Gary Reeder
Bear Medicine
Friday, December 19, 2025, 11:40

Having played with bears thru the years I don't recommend anything smaller than the 475 Linebaugh. A bear is a critter that you don't want to mess with. You don't want to try to kill him with a heart shot. On a bear you want to go for a neck or point of shoulder shot. You want to break him down, put him on the ground immediately and then when you have him down on the ground, kill him.
A bear looks at you as food. I have shot bears and just when I think he is down for good, he gets up and wants to dance with me. Years ago in Alaska a 12 gauge shotgun along with the 44 Magnum was the main bear medicine, what a bear guide in Alaska carried. The 44 was for when all else fails. The 2 big bore handguns were the 44 and 45 Long Colt. The 45 was just a cowboy cartridge, not for anything serious
The bear load in a 44 Magnum was the Hornady 260 grain jacketed soft point. For dangerous game I have relied on that bullet and it has never let me down. That doesn't mean I killed everything with one shot. Far from it. The S&W model 29 44 Magnum was the gun for the bad boys. But it wasn't always the perfect combo for the critters that will eat you and enjoy it.
Most of my bear situations were in Washington state. On one late in 1989 or early 1990 we were hunting with bear dogs. T
he bear dogs had jumped a bear and were hot on his tail. The brush was so heavy we had to crawl on our all 4s and then we couldn't keep up with the dogs. When we got to where we could see the bear he had already killed 2 of the guides prize bear dogs. We were our knees as it was too dense to try to stand up but the guide yelled for me to shoot the bear as he could see 2 of his dogs down. I had a Smith 44 Magnum loaded with the Hornady bullet I mentioned earlier. Trying a shot while you are on our knees is hard. With a bear coming at me was even worse. Aiming at his chest or any frontal area I shot the bear 4 times while he was fighting the dogs. Then he realized the dogs weren't what was hurting him and came at us full tilt boogie. I hit him with the 44 one more time when he was kissing distance away. At the 4th shot he decided to go for the dogs. The guide had kept his main bear dog on a leash tied to his belt as he didn't want his strike dog to get in the fight.. The bear decided he wanted that dog.
Now the guide and I were still on our knees when the bear hit us head on. I managed one more shot as he hit us. He knocked both of us down and the dog was tangled up with the guide. The bear jumped on the guide and was busy killing the dog. I had the good end of the bear with his ass on my chest. I had one round left in my 44 and I reached up and put the barrel in the bear's arm pit and let him have it. The guide was carrying my Contender loaded with the 357 Herrett. All he could do was put the end of the barrel in the bear's throat and let him have it. The bear died on top of both us with his nose touching the guide's nose.
We weren't sure who killed the bear but he was dead and that was all the mattered. The bear killed 2 of the guide's dogs and clawed up one or two more. The guide was shook up for half an hour. He had the adrenalin so strong in his system that would sit down, then get up and walk around, then sit down again. He must have shook my hand a dozen times and thanked me for not freezing when the bear came at us.
The main questions I answered on this story was first, a reliable gun and cartridge, that being a S&W 44 Magnum shooting a 260 grain Hornady jacketed soft point. A bullet that is heavy enough to break down the bear's shoulder but not too heavy that keeps you off balance shooting double action. Next, open sights. No scope and for sure no red dot. Finally shoot a bullet that you can handle in a bad situation, and one that is that is not too heavy to keep you from giving the bear all 6 double action if necessary.
Back in 1989 the 260 grain Hornady was considered a heavy bullet but was a bullet a lightweight revolver like the model 29 could handle. Had I been using another double action revolver and some of the extra heavy bullets that are seen around these days there was no way to get 5 or 6 heavy bullets off double action and hit what I needed to hit. The heavy bullets leave you trying to get the barrel pointed at what was trying to eat you instead of fighting the recoil from the heavy bullet.
There are several other instances of dancing with a bear but we will get to them later.