[palmetto pirate]

Neat! But I must say, if it was me, I'd need a change of underwear.

I agree but once you cross the fifty mark that need my occur in a far less stressful environment :biggrin:

 

[BigHornCamp]

Well...I wouldn't bet on a head/brain shot while traveling through bear country. I'd rather have something with more oooompphhh than a 30-30. I'd rather have more gun...than not enough.

 

[OLSKOOL]

the muzzle energy of a 30-30 with a 170 gr. bullet at 100 yds has the same energy a 44 mag. with a 240 gr. does at the muzzle. it ain't no toy. when i was a teenager i had a 94 win. i had a old rail road cross tie stuck in the ground for a back stop. my 30-30 would go slam through it. yea its the real deal...

 

[tman]

the muzzle energy of a 30-30 with a 170 gr. bullet at 100 yds has the same energy a 44 mag. with a 240 gr. does at the muzzle. it ain't no toy. when i was a teenager i had a 94 win. i had a old rail road cross tie stuck in the ground for a back stop. my 30-30 would go slam through it. yea its the real deal...

And that same .44 magnum round was a brown bear/ elephant killer promoted by the gun writers until the 454 casual ,480 ruger and 500 S&W came out. Then the .44 was only a deer round, same as the 30-30 and 30-06 as the gun world became MAGNUMISED:vollkommenauf:

 

[panther49]

"Any gun good, you shoot good", Old Indian saying...

 

[Gr8rtst]

For a minute there, I thought I was 15 years old again and reading the latest edition of Outdoor Life Magazine. It reminded me of the days when hunting mags wrote about hunting. The magazine cover, usually festooned with somedramatic or heroic artwork illustrating the cover story. Today it's gadgets, apps, gear; this private ranch, that fancy preserve and a few passing words on what it's all about!

Today, you're more likely to read about how, as he rounded a bend in the trail, he came face to face with a pose of PETAheads plannig the disruption of the next deer hunt!

Just foolin' about.

Gr8rtst

 

[The Happy Kaboomer]

Yes. the 30/30 will do it..........For those of you that read Sports Afield back in the 60's they had a section called "This Happened To me". One article was about a forest ranger that was treed by a large bear. When the bear started up the tree to him he leaned down hitting it in the head with his fire ax.......Killed the bear almost instantly saving the rangers life........LOTS of tools will work in a pinch when your Butt is between the rock and a hard place.

 

[semperfi]

i will slap the next young person that tells me an old cup/core bullet dont have enough penetration for a whitetail.

 

[WV Mountaineer]

A 30/30 at bear charging range has the umph to kill anything in this world and do it easily. There have been great advancements in most everything since the early to mid 20th century. The physics of killing what breathes isn't one of them. Sure, some of the weapons has and we surely have more options but, if you shoot a grizzly bear at a hundred yards with a 30/30 and hit it well, you are going to kill it DEAD. The shoulder blade isn't going to stop it. The trauma that bear is about to under go is going to be fierce. It's a 30 caliber bullet men. Designed to implement every ounce of shock into the intended target. I'd venture to say that at a hundred yards the bear just may absorb more energy from a 30/30 than a 300 win mag. Because the 300 win mag is likely to penetrate both sides and never slow down. So will the 30/30 in a lot of circumstances. So what does the magnum offer in this or the OP's story of circumstances other than paper fallacy?

What the Magnum craze allows is to kill it just as dead at 300 yards. If you are forced to shoot a grizzly bear at 30 feet charging with a 30/30 and, hit it accordingly, you ill kill it as dead as if shot with a 500 nitro mag ht the same way. This magnum craze is shooter driven in most hunter circumstances. The 'ole 30/30 isn't a pea shooter. It is limited by the lever platform, not case or caliber deficient. It is a powerful cartridge. Time and technology has dulled the sense to miss that.

Unless a person is shooting such thickly dense and muscled game to need a bullet that isn't designed to expand, this magnum craze simply doesn't apply in most circumstances and at most hunting ranges. There is a reason a slow 30/30 cast bullet knocks the socks off of deer yet, deer run like horses when shot with a 300 RUM. Because that deer eats every ounce of energy off that 30/30 slug while the 300 RUM slug zips right through like a broadhead. It applies to grizzly bears within the range of the 30/30 cartridge as well.

I'll take a good strong bullet with a larger meplat, in a cartridge with good velocities to ensure a lot of delivered and absorbed energy, coming out of a gun that I can deliver it accurately with, versus a long, awkward, optic wearing bench queen in life and death situations such as described. And, if I ever go grizzly hunting, I'll do so with a 180 grain bullet out of a 30/06 and make him pay just as dearly as it I was shooting a 300 win mag. He will never know the difference cause he is going to die just as quickly. God Bless

 

[TimR]

Very cool story, yes the 30-30 is very underestimated. I seen a video of a 30-30 from about 50' put a hole in 1/4" steel.

 

[ditto1958]

Great story and good post.
Would a 30/30 be my first choice for hunting grizzlies?
No
But the story definitely shows that skill and a calm demeanor under pressure is more important than the size of the caliber.

The key here is "hunting." No, it would not likely be a first choice for going out to hunt grizzlies. But for self-protection? That's another story. A Winchester 94 is light enough to carry around all day, and it's also well-known for its "pointability." I love my Marlin 336, but I have to saythat a 94 just naturally points at whatever it is you're trying to shoot. It's an extremely handy rifle. In both of these accounts, the shooters were able to quickly shoulder their rifles and get off accurate shots while under tremendous stress.

 

[44Willie]

There are a few true stories where the grizzly was killed with a knife, which knife would y'all choose?

 

[ditto1958]

i will slap the next young person that tells me an old cup/core bullet dont have enough penetration for a whitetail.

That's a different story, semperfi. A deer is not a brown bear. No, today's whitetails are not your father's whitetails. All the wimpy ones have been killed by hunters using wimpy ammo. Natural selection has been at work, and only the fittest have survived to breed today's new-and-improved armored, self-sealing deer. Try shooting one of today's deer with an old time deer rifle, and you will be sorely disappointed. Most shots will simply bounce off the deer's armor-like skeleton. In the unlikely event that you are lucky enough to sneak a shot past that fortress of bone, and actually get a round inside the deer, it will simply exit out the other side, and the deer's body will almost immediately seal up the wounds, with at most the loss of a drop or two of blood.

Killing a deer today requires a modern cartridge. It needs to be .38 caliber, or larger, and maintain a velocity of over 3,000 fps out to 1,000 yards. The projectile must be both armor piercing and frangible, so that it explodes inside the deer after piercing its armor plate.

 

[ditto1958]

There are a few true stories where the grizzly was killed with a knife, which knife would y'all choose?

Probably something from The Hobbit or the Lord Of The Rings. They were much better at making blades back in those days.

 

[44Willie]

Nope, they are real and fairly recent. I think asking which knife to use is the same as which 30-30

 

[ditto1958]

Nope, they are real and fairly recent. I think asking which knife to use is the same as which 30-30

Oh, I don't know about that. I'm pretty sure we could find some folks who could get into a lengthy debate about knives. If a brown bear charged me, and all I had was a knife, I'd sure hope it was a good one!

 

[kobeinu]

There are a few true stories where the grizzly was killed with a knife, which knife would y'all choose?

A long pointy one. Long, I said.

 

[whitewater]

Great stories. Hey, you use what you have. There is a lot to be said for a fast handling rifle. Personally, I prefer the 1895 for bear protection but use what you have.

 

[tman]

The key here is "hunting." No, it would not likely be a first choice for going out to hunt grizzlies. But for self-protection? That's another story. A Winchester 94 is light enough to carry around all day, and it's also well-known for its "pointability." I love my Marlin 336, but I have to saythat a 94 just naturally points at whatever it is you're trying to shoot. It's an extremely handy rifle. In both of these accounts, the shooters were able to quickly shoulder their rifles and get off accurate shots while under tremendous stress.

Hunt a bear 100 yards and under bear is dead, whether by 30-30,308,300 mag,or 416 mag.44 mag,50 cal flintlock Bear wouldn't die any quicker, and it will never know what hit him. THAT's IFFFF you can shoot.:beerglass:

 

[lnelson]

Lots of anecdotal accounts of bullets, calibers and performance on the Internet. I've taken black bears at 10 yards with a 300 win mag and 200 gr partitions and they took 4 rounds. I've also seen a grizz shot at the same yardage with one round from the same gun pile up stone dead. I am growing to support the opinion that practice and competence with a rifle is more important than some massive mathematical number for energy. Every year I meet guys killing with old school cartridges that are dismissed these days as inadequate. In the case of the charging grizz I will take the open site lever gun any day over a scoped bolt gun. He will be on you go before you find fur in the scope with today's long range rigs.