.22 and bears

When my father was a kid, he and another kid shot at some ducks on a pond with .22's They saw a horse drop on the other side, and later had to pay a farmer for it. I think that I was told that a slug caught the horse by an ear ? I remember another story. The old man and some other youngsters where out with some shotguns. A guy behind him discharged into the ground and the load deflected up and hit the old man in the back. He said that it lifted him a little but his heavy leather coat saved him from the blast.
 
I carry .44 mag because I don’t trust my old eyes to be any good at marksmanship anymore.
 
22 rifle to the forehead at a 90 degree angle,from 10 ft or so of range, reliably drops 2000 lb bovine bulls, so of course it will drop a a 500 lb bear. He was lucky to get such a hit, tho. For decades, the biggest grizzly on record was taken by a small Indian lady with a single shot .22lr rifle, using a .22 LONG rd, about 1/3rd less "power" than the .22lr.rd
https://www.google.com/search?q=Bel...ome..69i57.36363j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
 
no, b
heavy_-j said:
I heard about a ranger disappearing up in canada somewhere a few years back (dont remember details)....they later figured out that a grizzly had gotten him, but werent sure how because they all carry large pistols for that very reason (.357 or so). Later a very large grizzly was shot in a nearby town because it was busting around peoples houses....they figured out that it was the same bear that got the ranger, because of its stomach contents, but also because of four .357 sized holes in the bottom of the bears jaw, but no exit wounds, and no holes going into the upper skull/brain cavity!!! big bears are some thick headed creatures! far as i can tell, only shots to the temple, ear, brains stem, or perfect perpendicular hits will do the job....if that!

I'd say the kid and his dad definitely had some luck/help from above that day...
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No, bears are not "thick-headed". Nature does not waste resources. Animals that dont butt heads when fighting or foraging (like elephants pushing over trees) do not have thick skulls. Bovine bulls DO have thick skulls and a .22lr rifle, at close range and an ideal angle, will most certainly drop them.
 
I call
sambo. said:
never shot at a bear.

i've taken pigs with a single shot from a .22 in the past. granted it had to be a damn good shot to drop a pig.

i've also had numerous .22 rounds bounce clean off a pig.

i've had .222, .223 and .303 rounds bounce clean off a pigs skull too.

so yes, i rekon it is possible to kill a bear with a .22. however, personally, i wouldn't reccomend it and rekon it would take a fair measure of luck.
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I call bs on this, unless the hits were at very low angles. I've shot several big boars in the head with 60 gr 223 softpoints and they all dropped to the shot.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=223+on+hogs
 
Saw an article where a large black bear was killed with a small log from the fire wood stack. Dad clocked the bear in the skull and called the game warden. He was fined a good bit od dough!! Because the bear was bothering them because they had food all over camp, in an area that requires securing the food in bear proof boxes.
 
dahlia said:
I call



I call bs on this, unless the hits were at very low angles. I've shot several big boars in the head with 60 gr 223 softpoints and they all dropped to the shot.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=223+on+hogs
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I heard plenty of stories from both my grandfathers as a kid of .22's failing to drop hogs. The message was you had to hit them exactly right or it wouldn't reach the brain. There was also the story about my great grandfather (as told by my uncle who was there) of him shooting a steer in the head with a Smith and Wesson .44 Russian. It too failed to hit the brain and he chased the steer all over the pasture blasting away at it with the pistol. Made a real impression on my uncle as a kid.
 
Sidehill Gouger said:
I heard plenty of stories from both my grandfathers as a kid of .22's failing to drop hogs. The message was you had to hit them exactly right or it wouldn't reach the brain. There was also the story about my great grandfather (as told by my uncle who was there) of him shooting a steer in the head with a Smith and Wesson .44 Russian. It too failed to hit the brain and he chased the steer all over the pasture blasting away at it with the pistol. Made a real impression on my uncle as a kid.
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I agree, but .22lr and 223 have very little in common. When you hit them in the brain with a 223 softpoint, the hydrostratic shock blows their eyeballs clean out of their skulls. The 223 has plenty of penetration, since it has 10x the power of a 22lr. the .44 russian was a pathetically weak load and the factory 44 special load was very little better. That's why Elmer Keith and others hot-loaded it, to get 3x as much power out of it.
 
If my choices were .22 or nothing, I would take the .22. But given the choice, there’s a reason I carry 9mm in urban environments and 10mm in rural environments. My .22 is for squirrels and fun with the kids.
 
body hits dont stop charges with any reliabiity. small deer often run off with 12 ga slugs thru their chests. I'm not bothering with anything special for bears. :) Only a brain hit is likely to stop one. So I carry the same pocket 9mm everywhere.
 
there's no reason to risk having ONLY a .22 in the bush. People and dogs are a threat everywhere you go and a .22 is no man or dog stopper. Every year in the US, 800.000 people are dog bitten badly enough to seek medical attention and every year, 20+ people in the US are killed by dogs. That's 10x as many as killed by wolves, bears and cougars, but eveyone acts like dogs are nothing.

I reworked my 11 oz Beretta M21 to have better sights and trigger pull, be SA-only, have a longer sight radius and an extractor and have the longer mag of the PT22 Taurus. It will now group 2" at 25 yds, from the sitting-braced firing position, and 3" or better from the standing, unsupported 2 handed firing positioin. Because it is so light and compact, and so is my Sig P938 9mm, I can have both of them for less weight than a M10 .38 revolver or a P35 9mm. I get 500 ft lbs out of my 9x21mm chambering, with Makarov type recoil. It's also AP on kevlar with its 45 gr, solid aluminum bullet, at 2200 fps from the 3" barrel of the 6" long Sig.
 
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