Back in 2015, Jake Purlee and his friends were hunting elk and wolves. Encountering evidence of bears, they decided to leave the area. The two hunters and two companions were returning to their truck after an exhausting and wet hunt in fog and a foot of snow. They were attacked by a sow grizzly bear. Jake Purlee had a .300 Weatherby magnum, but dropped it in favor of bear spray. The Weatherby MK V belongs to Jake’s father, and is a right handed version. Jake is left handed. From gohunt.com:
“F***! No! Bear! No!” I screamed in terror as she started snapping her jaws and bounding towards my friends and me. Each snap sounded like an axe hitting concrete. I got behind my one friend who was armed and threw both my gun and my camera on the ground in panic after the bear spray. She was terrifying and extremely vocal, huffing and grunting. The person who had the bear spray shakily handed it to me without the safety on, ready to go.
I ran to my friend’s side to spray her, but, by then, it was too late: she had already bluff charged us once and was almost on top of us. My friend fired off a round and hit her right on the top of her shoulder, but she wasn’t fazed. He fired two more shots as I was spraying, but the spray wouldn’t go more than 10’ and, at this moment, she was at 15’.
The spray was out in what felt like just a couple of seconds and the wind had pushed it back into our faces. It burned my eyes, lips, and nose like hell. We were all coughing and wheezing immediately. My friend then grabbed my .300 Weatherby and started firing. After he emptied it we ran back into the trees and he handed it to me, screaming for more cartridges. I reloaded and put one more in her head. It was then deathly silent.
Such events make a great story, but are not considered news. They remain mostly unreported. The bear spray failed and the rifles did not. Jake followed the advise of many who claim that bear spray is more effective than firearms in defense against bears.
One of the unarmed companions had bear spray. Two limitations of bear spray existed: Cold temperatures, and a head wind.
Using the bear spray caused another problem: the effects on the defenders. In this case, the shooter was able to overcome the bear spray, grab Jake’s dropped .300 Weatherby, and make effective use of it.
I contacted Jake and he filled in details.
His friend had a .300 Winchester Magnum. The friend fired three shots of .300 Win mag and then three shots of .300 Weatherby mag. Jake was using 185 grain Berger bullets in the Weatherby. Jake fired the last shot at the grizzly.
All seven shots hit the bear. Jake has since acquired a left handed Weatherby MK V.
While people claim that bear spray is more effective than firearms for defense against bears, actual studies do not show that to be true. The misunderstanding is caused by comparing studies of bear spray use against non-aggressive bears to defensive uses of firearms against actual attacking bears.
The study involving firearms most commonly used to compare to the use of bear spray is: Efficacy of firearms for bear deterrence in Alaska by Tom S. Smith, Stephen Herrero, and others, from 2012. The researchers refuse to share their data. That’s always a bad sign.
The study selected only 269 incidents in Alaska from 1883-2009. Bear inflicted injuries occurred in 151 of the incidents, or 56 percent. The selection of the incidents was heavily biased toward incidents where humans were injured. From the study:
First, because bear-inflicted injuries are closely covered by the media, we likely did not miss many records where people were injured. Therefore, even if more incidents had been made available through the Alaska DLP database, we anticipate that these would have contributed few, if any, additional human injuries. Second, including more DLP records would have increased the number of bears killed by firearms. Finally, additional records would have likely improved firearm success rates from those reported here, but to what extent is unknown.
A previous study, CHARACTERISTICS OF NONSPORT MORTALITIES TO BROWN AND BLACK BEARS AND HUMAN INJURIES FROM BEARS IN ALASKA, done in 1999, considered 2,000 incidents in Alaska where bears were killed in defense of life and property (the DLP records mentioned above). In that study, only two percent of the incidents resulted in injuries to humans. That study also has a selection bias, as only incidents in which the bear was killed are recorded in the database used.
The study on bear spray efficacy that is compared to the efficacy of firearms was also authored by Tom S. Smith. Efficacy of Bear Deterrent Spray in Alaska examined 83 incidents with bears, humans, and bear spray, was published in 2008. It is not clear how the incidents were chosen.
The firearms study selected incidents of bear attacks. The bear spray study selected incidents where bear spray was involved in bear-human interactions. That is a significant difference.
Dave Smith, a prominent author on how to deal with bears, reported that only one third of the bear spray incidents in the Efficacy of bear Deterrent Spray in Alaska involved aggressive bears, while all of the firearms incidents involved aggressive bears. From Dave Smith:
Fact check: Efficacy of Bear Deterrent Spray in Alaska (2008) shows bear spray was 3 for 9 vs. charging grizzlies when people had time to use their spray. The study did not include data on incidents when people did not have time to use their spray or the “success” rate for bear spray would be lower.
Fifty of 72 incidents involved bears that were acting curious or seeking garbage or food before being sprayed. It is unethical and moronic to compare the results of the Alaska bear spray study to the results of the Alaska firearms study, which examined 269 carefully selected incidents involving gun use during “bear attacks.”
The two studies by Tom S. Smith, Efficacy of firearms for bear deterrence in Alaska and Efficacy of Bear Deterrent Spray in Alaska, are the two studies most commonly used to claim that bear spray is more effective than firearms for stopping bear attacks. The article in outsideonline.com is an example.
The studies use significantly different types of encounters in their data sets. The comparisons are not valid.
Bear spray is useful for dealing with curious bears. It is a valid option for people who are not comfortable with firearms or who do not want to carry a firearm.
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“©2017 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included. Gun Watch
Buffalo bore 500 gr 45-70 buster FTW. those Goofs where caught with their pants down
and………..WHY THE F**K WOULD YOU THROW YOU G**D**N RIFLE DOWN DURING A BEAR ATTACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Luck they’re not bear shit right now.
It appears he wasn’t in his hotel room (and that was the problem).
If he was carrying under the LTC statutes, he probably committed a crime because he was probably very drunk. If he was carrying under the LTC statutes while committing a crime, he committed a crime.
Under the LTC statutes, it is illegal to carry, even with the license, if you are committing a crime or if you are “intoxicated.” I don’t believe intoxicated is defined in the statute.
Darwin would agree that any damn fool who believes that bear spray is superior to a rifle in a proper caliber deserves to be eaten by a bear.
The Holosun 503 gives you both a circle dot or just a dot in the same unit
50,000 or 20,000 hours of constant on
Waterproof, etc
$250
Why buy the Meopta if you can get a Holosun or an Aimpoint PRO for less
I got that site. It really is slick.
Does Shannon even know who the father of her child is ?
For certain ?
Warbucks maybe ???
It doesn’t take much in the way of brains to get knocked up.
It’s price right for the DOD they like wasting our money
Did not see anyone mention the importance of aiming for the right places on the bear. Obviously, if you are just pointing at the bear you need the biggest cannon you can lift. How big of a gun does it take to shoot through the upper palate of the open mouth? This would assume the bear is not charging so fast you can’t really be fussy how you aim. But in cases where you actually could shoot in the mouth or under the jaw, would a smaller caliber penetrate? I read an article where a woman killed a massive grizzly with a .22 single shot rifle, into the side of the head near the temple. Interesting contrast to the big gun stories.
Bella Twin was the Cree woman who shot a world record grizzly in May of 1953. She wasn’t hunting it. She used a Cooey Ace 1 .22 single shot rifle and .22 longs. Here is the account:
http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2017/06/bella-twin-little-woman-with-little-gun.html
I’ll stick with my Trijicon MROs, thanks.
That’s cute that Shannon’s self described “fan page” has 35 followers. Its also kind of funny she follows you.
Unlike the cancelling-out effect of shooting a target equidistant across the Equator, it seems to me that if you shoot across a Pole to a target on the other side it will match the hemispheric error, even exaggerate it. That is, fire across the North Pole and you’ll miss the target right; fire across the South Pole and you’ll miss the target left. There would be no rise or fall of the target.
And, while the Earth’s rotational motion is extremely small near both Poles, you and the target would be moving in opposite directions and therefore your relative motions would be additive. Shooting across a Pole would exaggerate this right/left error more than a shot taken simply near the Pole.
Yup. Instead of simply moving in the same direction as the target but a little faster or slower, you’d be moving in opposite directions. This aligns exactly with the merry-go-round example in the article. It’ll be a cold day in hell, though, before I’m shooting over either of the poles 😉
Just saw this article……I bought one during the import years in the 90’s and cleaned/regreased it and put in the safe for twenty years (or more)
I have NOT fired it yet which is stupid but when cleaning out the guns in the safes this winter I remembered this one and stripped it and cleaned it again. Will be taking it out back after this Michigan cold spell breaks a bit in the next week or so.
One thing I would like to point out that is not important is mine is a G series and has a re-arsenal date of 1973 which is much earlier than many articles state most of these were re-arsenaled. (It is clearly stamped “P73”.)
Anyways why I have never fired this nice rifle is beyond me but I will be going out and firing it. I have about 200 rounds of military ammo and about 200 rounds of commercial new ammo and have the modified spring loaded firing pin that is in transit as I type this from Murray’s Gun Shop – https://murraysguns.com/french-mas-4956-firing-pin/. It is to stop any bump fires and full auto firing.
I even stripped it all down and gave it a couple of coats of 50-50 linseed oil and turpentine on all the wood.
After twenty damn years this old collector will FINALLY be firing it!!
I have the same situation with the Swiss K31 that is in excellent condition and a Swedish Mauser built around 1915 in excellent condition that I HAVE NEVER FIRED. Both have been stripped cleaned this week and I will be firing them shortly.
(All three of these rifles were purchased very cheap during the import years heyday and after strip cleaning/re-greasing, I put them all into one of the safes where they remained until this winter about 20 years later.)
Yes I am dumb for having these 3 excellent old rifles and NEVER firing them…..LOL!!
I did have one of the bubba’d MAS 49/56 in .308 that worked well AFTER I went back to the original recoil spring. (Why Century Arms shortened the original recoil spring down is unknown but the original spring worked MUCH better, you can get new ones from Numrich currently).
I ended up giving that bubba’d MAS in .308 to a good friend of mine strapped for money who needed a semi auto rifle and he has it to this day and said it still fires fine. So I at least did fire one of the MAS rifles.
Now to go FINALLY fire those THREE old rifles after TWENTY YEARS!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rihu8_nbhw8
Why is the discussion always about the impossible and moronic idea of “disarming” bad people and not about how to enable victims to defend themselves? These idiots screech about waiting periods so one might “cool down” before doing something bad but never discuss how that prevents those is most dire need from tooling up to save their life.
#Carol Bowne
(Rep. Donna Lichtenegger, R-Jackson, sponsored the bill last year that would have banned firearm possession to domestic violence offenders and protective order respondents. “if gun owners were truthful with themselves, the people we don’t want to have guns are people like abusers.”)
Many of us would agree. This is a tough needle to thread: yes, abusive and violent partners should not have access to weapons. So how do we determine who those people are? Is the word of the accuser alone sufficient? Do we require a minimum number of police reports to be filed? Do we need to see a report from the hospital emergency room physicians? Signed affidavit from friends and family?
After all the evidence is collected, is the accused entitled to a hearing and the right to legally defend themselves against the charges? Are the weapons confiscated before or after that hearing?
The tough sell we have is convincing non-gun owners why these questions are important. Someone who does not value their Right to Keep and Bear Arms often has difficulty understanding why those of us who do are so reluctant to grant the power to the State to so easily take away that right without a HELL of a lot of checks and balances. It’s just too easy for the uninformed and wilfully ignorant gun bigot to point at us and say “they think wife beaters should have guns!”
It puts us on the defensive, and I hate having to play defense when we’re trying to move forward on the restoration of our civil rights.
????
Mmm… The redhead in that commercial can handle my Glock any day… Might have a negligent discharge from her.
Liars Ball, concerning firearms reporters do not have to be truthful, unethical reporters are rewarded.
This is not simply “a poorly sourced non-story thrown together by a young reporter that’s designed to lead her readers to conclude that civilian gun ownership is a threat to both police and the general welfare of Iowans.”.
It is another gear or cog in a piece of machinery being slowly, methodically, and deliberately built by the gun-grabber Leftists.
Just like all those strange, supposedly ‘scholarly’ books and articles over the past few years being written claiming that there never was a long-standing “American gun culture” from the revolutionary-frontier eras, that it was all wholly fabricated from thin air by the ‘gun companies’ to sell their guns to the American public.
They are slowly and methodically building their case so that in the future a Progressive-biased Supreme Court can strike down the Heller, McDonald, and any other future pro-gun rights decisions.
They are playing the long game, people. If we don’t wake the fuck up and get our side in the media countering their bullshit claims, gun rights (and self-defense in general) will be erased in the future…
I’m more disturbed about what it says about our country that an absolute moron like Chris Murphy is a United States Senator.
We currently have the worst political class in US history.
My only question is why is Sgt. Parizek talking to the press and not out on 235 with his little radar g un?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wjhTt9fqYY
Hmmm…perhaps if the owners of these “wrong hands” were either incarcerated or were relieved of their “wrong hands” we could really make some progress.
Quote—————————-So that apparently means that more of the guns Parizek and his fellow boys in blue are finding “in the wrong hands” now were either stolen from a legal gun owner or obtained through a straw purchase. —————————Quote
Wrong, Wrong,Wrong. We do not vet second hand gun purchases so there is now a complete underground system of buying up second hand guns from gun shows that do not vet purchases and then trucking them straight to our major high crime cities. No other civilized nation on the planet allows such insanity. It was the Gangster Criminals of the NRA that prevented the original Brady Bill form vetting all gun purchases which castrated the law from the very beginning.
We now have had at least 4 generations of people living in our big cities that have never had the opportunity too secure a decent paying job or even any job at all due to the greed monger industrialists shipping all the high paying manufacturing jobs overseas. It has resulted in a situation where unemployed people with no hope simply result to crime to stay alive due to our lack of civilized social programs and lack of technical training programs.
Germany has spent as much as 35 billion on retraining and their industries another 90 billion in technical retraining while in the land of Capitalvania U.S.A. Government retraining programs are practically non existent and industry training has only recently started to be re-introduced but at a pathetically low level. All this has led to more crime due to lack of high paying jobs and the U.S. falling farther and farther behind in the economic race compared to other nations. Even Vietnam is now in the middle of an economic boom and they were at one time one of the poorest of Asian countries. Germany is not the richest European Nation and their Socialistic re-training programs are one of the primary reasons for this. Finland has went from one of the poorest of European Countries to now an economic miracle of success and its Socialistic to the core and it all had to do with Socialistic re-training programs sponsored and paid for with tax payers dollars spent on their people not on jack booted wars of rape, pillage and conquest.
No other civilized nation allows gun stores or individuals to let deadly weapons lay around unsecure which results in criminals and lunatics simply breaking a glass window and scooping up all the guns and ammo they want.
10,000 children a year are maimed or killed due to guns not being under safe storage which is again something other civilized counties do not tolerate. Safe storage cuts way down on theft of guns and guns killing children as well. Stats on the history of this prove the advantages of safe storage beyond all doubt or all Right Wing Ignorance and maniacal raving to the contrary.
I like how you can see part of the iowa motto in the background of that picture: “Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain.”
Those recently passed laws mentioned in the article show that the majority of our politicians are actually living up to that.
This whole discussion is rather… stupid.
Obviously, in the eyes of the hoplophobic left, the dude should never have acquired a gun in the first place, and “sensible gun laws” would have prevented that (because violent thugs always obey laws). And if he never got that gun, he would never have been a lethal threat (because no abused woman was ever killed with, you know, bats or knives or hands), and if we only had “common sense gun laws” then everyone would be living happily ever after.
This is just another case for them to promote more stupid laws.
Why?
The “need” is the same as everyone else: our world has whack jobs in it who will only be stopped by force.
Why couldn’t they have included the built in bipod like the Steyr ? I want a scout rifle in 243 so bad. But I also want an adjustable stock (Steyr doesn’t have it in the scout only the longer barreled model ) and Steyr doesn’t make it in 243. They are also really expensive.
Two problems with this post:
1) Volume sales mask the deep price cuts that manufactures extended during 2017–gun makers were basically daring people NOT to buy
2) While hte 8 percent drop in sales doesn’t seem “precipitious” it is the largest year-to-year drop over all the data presented (ie since 1999). Next next biggest drop was the 6% drop that ocurred between 1999 and 2000.
I watched the first 2 or 3 minutes of a bond arms show (turned out to be a 30 minute commercial). In the first minute or so, there was a montage of notable people holding a Bond Arms derringer. One of the pictures was of TTAG Resident war hero Jon Wayne Taylor. Oh, Former Texas Governor Rick Perry was also in the picture 🙂
“Altogether, that amounts to 16,000 to 17,000 guns. That’s half of one day’s increase in the civilians stock in the United States, or .0004 percent of the private stock that exists in the United States at present.”
30,000 new guns a day? And what, 90 a day dead by gunshot?
And what’s their problem with guns again???
Doesn’t matter……can’t carry that many at one time.
Need has no bearing on gun ownership. I buy what I want and can afford.
The antis are aware of this and it’s why we see them attempt to limit/tax/criminalize ammunition from time time to time.
They know if they could restrict ammo, it would starve the gun industry and firearm owners.
They would love for us to only be able to purchase 10 rounds on a blister pack like in Brazil.
Long live the republic.
It matters because it’s part of the rules.
Rules for Radicals, #5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”
This is their playbook. Strategies like focusing on the amount of guns someone has is right out of the rulebook. Ridicule and marginalize us because you can’t win with facts.
Does owning lots of cars make one a different driver?
Sounds like a new angle for police department asset forfeiture shenanigans. As soon as cops can earn budget doing something they instantly become more inclined to peg you for it.
1. There is about near count of : Number of F.F.L.s holders is around (50,271) now too. Many be they will decline to, to lower number later on to,( 50,630) F.F.L.s Retailer Gun Dealers is correct count too. true!!!
“Guns are stolen from concealed carriers about as often as from open carriers. ”
Oh really? Got any data to back that claim up?
OC in public has about a ga-zillion downsides and not a single upside.
Thank you for the article. I’m moving up to Wyoming so this isn’t just a curiosity anymore. Anytime I hear people and news media take very one sided stances i.e. Bear spray is sooo much more effective. Only crazy gun people need guns, I get really skeptical. Thank you for being honest. I think it’s a good idea to carry spray and a firearm and know how to use both. Grizzlies are becoming much more common and hunting is opening up on the Grizzlies themselves.
Left Thumb, using an article that documents the complete misuse of bear spray and firearms to make a judgement is trouble. Showing that three people armed with readily available hunting rifles took more than 7 shots to drop a 400 lb bear at close range does not speak highly of their skill with firearms. With limited info on their deployment of the spray I don’t think they were skilled with that either. I live in the middle of the greatest concentration of grizzlies in the lower 48. They are frequently passing through my yard and are commonly seen. We are always aware and both bear spray and firearms are usually carried if venturing very far. The surprise encounter is the most dangerous and the hardest to prepare for. Just carry both and practice using both properly. Be bear aware and enjoy these guys. Chances of a problem are very small but so is getting mugged.
Richard you can always tell when city boys are running their mouth. No doubt you never killed a bear or have the slightest idea what it takes to put one down. 7 shots can happen if you bother to actual talk to Guides and grizzly bear hunters you would know that fact. To claim they misuse the bear spray is hilarious reading.
Bear spray works sometime and other times it’s completely worthless.
Well Freedom boy, at least I don’t post anonymously. I’m glad you are so familiar with black bears but I’m pretty sure you don’t live, as I do, within the heart of grizzly country just outside of Yellowstone. I’m also pretty sure you haven’t spent 25 years as a park ranger nor a firearms instructor as I have. And I’ll bet the last time you saw a live griz was in a zoo. I see them a dozen plus times a year. My neighbor just saw one in their yard yesterday. I’ll match my experience and credibility against your opinions any time. So tell me, do you live daily in bear country? Are you an experienced hunter? Have you personally had a griz encounter in the wild? Have you ever associated daily with professional guides, outfitters and game managers on a daily basis? Have you ever been trained in the use of bear spray? Also, I think your points would be taken better if you refrained from personal attacks and name calling.
A 20-gauge pump-action shotgun loaded with slugs is even better against bears than a 45-70 (judging by Taylor Knockout Factor, TKO, which is a better figure to go by than muzzle energy).
In fact, about the only thing better against bears than a 20-gauge shotgun is (obviously) a 12-gauge shotgun (unless you wan to tote around a .50 BMG rifle, but I don’t think you want to carry a thirty-pound .50 BMG rifle on your hunting trip)!
But if you have a 20-gauge pump, like I do, make sure it’s loaded for bear with slugs, not buckshot, because for some unknown reason, 20-gauge buckshot doesn’t come in sizes bigger than #2 (and I couldn’t find any sizes bigger than #3). Does anybody know why no major ammo makes loads 00 or 000 buckshot in 20 gauge? They make 00 buckshot shells for .410 bore, and if it fits in .410 bore, it would definitely fit in 20-gauge shells, so why don’t ammo makers load 0, 00, or 000 buck for 20-gauge?