Bear Defense Rifles

When it comes to ballistics, there’s no question that a rifle is more effective than a handgun for bear defense. A .45-70 Government lever-action will do more damage to a bear than a .44 Magnum revolver will, for instance. But the problem is that a rifle is not always available by your side.

Bear attacks can occur quickly at close distances, and sometimes at a moment when the person’s hands are occupied with something else like a fishing pole or a camera or trekking poles. Even if you have a rifle slung over your shoulder or leaned up against a tree, that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to get to it before the bear reaches you. A handgun carried in a hip or chest holster will stay with you, can deploy within roughly two seconds, and can be fired with one hand if the bear gets on top of you.

A 12 gauge loaded with hard cast slugs is an extremely hard gun to beat for bear defense at close quarters. A standard 1 oz. slug delivers tremendous amounts of energy that will punch straight through a bear’s thick hide and muscle, and a shotgun is going to point on target very quickly when the bear is only a few yards away too. Just never load birdshot or buckshot in a shotgun that’s intended for bear defense; that's a sure way to make the bear mad!

The trade-offs come in the form of shotguns having heavy recoil and the fact that their effective range drops off rapidly beyond around 50 yards. If you're looking for a bear defense long gun that offers more accurate long-range performance with plenty of stopping power, go with a rifle in a larger caliber like .45-70 Government or .338 Win Mag.

A lever-action rifle chambered in .45-70 Government is by far the best choice for a rifle for grizzly bear defense. In guide gun configurations (such as models from Marlin and Henry), these rifles have short 18 to 19-inch barrel lengths, cycle smoothly, and will punch heavy 430-grain hard cast bullets straight through the thick hide and bone of a charging bear to drop it.

A bolt-action rifle chambered for a larger caliber (like .338 Win Mag or .375 H&H) provides greater range capability and kinetic energy than a .45-70, but the rifles themselves are not as lightweight or as handy to operate as the compact lever-actions.

If you’re looking for good options in semi-automatic rifles, consider .450 Bushmaster or .458 SOCOM. These are big-bore .45-caliber cartridges built to run in AR-style rifles, so they combine heavy bullets with fast follow-up shots in a compact tactical platform.

If you have to shoot an aggressive bear that’s running towards you at full speed, try to hit either the middle of the chest or the front shoulders at the base of the neck. The middle of the chest contains the heart and lungs, and the shoulder area holds the heavy bone that bears use to support their front legs.

A head shot may sound like the quickest way to kill a bear, but in reality it isn’t. Bears have a thick, sloped skull and handguns rounds especially may just deflect off the skull’s surface (literally!).

Additionally, continue to fire on the bear until it stops. Bears can withstand tremendous amounts of damage and still be able to run on adrenaline. It’s not unreasonable to expect to have to make multiple hits before a charging either bear turns and runs or falls over.