After a recent very up close and very personal encounter with a BIG black bear I decided I needed a better trail gun. Picked up a S&W 329PD, 44 magnum that’s very lightweight. Everyone said it’s gonna be a beast to handle with heavy hard cast ammo but it’s really not that bad. Carries well in the HPG chest pack and hardly noticeable as far as weight and size. Accuracy is pretty good as well.
Very nice Jeff. Same reason I picked up my Redhawk in .44mag. I haven’t run into one nose to nose yet but @JV3 and I had a close-enough encounter with one that was bigger than I am. It’s no lightweight but neither am I so who’s counting? I carry mine in a Diamond D Guide’s Choice chest rig.
The hardest part is getting the bear to conveniently stand still in front of you at a reasonable distance.
My son almost walked into one around 500lb last year with a couple of cubs. She was less than 4 feet away. I booked it to him and the bear and she postured some but backed off. The next morning, she was under my front deck. Unfortunately, she died. Some well meaning folks from the neighborhood tend to feed predators and it seldom ends well for the animal.
those people infuriate me. They put all of us who use the wilderness and parks in danger. These people think wild animals are Disney animals and therefor cuddly and cute and approachable and "hey lets feed it and take selfies for Instagram"..... nice piece there @Jeff Randall. My kinda weapon, but we cannot carry those in the woods.
I have this chunk of steel to tote around along.. 629-6PC gonna shoot Jeff's when I get a chance and also.....headed back to Bear Country soon and I will have this in my kit bag and probably a 12g with slugs slung on my shoulder as well...
Up here in Alaska they tried relocating problem bears in Anchorage, but they kept coming back. They were taking bears hundreds of miles away and they would walk back in less than a week. My friend worked for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and his boss told him to not relocate problem animals like raccoons for the same reason. I hate to say it, but it is just easier to kill them. In Wasilla it is legal to use archery equipment or a shotgun to hunt within city limits. We don't have bears in garbage cans. Out in the villages they usually kill any bear at the village garbage dump.
Sad. I love dealing with bears and bobcats and prefer to never harm them. Coyotes are getting out of control here and absolutely dread the migration of pigs to my area. Need more pythons to offset the pig problem in the south.
Ran face to face with a blackie in the wooded area of my upper pasture. He was snoozing in the BlackBerry bushes, quite comfy. Fortunately, we both made a hasty tactical withdraw from what couldve become a battlefield. I'm sure the bruin would have merrily placed my pocket pistol in my prison holster, but I guarantee it would have been empty when he did. New rule now is that when berries are ripe, poppa carries a 12 gauge with slugs on the tractor and at least a 45 in the top pasture.