Those Marines put far too much trust into that .45 ACP. I am a former Marine and I know not to do that, thus is why I own a Marlin 45/70 guide gun :thumbup: . LOL, those 5.56 rounds wont do anything accept scare a curious bear off. They need to be issuing out some of those new m-14 sniper variants, S&W 500's, or just giving them benelli's loaded up with slugs at least.
I saw a funny WARNING poster for bears once. It sad something along the lines of wear the bear bells and bring bear mace. Be aware of what bears droppings look like blah blah blah. In the end it read "Black Bear droppings will contain berries and squirrel fur, Grizzly Bear droppings will have bells in them and smell like pepper."
That's why i had a .300 winchester magnum for walking about deer hunting on kodiak. when we went ptarmigan hunting we carried sabotted slugs for the shotguns & one guy (our XO) carried a .44 magnum as well, we always had one guy on security with slugs loaded, i also carried a .357 magnum. figured it's better to hit the sucker with that than miss with the .44.
the local inuit would hunt them with .22 magnums. they'd sneak up on them & shoot them in the ear hole before they had a chance to get their adrenalin flowing. when that happened you'd do better with a 20mm.
i also had a marlin .45/70, loved it. had to sell it before i moved overseas tho. i'm a fan of big heavy slugs, the marlin could handle 600 grain fairly hot hand loads w/o strain (kicked like a mule tho).
the only time i carried an m16 was when we went to the range to qualify again. we used the 1000 inch range for that (i qualified sharpshooter on the m16, expert on the .45acp). we also had a 500 yard range which was the one i sighted in the .300 on, 4x scope, no wind could keep them on a GI helmet fairly consistently. (there were a number of rusty ones laying about in the butts. made good targets.) our armorer had a few m14's salted away for serious work when we were out at sea on the Confidence (WMEC 619), along with the .50 brownings and our 3" 50 single shot popgun. they upgraded the old gal to an automated 25mm chain gun i hear when they moved her to florida......
when i was a merchant marine cadet i was in a Pershing Rifles drill team (the only naval unit at the time), we used M1's for that, but on the odd occasion would help the grunts out over in NJ at ft. Dix by acting as 'agressors' - we'd ambush the army platoons there for training, they issued us M14's (& m60's) & i learned to love the m14 as opposed to the toy guns the grunts carried. it's surprising how many of them don't have a clue where you are when you start shooting at them from an ambush even tho you're just a few yards away in the brush. as i went on to serve in thje coast guard rather than the navy or merchant marine, i never got to do an ambush for real tho.
