Alaskan life and firearms (tax, live, cost of)

[arctichomesteader]

My mauser has put bullets through black bears pretty good and dropped them quickly. No round will always stop a charging bear of course, though I wouldn't mind having a gun chambered in .50 BMG. 30-06 was popular for bears and most big game in general before any "magnum" rounds came out. 45-70 would work good too. 7.62X54R is an equal to either 30-06 or 8mm in proper loadings. The problem with shotgun slugs is that they're softer than jacketed bullets.

[Marty Van Diest]

Originally Posted by Glitch

A .30-06 is about as useless against bear and moose as a 12-gauge with 00-buck. If you want to use a rifle, it should be at least a .375 or larger caliber. Preferably in the .4XX cal. range, like the Remington .458 Win Mag. However, the most preferred firearm (and it is the most preferred because it is demonstrably the most effective) is a 12-gauge shotgun with an 18.5" rifled barrel loaded with .65 cal. slugs. If you are forced to resort to using your weapon for protection, the moose or bear will be well within 50 yards.

Glitch..huh? I don't think you meant to include moose with bear. Moose are not hard to drop. They have been successfully hunted for years with a 30-30. Usually it only takes one shot. I know of quite a few moose dropped while charging with only one shot. I don't know of any cases (although there probably are some), where a moose charged and made contact after being hit with any kind of a hunting rifle.

I'm not going to argue about brown bears. Those guys are big and tough.

[Barkingowl]

Originally Posted by arctichomesteader

I wouldn't mind having a gun chambered in .50 BMG.

I have a Cobb BA50. It is one heavy gun. It weighs about 39lbs unloaded. The 10 round magazine weighs another 5lbs. I have a bipod mounted to it & additionally it has a scope. If a bear let you set everything up then it would deserve to be shot.

[Glitch]

Originally Posted by arctichomesteader

My mauser has put bullets through black bears pretty good and dropped them quickly. No round will always stop a charging bear of course, though I wouldn't mind having a gun chambered in .50 BMG. 30-06 was popular for bears and most big game in general before any "magnum" rounds came out. 45-70 would work good too. 7.62X54R is an equal to either 30-06 or 8mm in proper loadings. The problem with shotgun slugs is that they're softer than jacketed bullets.

It isn't the tiny 250 pound black bear that is a concern in Alaska. They don't attack and eat people in Alaska. It is the 800 to 1,200 pound brown bears, and the 1,200 to 1,500 pound moose that are the primarily wildlife killers in Alaska. You shoot one of them with a puny .30-06 and you will just get them angry.

Alaska big game is considerably larger than any game you will find in the lower-48.

[arctichomesteader]

Originally Posted by Glitch

It isn't the tiny 250 pound black bear that is a concern in Alaska. They don't attack and eat people in Alaska. It is the 800 to 1,200 pound brown bears, and the 1,200 to 1,500 pound moose that are the primarily wildlife killers in Alaska. You shoot one of them with a puny .30-06 and you will just get them angry.

Alaska big game is considerably larger than any game you will find in the lower-48.

30-06 and some similar rounds were widely praised in the first half of the 20th century for use on larger animals. I've heard from people who have used 30-06 on browns up there without a problem. There are some pretty good sized moose in VT as well BTW if you know where to look, and most are using "puny" rounds like 30-06 and such. Like I said, these other rounds have only been dismissed since newer "magnum" rounds came out. But that criticism isn't necessarily correct. What worked 50 years ago or so doesn't stop working because a new round came out. The animals didn't get bigger in that time.

Of course one thing to consider is that a lot of commercial ammo in many calibers is weakly loaded compared to what it's capable of. I've handloaded rounds for my mauser much hotter than any store bought ammo, but liability concerns keep the manufacturers from doing so. I could just see the results of someone sticking my handloads (or even just some of my military surplus ammo, the turkish ammo from the 40's and 50's is quite good, and the Nazi steel cored armor piercing ammo is good if you can find it, but both are getting scarcer lately) into an old 1888 Commission rifle, or an old Spanish mauser made of soft steel. If the person survived the explosion they'd try to blame the ammo maker rather than their own ignorance.

Some info. on various rounds: http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/gtr152

Shotguns for Protection in the Field

There are other sites too, a search will show many. Most sources seem to agree the 12 gauge shotgun doesn't have enough penetration, despite its popularity.

[arctichomesteader]

Originally Posted by Barkingowl

I have a Cobb BA50. It is one heavy gun. It weighs about 39lbs unloaded. The 10 round magazine weighs another 5lbs. I have a bipod mounted to it & additionally it has a scope. If a bear let you set everything up then it would deserve to be shot.

There are bolt action and even single shot rifles that are (or can be) chambered in it that aren't as heavy and cumbersome (though I guess a lot of them are custom or semi-custom jobs). Of course they make up for it in recoil...not sure what'd be worse, the bear or the recoil.

[Glitch]

Originally Posted by arctichomesteader

30-06 and some similar rounds were widely praised in the first half of the 20th century for use on larger animals. I've heard from people who have used 30-06 on browns up there without a problem. There are some pretty good sized moose in VT as well BTW if you know where to look, and most are using "puny" rounds like 30-06 and such. Like I said, these other rounds have only been dismissed since newer "magnum" rounds came out. But that criticism isn't necessarily correct. What worked 50 years ago or so doesn't stop working because a new round came out. The animals didn't get bigger in that time.

Of course one thing to consider is that a lot of commercial ammo in many calibers is weakly loaded compared to what it's capable of. I've handloaded rounds for my mauser much hotter than any store bought ammo, but liability concerns keep the manufacturers from doing so. I could just see the results of someone sticking my handloads (or even just some of my military surplus ammo, the turkish ammo from the 40's and 50's is quite good, and the Nazi steel cored armor piercing ammo is good if you can find it, but both are getting scarcer lately) into an old 1888 Commission rifle, or an old Spanish mauser made of soft steel. If the person survived the explosion they'd try to blame the ammo maker rather than their own ignorance.

Some info. on various rounds: http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/gtr152

Shotguns for Protection in the Field

There are other sites too, a search will show many. Most sources seem to agree the 12 gauge shotgun doesn't have enough penetration, despite its popularity.

Fine, you bring your pop-gun and plink away at half a ton of charging brown bear. Meanwhile, I'll read about you as another newbie statistic who thought he knew more than the people who live in Alaska. We get people like you all the time, and they typically do not survive their first bear encounter.

[Glitch]

Originally Posted by Marty Van Diest

Glitch..huh? I don't think you meant to include moose with bear. Moose are not hard to drop. They have been successfully hunted for years with a 30-30. Usually it only takes one shot. I know of quite a few moose dropped while charging with only one shot. I don't know of any cases (although there probably are some), where a moose charged and made contact after being hit with any kind of a hunting rifle.

I'm not going to argue about brown bears. Those guys are big and tough.

Moose are not hard to drop if you are the one hunting the moose. If you are hunting moose, you could probably drop it with a .223 if it was extremely well placed. However, if the moose is charging you then they become much more difficult to stop. I'm not talking about hunting weapons, I'm talking about defensive weapons.

[Barkingowl]

Originally Posted by arctichomesteader

There are bolt action and even single shot rifles that are (or can be) chambered in it that aren't as heavy and cumbersome (though I guess a lot of them are custom or semi-custom jobs). Of course they make up for it in recoil...not sure what'd be worse, the bear or the recoil.

The nice thing about .50 BMG is that you have a choice of FMJ, HP, incendiary, armor piercing or a combo.

[Marty Van Diest]

Hi Glitch...you might be right. But I can't accept it on moose. A moose is a prey animal even if they are big old galoots. They think differently. You start blasting at a moose and they generally change their mind fast.

I have been charge several times by moose. In one case I did drop the moose 8 steps away with a 32 special. In another case the moose veered off after two warning shots from the same gun...and he was HUGE. I was charged two more times ...once I climbed a tree and another time I ran behind a tree.

If any of them would have been a brown bear, I would have likely been lunch. Bears are not the same as moose.