Hunter Uses 10mm Pistol To Kill Attacking Brown Bear

The Daily Mail reports on a hunter in Alaska whose bear hunt got a little wild when the 1,000 lbs Kodiak brown bear he was hunting decided to become the hunter. As the article reports, Tyce Erickson was one of the lucky handful of hunters to get a hunting tag for brown bears on Kodiak Island in Alaska. His hunt apparently started as a bow hunt, but frustrated at his lack of success and with time running out to use his tag, he borrowed a friend's rifle to take a shot at a bear about 50 feet from him. Unfortunately, his first shot missed. 

    His second shot hit, but the bear disappeared from view and he wasn't sure whether he took it down, so the hunting party moved around to see it.

    The bear was not where they expected it to be lying, so it was still alive and walking away leaving a blood trail that they followed.

    After tracking the bear for about two miles, the bear decided it had enough and it charged down the side of a hill at its pursuers.

 Another man in the group, Ryan, was able to get his rifle up and shot the bear in the chest at about 20 feet distance, but as the hunter stepped back, his foot became caught and he fell down, calling for help. 

    Erickson didn't have a clear shot past Ryan with his 10mm Smith & Wesson M&P 2.0, so he crawled through bushes until he could get to Ryan's side - just as the bear resumed its charge.

    'I got to his side... at this point he's only about 12 feet off my barrel and pulled out my handgun and just unloaded on him,' he said.

    'I didn't really have time to get nervous... it was getting real right now, just in that second [I was thinking] I'm saving Ryan's life. I shot three times... and by the third shot, it ended up taking him down.

    'It's rolling down the hill and hits the alders, and it was like we killed the dragon that was destroying the village, we were cheering, it was an adrenaline rush.'

    Ryan poked the bear to make sure it was dead and it growled and raised its head, so he shot it again through the shoulder to finish it off. 

The article adds, "Erickson said at least two of his handgun shots hit the bear in the back and neck, and his rifle shot that first wounded it hit the back of its knee." 

    While we are on the topic of bear attacks, Lucky Gunner's latest video is on the topic of handguns for bear defense looking at the real world results compiled by Ammoland:

VIDEO: "Handguns for Bear Defense: Lessons from Real-World Attacks"
Lucky Gunner Ammo (12 min.)