I like the late Cactus Jack O'Connor, and respect his now deceased opinions, but I think the .270, even with the new Federal Fusion loads, is fine for whitetailed deer and Black bear- but I'll take a 30-06 over the .270Win hands down, every chance I get. Like the late Elmer Keith once said- "What, you mean it kills them TOO DEAD?""
"The field is the touchstone of the man"..
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Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 5,021
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 5,021 |
But when younger, I became so enamored with the writing of Jack O'Connor and the .270 being capable of killing everything in North America that I ended up taking a Brown bear with it while in Alaska. Not my intent, but sometimes the devil drives and the bear was the devil that day. Bear was not on my menu but he had me on his. He dropped within 15 yards of me, a another second later and I'd just be another stupid dead hunter. Under gunned, over my head, 3X9 scope cranked all the way up, hunting moose and not even thinking a bear was around. So after that I took everything I read with a large grain of salt and never forget the bad things that can happen. Would you pleeze give us the reference for alleged O'Connor endorsement of 270 as a brown bear rifle and-or for any thing in North America? Book or magazine article reference? O'Connor never wrote that 270 was an ideal brown bear rifle. as I remember he said it was on the light side but with right bullets it would work by a cool shot and under ideal conditions. In some of his books he mentioned Alaskan game warden Hosea Sarber who took many browns with a 270 but that was with heavy bullets and under controlled conditions. He also wrote about hunting browns himself with 375HH and with a 300 Weatherby as I remember. I think you owe O'Connor an apology. Your comment sounds like just another one from a peanut gallery guy who knows more than some of the respected hunters and editors of the past. KY Jon didn't say he went hunting brown bear with a 270 but was surprised by a brown bear while hunting moose with a 270. Big difference.
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 9,795 Likes: 775
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 9,795 Likes: 775 |
But when younger, I became so enamored with the writing of Jack O'Connor and the .270 being capable of killing everything in North America that I ended up taking a Brown bear with it while in Alaska. Not my intent, but sometimes the devil drives and the bear was the devil that day. Bear was not on my menu but he had me on his. He dropped within 15 yards of me, a another second later and I'd just be another stupid dead hunter. Under gunned, over my head, 3X9 scope cranked all the way up, hunting moose and not even thinking a bear was around. So after that I took everything I read with a large grain of salt and never forget the bad things that can happen. Would you pleeze give us the reference for alleged O'Connor endorsement of 270 as a brown bear rifle and-or for any thing in North America? Book or magazine article reference? O'Connor never wrote that 270 was an ideal brown bear rifle. as I remember he said it was on the light side but with right bullets it would work by a cool shot and under ideal conditions. In some of his books he mentioned Alaskan game warden Hosea Sarber who took many browns with a 270 but that was with heavy bullets and under controlled conditions. He also wrote about hunting browns himself with 375HH and with a 300 Weatherby as I remember. I think you owe O'Connor an apology. Your comment sounds like just another one from a peanut gallery guy who knows more than some of the respected hunters and editors of the past. Jack spent a lot of printing ink saying that YOU should have a .270, and it should be a spiffy, new, Winchester model 70. JACK, to a large degree, hunted with a 30-06. Keep in mind there were a lot of great gunsmiths in that era building beautiful custom rifles with controlled feed Mauser surplus actions, I guess those guys didn't seem all that important to Jack. If any writer ever mentioned Alaskan Brown Bears, and the Winchester .270, in the same sentence, he should be forced to go do just that. I'm still waiting for a "perfect shot in ideal conditions", have been waiting most of 50 seasons. Calling a .270 "a bit light" for brown bears is like calling a Bessemer furnace "cozy". As to Don Zutz, at least he actually took pictures of the patterns he was getting, and figured out why some loads were tighter than others, out of the same barrel. And then told us, truthfully, why that was. Best, Ted
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Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 236
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 236 |
Can the previos 3 posters pleazze tell us how many alaska browns theyve killed and what caliber and bullet used and details of the hunts? Trophy pixs would be nice too. As Sgt Friday would say just the facts. Your facts pleeze not things read while on a sofa in mn pa or mich.
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Joined: Sep 2007
Posts: 2,814 Likes: 1
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Sep 2007
Posts: 2,814 Likes: 1 |
My Dad hunted with Alf Madsen, back in the day....He used a brand new 300 Weatherby. He got his bear but when he got home we went to the gun shop right away and he traded for a Super Grade Model 70 in .375. His comment? The bear didn't read Weatherby's advertising. After his death, I found the bear hide packed in salt in a wooden barrel. I gave it to a friend who took it to Jonas Brothers, who had to break the barrel apart to get it out, hard as stone...Their worked their magic and turned it into a fine rug....
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 7,750 Likes: 501
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 7,750 Likes: 501 |
I've killed one Brown bear total, well one bear of any type to be honest. So I am no expert at all. In ten seconds I came to begin to understand that everything I though I knew was crap or just stupid. It did take me years to figure that much out. After returning home I bought a .375 for my next trip, which came three years later. I felt under gunned for close work with any bear, even with that, and was lucky enough not to need it. No bears came too close and never have had much interest bear hunting in the first place.
I also had a .458 that I had bought, but could not shoot it worth crap off hand due to the recoil and a nasty flinch I developed with it. The gun is long gone, I still get the flinch from time to time. For my money a rocket grenade or Laws rocket are best for close work with pissed off bears.
To be fair Jack O'Connor, Zutz, and all other sane writers, none of them would ever suggest that a .270 was the gun that was capable of taking a Brown bear. My point is that readers are often young or ill informed, seeking knowledge and entertainment and take too much of what they read as gospel. Many articles are just written to make a living, to sell guns and bullets, not inform readers of the facts of life. Zutz published his opinions like most others but he also gave a lot of insights. some facts and interesting methods or observations with them. Take them all with that large grain of salt.
It's up to the reader to shift through them and make choices. I made mine when young and it was both wrong and stupid for both the bear and myself. I had a far greater chance of wounding the bear and getting myself reamed by a bear than killing it. Heck I don't think that the .270 is that good a choice for most large game anymore but gun writers need to sell both articles and makers need demand for guns and ammo.
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Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 342
Sidelock
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OP
Sidelock
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 342 |
To those of you who aren’t fond of Don Zutz’s work, this could be interesting as he said, "If we started from scratch to reinvent the ideal shotgun shell - - it would end up looking a lot like the 16 gauge."
Don Zutz reminds us in Shot gunning -- Trends in Transition (1989) that ". . two of the most famous rulfed grouse hunters of all time -- William Harden Foster and Burton L. Spiller -- focused in their books on the 16. Perhaps the most famous shotgun in all upland writing is the 16 gauge Parker hammer gun . . . `The Little Gun' of Foster's New England Grouse Hunting. And when Burton L. Spiller narrated the ordering and purchase of his first custom bird gun in More Grouse Feathers (1938), it turned out to be a 16 gauge."
Annie Oakley set a world's record by breaking 4,772 out ot 5,000 thrown targets in nine hours in February, 1885 (The American Rifleman, October 1998 issue). “She chose a couple of 16 gauge doubles for the job -- she knew the secret of the 16's reputation for superb patterns and modest recoil.”
The above is interesting to me because after many years of shooting upland birds with a 20 gauge SxS, I discovered a 16 gauge in the form of a #2 AyA and have never looked back.
Jim
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Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 5,021
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 5,021 |
Can the previos 3 posters pleazze tell us how many alaska browns theyve killed and what caliber and bullet used and details of the hunts? Trophy pixs would be nice too. As Sgt Friday would say just the facts. Your facts pleeze not things read while on a sofa in mn pa or mich. OK, one more time, KY Jon was NOT hunting brown bear with a 270 he was hunting a MOOSE with a 270 and while hunting a MOOSE with a 270 he was jumped by a brown bear. Now do you get it????
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 9,795 Likes: 775
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 9,795 Likes: 775 |
Can the previos 3 posters pleazze tell us how many alaska browns theyve killed and what caliber and bullet used and details of the hunts? Trophy pixs would be nice too. As Sgt Friday would say just the facts. Your facts pleeze not things read while on a sofa in mn pa or mich. I have killed no brown bears. I have killed no carnivores that would tend to try to eat me, if I had not succeeded in killing them first. So, does that mean I should go out and try to do just that with a .270? I'll pass. Most anyone with any common sense would. Winchester Reapeating Arms company was in a state of flux and dynamic change (some would say, dying) in the era Jack was writing about them and waxing poetic about the .270. Did he shrill for them? Maybe. I didn't buy any of the magic then, and I'll certainly not be buying it now. KY Jon just typed about the best reference material I've ever seen for hunting Brown bears, and I suspected as much before he did that. Bravo. Glad he got out of that one. The gun writers usually leave out the part about soiling yourself when things go wrong. A .270 seems to me to be a bad place to start on a trip for Brown bears in Alaska. Best, Ted
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