Gary Reeder
sometimes we tend to believe the "all knowing" ballistic
Saturday, June 15, 2019, 12:42

experts in the gun magazines. And I guess I have been in that crowd too, at least until this past week. My 3 shots on that bear told me a lot. I hit him with 2 JHPs and 1 hardball out of my 45 PD. No reaction at all to the JHPs and after he was down we saw that both were just behind the front leg. The 3rd (which was actually the 2nd shot on the bear) was the hardball. At that the bear stood up on his hind legs at started snapping at his shoulder where the bullet hit. And the JHPs failure wasn't because of the distance as I was less than 8 feet from the bear when I shot him. The failure was the JHPs just simply didn't get thru the heavy fur of the bear (he still had his winter coat) and the inch or so of fat on him.

I sorta feel silly now making sure that Colleen was off to one side thinking the bullets might fully penetrate the bear and hit her. She was maybe 40 feet or so off to my side so I know now I didn't have to worry about over penetration. After it was all over I realized I had absolutely no worry about over penetration as the JHPs didn't penetrate over 2 inches. We couldn't tell on the hardball as it was in the bears vitals somewhere.

Due to reading so many articles on the "great" JHPs on the market I guess I just rolled with the flow and took that ballistic bullshit as true. I really never have expounded on the merits of a JHP round and now I will never do so. Sometimes it takes something drastic to teach us a lesson. And that bear taught me a lot. When I got home and reloaded my 45, I put 7 rounds of hardball ammo in it.

I feel guilty now that I fell for all the "energy" crap like Jim mentioned even though I have known better for many years. There is no such thing as energy. It is a false number that means nothing. If the bullet had enough energy to knock an animal down or the bad guy down, it would also knock the shooter down. Simply physics. To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. If it knocks the bear down it will knock me down too, if you believe in energy.

So I owe that bear a bit of gratitude. It may never matter and I hope the situation never comes up where I have to prove it on a human being but Mr. Bear may have just saved my ass.