today we're gonna look at how to survive a bear attack now you might think that
if you have your bear spray or you have your weapon with you when you're out
hunting camping fishing or hiking that you're gonna be protected but are you
really so today we're gonna take a bunch of different sidearms and shotguns and
practice on moving targets and simulate bear charges on the other end of the
spectrum we're gonna test our bear spray and we're gonna see if expired bear
spray works and hopefully answer all the questions that you might have if you can
survive a bear encounter in the backcountry
hit that very low didn't even track him last night and just backed out got out
of there over about 14 hours later we're gonna go Superman trail him up and see
if we can't find him
oh he's down went down right there five hours into the search I ran across
the bear it saw me and it kind of worked back up into the brush and laid down so
I just worked up the hill and got up underneath that bear to get another
arrow into it I moved really quietly there's one in
the chamber I just put it in my pocket like this and I hooked my release on
drew back and I kind of worked up a little bit more and I could see just a
nice quarter in a way angle and shot and as soon as I shot that bear turned
around and kind of like looked behind itself and it had no idea what happened
I just set my bow down right in front of me pulled out my pistol the bear like
looked up locked on me and just came full charge
unbelievable
that's not staged straight-up that Barrett tumbled down the hill and landed
on my bow it was right there it was seven feet away and its head was down
right there and I shot it right in the forehead at five feet and it died right
there that's where I dropped my bow I didn't stage any of that the thing
tumbled over and that's how it died yeah right between the eyes at point-blank
that's right shot at five feet in the moment you're nervous you're your
mechanics go out the window but I got lucky I hit it right in the forehead
right in the brain I was using a 45 Auto it's full metal jackets it speaks for
itself the damage right through the brain blew out the side of the skull
before I go out in the woods or before I go out on any hunt for that matter
whether I'm hunting for deer elk or bears I'm always thinking about
readiness how accessible do I have my bear spray or my pistol to be able to
deploy it within seconds and that's huge especially in situations where you're
surprised me you may only have a few seconds who knows how old this thing is look
at those teeth they're worn out I still can't believe that happened multiple
people are getting attacked every year and Close Encounters every year I just
can't imagine it not carrying some sort of pistol when you're in the backcountry
these days because it just seems like it's getting crazier and crazier I don't
care whether it's a grizzly bear or black bear they're both dangerous we
have my buddy Ben Bishop out here he is a product
trainer for Sig Sauer he knows his pistols and he has a lot of helpful
insight on shooting and so he's gonna help me today describing the variety of
pistols that we have what's gonna be the best to carry what caliber is gonna be
the best for bear protection let's start off with the big gun everybody thinks of
a 44 Magnum as being the powerful bear gun to carry definitely has a lot of
knockdown power you get into a dilemma where how much can you actually handle
in one hand if you're you know fighting off a grizzly or say your other arm is
disabled and you can't shoot it two-handed how much more can you handle
more than forty four after one shot you have six shots it's all you have so
you're kind of limited in that way since I usually do a lot of backcountry
hunting is do I want to pack all this weight this is probably the heaviest
pistol that we have here when I'm packing this much weight I prefer the
shoulder holster of the shoulder harness these harnesses have to be comfortable
for you to want to pack them this is just a very basic webbing shoulder holster
about ready to go on a hunt I tend not to grab the 44 because it's not as
comfortable and it's just heavier I wanted to lead it in the third shot I
made myself not lead it and I hit it right through the cardboard that's why
we're out here practicing it's like man you got to expose your weaknesses so you
can get better the 1911 some guys are fans in 1911 some are I like them as
long as I can shoot it really well that's the type of sidearm I want for
bear protection in this case I have the the sig 1911 and I have the the Versa
carry shoulder harness if I'm doing any sort of horseback hunt I always use a
shoulder holster with your backpack on riding a horse this is the spot that
it's out of the way to me in a ready position rather than just stuffing it in
your backpack because it's not comfortable to carry while riding a
horse comfort is number one to wanting to
carry a pistol and the shoulder harness makes it very easy number two magazine
capacity that's over six rounds and specifically the ten millimeter which I
prefer you get eight higher capacity something I can shoot really well a way
that I can carry it and it's really comfortable and it's out of the way
let's check that one I don't know if I hit it I was able to get three shots off
on that first one with the Versa carry deployment and I hit it once not even
close to the center at probably 15 yards one of the biggest things you need to
think about when you are packing a gun in the backcountry and you're in bear
territory is is that gun accessible how fast can you access it
most of the time when it comes to legit bear charges it happened so quick and so
if you have something in your backpack I mean it's as good as not bringing it
with you because you're not gonna be able to get to it in most cases this is
a gun that I do like to carry I don't shoot it quite as well
but it's the Springfield XDS and it's a 45 Auto good concealed gun I have the
extended mag in there this is a capacity of seven so you don't get that much more
capacity than say a 44 but what I like about it is how light it is and how
compact it is the function with the everly stock vinyl harness they make it
specifically to carry you know a pistol like this or smaller I usually just go
on the safe side and I don't pack my pistol with one in the chamber and so
that there's a con to that too because that's just one more step that you have
to do if you have to react in the heat of the moment
well three shots but it's kind of a point in a shoot type deal you're trying
to aim as best you can and still get some rounds downrange I guess well I hit
it once up on the top again about the same spot on the previous round so one
out of three pretty low odds if you're trying to pull the trigger and you only
have three seconds to take down an attacker or take down that grizzly bear
that's pretty fast and sometimes it's less than three seconds obviously in
your situation the last and final pistol that we're gonna look at is Adam
whatever you want to call these little suicide pistol where if you're gonna use
this effectively it's gonna be at close range that bear is gnawing on you and you
shoot it in the head up close because plain and simple accuracy out past ten
yards is going to be difficult yeah yeah and this is a hammer see in a fight or
flight situation it's you're gonna have trouble staying on target right and you
need one shot to do as much damage as possible because you may not be able to
do two or three shots behind that right right and this is a Smith
and it's a five round capacity 357 Magnum it is an ultra lightweight option
but you have five shots and I can't shoot these as well maybe if you really
shoot yours a lot and you're really accurate with them personally I leave
these at home incredibly hard to get back on target like it actually kind of
hurt I got three other the five off not bad but I don't know how accurate I was
even at ten yards I didn't hit anything so for something like that I would be
only comfortable it's kind of your last desperate shot when he's chewing on you
putting it in his face another option in the backcountry I don't recommend
packing this in on your back you have the weight to deal with but if your horse
hunting or you're getting horse drops like I do quite a bit we do bring this
and this is a 12-gauge this is a Mossberg happens to be and we'll bring
double-aught buckshot and slugs and maybe we'll alternate a slug buckshot in
the tube and use that for protection if you notice all the game wardens all fish
wildlife guys for bear protection this is what they use they use a slug gun and
it is effective missed some hits them I see a lot of holes in it
that's what you can expect though you're shooting from the hip and you can't
really aim this thing so it's a close-combat weapon we shot the whole
tube boys so let's talk about ammo real quick I think more importantly is how
many rounds can you get on target so many people get so wound up in having
the perfect bullet shooting out of their you know self-defense gun for bear and
at the end of the day they can't even accurately shoot that gun so what does
it matter yes and I would rather have a pistol that I can manage easier shoot
better it may not have as much power as the 44 but if I can put a 185 grain 10
millimeter where I want it to be 10 millimeters plenty powerful - yeah
I would say my favorite gun to carry in the backcountry is a double action
single action such as this SP 2022 that is in 357 sig guys have theories on on
what to carry as far as bullet choice goes for bears the last couple years
I've been carrying FMJ is a full metal jacket and then a hollow-point and I
alternate in my magazine the idea behind that is the FMJ is gonna be a penetrator
it's not going to expand it's gonna penetrate break bone and intended to
drive deep and pass through on the other end of the spectrum you have a standard
hollow-point it's meant to mushroom it's meant to transfer that shock and that
energy into the animal the third option we have are the V crown
Ben he carries V crown and tell us a little bit about those the V crown ammo
is meant to have good expansion reliable penetration if I'm shooting at
especially a grizzly bear I would like to have them bullets stopping that
animal - you know expend all their energy in that animal I don't know which
is better maybe on some of the big grizzly bears you want to penetrate
their forehead guys would tend to go with an F MJ do you really need that I
don't know I don't think you can go wrong but goes back to making sure that
you hit the animal that is first and foremost I mean no matter what bullet
you have if you miss it three times it's already on top 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
it better make it that far that's close we have some expired bear spray and we're
gonna test these we are 30 feet away from a nice clean slate they're
effective to 30 feet we're gonna test that number one and number two we're
gonna test are these still good everybody has expired bear spray I feel
like the reason why bear spray expires is that there's a seal in here that
holds in the propellant now over the years when
these are going from hot to cold they're sitting in your car that seal can dry
out and that propellant can slowly leak out the big thing for me when it comes
to bear sprays you really have to pay attention to the wind obviously if
you're having to spray this in the field at a bear you're not gonna be thinking
of this for science I'm gonna be a guinea pig and see if any of this
residual stuff affects me when I test these bottles let's try a 2008 bottle
this has been expired for 12 years what is it 2020 yeah 12 years got a wind
kind of right-to-left from our back see what happens who let that air out for a
second I did kind of angle a little bit but once again the wind really plays a
big effect so this whole 30 foot business it's got to be dead calm for
that to work to really be able to hit a target at distance in reality I see this
working within 20 feet maybe even closer so I did kind of angle it as I was
adjusting for the wind but there's a million little specks the mega canister
of counter-assault this is new formula supposed to go a
little farther last longer it's the best of both worlds so here's the Bungie case
this is like my pride and joy one okay a big canister
whoo so we had seven eight seconds there looked like the same type of propellant
and this one expired in 2023 so but man double capacity probably two for one and
one can right there you keep your bear spray in a controlled a more controlled
environment you don't leave it in your car you don't let it get super hot super
cold back and forth I think it's gonna last a long time so maybe I would trust
my life more on expired bear spray the other takeaway to me was the up to 30
foot is probably in perfect conditions no wind maybe shooting downhill but in
reality it's 15 feet and the wind affects it greatly between the pistol
shooting and the bear spray deployment be prepared get comfortable with your
pistol of choice get comfortable with bear spray if you have your old bear
spray can go test it go spray it so you know what it's like and you'll be more
prepared for a bad encounter in the woods it's all you can do