"Bob McKellar" wrote in message
...


Harry Andreas wrote:

In article , Bob McKellar
wrote:

Harry Andreas wrote:

In article ,
(SteveM8597) wrote:

I have carried a firearm a time or two while backpacking in
grizzly
country but
not in state and national parks where they are illegal. I hear
the
situation
in some of the CA parks is pretty bad, though. Not what I would
consider a
survival situation, just common sense.

Best bet for bear and cougar defense is actually pepper spray,
although I've
also carried a .357, especially when hiking with kids.


So, pepper spray doesn't work well on kids?

Bob McKellar

LOL.
But seriously, pepper spray has limited range and is OK for your own
personal protection. But if a cat threatens or grabs a kid you need to
be able
to reach out and touch the cat.
I wouldn't try a handgun on a bear though. Too dicey.

--
Harry Andreas
Engineering raconteur

I took a Navy correspondence course on "Arctic Operations". The advice
for shooting
a polar bear was to aim for the shoulder, since their skulls are too thick
to be
easily penetrated.

It sorta reminded me of some of our regular posters around here.

Aiming for the shoulder with a handgun is more likely to just **** him off,
and if he is close it is probably a wasted effort--a bear has a pretty slow
cardio-pulmonary rate, so a shoulder-into-chest cavity shot (which requires
a lot of penetration capability against a big bear) is likely to leave you
still facing him up-close-and-personal, even if he is destined to die to few
minutes later. A lot of critters have thick skulls--hogs among them, and my
daddy used a .22 *short* to dispatch a few of them on the farm. I'd prefer
to just avoid the critter, but if forced to, I think I'd have to go for the
head shot if he is getting close enough to me to really have to change the
britches. If you don't kill him, you can still KO his butt--dear ol' Dad
once dropped a doe with a headshot using a .30-30 (with a 170 grain load, to
boot) from no more than about seventy yards. Went down flatter than a
pancake without twitching a muscle. It laid there a few seconds, then as he
was getting ready to walk down to it it jumped back up, shook her head a
couple of times, and bounded off like she was good as new, though a bit
wobbly. Figured the round glanced off her skull.

Brooks


Bob McKellar