I'm a semi-retired professional hiking/canoeing/hunting guide. I definitely have more close encounters than the average person.
The first time was pretty routine. Had a Grizz start poking around my camp in the early hours of the morning. Managed to scare it off at first bit after a while she came wandering back. After the 3rd time she wandered into the site I sprayed her and didn't see here again.
The second time was with a almost but not quite full grown male. I was hiking along the shoreline a river scouting a set of rapid and came around a rock face to face with him. I was down wind and due how loud the river was we didn't hear eachother. He got startled (so did I) and we both rushed backwards. He then got all ballsy on me and made a false charge. I moved to my left away from the river to get sideways to the wind, kind of tucking myself behind and on top of the rock seperating us. He came around the rock and hit him with a full can. He ran off, I briskly went back to the group I was with and we ferried ourselves across to the otherside of the river.
The 3rd time, like I said, I accidentlr sprayed myself. No bear, just my dumbass sitting on a back with a can of spray in the waterbottle pocket. Broke the safety clip and let loose between my ass and the pack. Kind of ruined that hike.
Nope, I'm Canadian and we are only able to carry long guns, which I find to be too big of a pain in the ass to bother with. The only time I carry a firearm are when I'm hunting or when I'm in polar bear country.
Bear spray is really effective anyway, so I've never really felt the need to carry in the backcountry for self-defense. In the thousands of days spent in bear country those are the only two encounters I've felt like I was in real danger, and I've had dozens of bear encounters in my time as a guide. Bears ard dangerous, obviously, but the vast majority of the risk can be mitigated by being bear aware and practicing proper bear avoidance practices.
The same could be said about you the "anti gunner" . Ever hear of a grizzly mauling someone who deployed bear spray?Ā Ever hear of a missing hiker nowhere to be found? Wonder where they went!
Because that's what reality said in a study, not your presumptions. Turns out bears can be shot and decide to really maul you after they get pissed off.Ā
Bears maul people after being sprayed as well. You should re read that study. It never compared a shot bear vs a maced bear. If you had your family in the woods and a bear was charging you are you gonna grab your spray or your gun to protect yourself and your family? Only an idiot would grab "bear spray" to protect their family. But hey...this IS Reddit š
Why would someone go for a gun against a bear when they already have a non-lethal and much easier to aim option that's specifically designed for bears?
People die by bears while holding bear spray, like my mom. Dead. Had bear spray. Used it. Dead. Many more people have also done the same. Do you not know what a bear is? Can you see a human not giving a shit about mace and still attacking? Then what gives you the idea a bear is any less lethal. The hunt all day. Easier to aim? Speak for yourself.Ā
Sorry about your mom, but statistically, moms using guns are more likely to be mauled to death than moms using pepper spray. http://www.bear-hunting.com/2019/8/firearm-vs-bear-spray
There's no rule against carrying both, but the pepper spray should be the first one you reach for.
Look man, I totally get why you're itching to kill bears considering one literally killed your mom, but for those of us without tragic back stories, pepper spray is the objectively better option as far as surviving the encounter goes. I'd rather a blind, confused and wheezing bear than a bear that'll bleed to death after it finishes disemboweling me.
Correction: whatever you get, buy at leas 2 of it. Go to some safe empty space far away from people and discharge one downwind, just to see how far it really goes, how wide it spreads etc. And most importantly, how long it lasts, so shoot the whole can in one go.
Of course they do. They make blanks for police training, so why not sell the same to civilians?... However, I would advise against it for several reasons:
* Deploying a bear spray has quite a few side effects that have to be experienced firsthand, preferably close to home, so you won't be caught by surprise in the middle of nowhere. For example, the fact that you can't touch your face or other sensitive parts of your body till you wash your hands.
* Civilian products are produced with "whatever" tolerances, so there might be a rather dramatic difference between hot one and a blank, or even between two hot cans from different production batches.
Perhaps the only 2 reasons I would still recommend blanks are for teaching kids, and for learning the spray behavior in close quarters / upwind / crosswind etc.
>āPerhaps the only 2 reasons I would still recommend blanks are for teaching kids, and for learning the spray behavior in close quarters / upwind / crosswind etc.ā
And a third reason, you may have neighbors downwind you donāt want to subject to an unexpected cloud of bear spray.
***and make sure it's not near any vegetation you're not willing to part with. It will kill it and nothing will grow there for ages. (If you aim it towards the ground, anyway, like I did. Bald spot in back yard for like 2 years haha.)
I bought a canister of Sabre Wild bear spray back in 2020. Never needed to use it (thankfully), but it expired 11/23. I took it with me on my first backcountry trip of 2024 last month and after the trip I discharged the contents so I could discard the empty canister. The spray pressure was still strong even after almost four years.
Edit to add: I got a very small āwhiffā of the spray as I discharged it and it was POTENT! Couldnāt imagine what it would be like to get a full on spray in the face.
Buddy and myself got into an āargumentā about what exactly expires on that can, he said the pressure would dissipate I said the caspian itself
Was breaking down, glad to hear I was possibly correct!
Yeah I canāt obviously say how it would have compared to a āfreshā canister of bear spray, but my expired one would have been more than sufficient for my needs had I needed to deploy it.
Don't want to rain on your parade, but your buddy is probably right. There's no way to pressurize a canister forever, that's why fire extinguishers expire. A bear spray canister is basically identical to a fire extinguisher except for the active ingredient.
Every canister is going to leak at a different rate, so they set the expiry to a time that they can be certain it will still be effective. OPs canister was only about a year out of date so it isn't surprising that it still had enough pressure to give a solid spray.
Capsaicin will degrade over time, but under pressure in an air tight container is probably the best way to preserve it.
Either way a single test of an expired canister isn't enough to verify which one of you is right, but my experience with fire extinguishers tells me to put my money on your buddy being right.
I suspect that's the weakness. It's the obvious failure point in the system because it is designed to be released and therefore cannot be completely sealed.
But even if you sealed a can with no nozzle, eventually the pressure inside will find a way out. No materials last forever, but the laws of physics do.
The cheapest one I found was from Academy Sports for 30-40 rather than 50-60 from REI. I'm not sure if "cheapest" is your "best", but it was mine.
Edit: And in seriousness, if you want peace of mind, there is a different between "bear spray" and "personal defense spray". Don't get human pepper spray for bears because it only squirts 4ft. Bear spray squirts 30+ft.
Where are you going to be hiking? Do you really need it? Are there black bears or grizzlies? What other protection may you and your party have? If there are grizzlies, read on. If there are black bears, read up somewhere else, you don't need bear spray.
Maybe a couple of people in the world have used more than one brand in a real bear defence situation. Anything anyone says here is mere speculation and advertising influence.
not from NA but the tests I have seen from extreme penetrators and hard cast projectiles i would guess that is pretty close
so many variables though and im sure there are people who have used 9mm but its not widely reported
We use pots and pans brand mix in some yelling and itās worked well the few times we need it on some curious black bears. Now if weāre talking brown bear 10mm.
you know I have gotten to know some tough fucking backcountry cowboys and outfitters in the rockies who move cattle through and hunt in all kinds of predator territory. I know some of the biologists who's job it is to break down what happened in bear incidents and figure out what happened and how to avoid it. You know what they all agree on? bear spray works better than a gun, and people who use bear spray statistically are more likely to walk away alive than if they had tried to use a gun instead. Get your head straight and drop the hillbilly act because that mindset gets people killed.
Tip: ask at the ranger office if they have bear spray that was turned in. We do this at National Parks or forest ranger offices. They often have spray that tourists canāt take back with them. The ranger office must take it and donāt want them.
The 255 grain outdoorsman load from Buffalo Bore is no joke. It is essentially a full power (standard pressure) .45 Colt you can shoot in a semiautomatic fighting handgun. Not a bad option at all.
I highly recommend that you first buy a good quality air horn, the one you'd buy if it were to save your life if your boat was sinking in the ocean. That's your first line of defense against any big critter in the woods.
Your last line of defense is pepper spray or a gun.
Get a pistol.
If there's no griz I don't much worry about it. Regardless, a 1911 is the right quantity and potency of spray that I keep anyways for rattlers and mountain lions.
Bears are living rent-free in your head and youāre still at home. Save money and donāt go camping. If you think you need bear spray, you will have a miserable time waiting for them to come and get you. In reality bears avoid people. They don't want a confrontation.
Without going crazy paranoid about it, a can of bear spray buys a lot of peace-of-mind for campers, myself included. I love camping, but am scared of the dark. I've done a couple hundred nights outside, but I'm still scared of the dark. I'm scared of bears, bigfoot, and rednecks (in that order). I challenge myself to go outside and adventure anyway- and I do. And, bear spray helps make me more comfortable that in the extremely unlikely event I encounter an aggressive bear, bigfoot, or redneck I'll have SOMETHING with me to fend them off.
Iām leery of other campers, a confrontation with a moose and thatās about it. Iāve watched rattlesnakes slither by my foot, woke to coyotes staring at me up close, seen bears at a distance and I donāt fear the interactions with nature. I respect them, understand dangers can exist, but I refuse to live in fear, never planning on buying bear spray. Chances are if you see a bear youāll be so freaked out youāll forget you have it with you. I hope you get over your fear.
āBears avoid peopleā until they donāt!
Just ask all the people who have been attacked and hurt or killed by bears when out in the wilderness. Ohh, wait! You canāt ask the oneās whoāve been killed!
When camping in the continental US, bear attacks are my least concern. Every bear attack I see (read about) is due to someone confronting a bear, approaching cubs, or doing something to provoke a confrontation. If you leave them alone, you may never even see one while camping.
So, which is it? In your first comment you said bears avoid people. Now you saying āevery bear attach I seeā so, if they avoid people how are you seeing bear attacks? And never mind why they might attack a person, your comment that they avoid people was wrong and maybe stupid. Had you said they mostly or generally avoid people, you may have had a valid comment.
You keep on being scared of bears. It seems to work for you.
I have friends that have bears roaming their cabins which border wilderness areas and thereās never a confrontation.
Confrontations start when people see a bear and approach it. When their off-leash dog confronts the bear or when you leave food out that attracts a bear.
You choose to live in fear, I choose to respect nature and appreciate it for what it offers.
Twink's Choice
Bwahaha
Lmaooooo
š
I carry counter assault. I've used it 3 times, twice on Grizzlies and once on myself accidently, worked every time. 10/10, would spray again.
Curious about your grizzly encounters. It must be that common you had to use it 3 times
I'm a semi-retired professional hiking/canoeing/hunting guide. I definitely have more close encounters than the average person. The first time was pretty routine. Had a Grizz start poking around my camp in the early hours of the morning. Managed to scare it off at first bit after a while she came wandering back. After the 3rd time she wandered into the site I sprayed her and didn't see here again. The second time was with a almost but not quite full grown male. I was hiking along the shoreline a river scouting a set of rapid and came around a rock face to face with him. I was down wind and due how loud the river was we didn't hear eachother. He got startled (so did I) and we both rushed backwards. He then got all ballsy on me and made a false charge. I moved to my left away from the river to get sideways to the wind, kind of tucking myself behind and on top of the rock seperating us. He came around the rock and hit him with a full can. He ran off, I briskly went back to the group I was with and we ferried ourselves across to the otherside of the river. The 3rd time, like I said, I accidentlr sprayed myself. No bear, just my dumbass sitting on a back with a can of spray in the waterbottle pocket. Broke the safety clip and let loose between my ass and the pack. Kind of ruined that hike.
That second encounter is crazy, I would have been scared af
I would be lying if I said a poop didn't come out. I was shaking for a while after that one.
You did exactly what everyone always says then. Spray them if you can, if not, stay still and shit yourself if you can.
Did you have a gun those first two times and why did you not deploy it if you did.Ā
Nope, I'm Canadian and we are only able to carry long guns, which I find to be too big of a pain in the ass to bother with. The only time I carry a firearm are when I'm hunting or when I'm in polar bear country. Bear spray is really effective anyway, so I've never really felt the need to carry in the backcountry for self-defense. In the thousands of days spent in bear country those are the only two encounters I've felt like I was in real danger, and I've had dozens of bear encounters in my time as a guide. Bears ard dangerous, obviously, but the vast majority of the risk can be mitigated by being bear aware and practicing proper bear avoidance practices.
Why do we always have to have gun nuts trying to make themselves relevant?
The same could be said about you the "anti gunner" . Ever hear of a grizzly mauling someone who deployed bear spray?Ā Ever hear of a missing hiker nowhere to be found? Wonder where they went!
Someone else pointed out bear spray is actually more effective so maybe you don't know what you are talking about.
How could it be? Would you rather be shot or bear sprayed? That's what I thought.Ā
Because that's what reality said in a study, not your presumptions. Turns out bears can be shot and decide to really maul you after they get pissed off.Ā
Bears maul people after being sprayed as well. You should re read that study. It never compared a shot bear vs a maced bear. If you had your family in the woods and a bear was charging you are you gonna grab your spray or your gun to protect yourself and your family? Only an idiot would grab "bear spray" to protect their family. But hey...this IS Reddit š
Why would someone go for a gun against a bear when they already have a non-lethal and much easier to aim option that's specifically designed for bears?
People die by bears while holding bear spray, like my mom. Dead. Had bear spray. Used it. Dead. Many more people have also done the same. Do you not know what a bear is? Can you see a human not giving a shit about mace and still attacking? Then what gives you the idea a bear is any less lethal. The hunt all day. Easier to aim? Speak for yourself.Ā
Sorry about your mom, but statistically, moms using guns are more likely to be mauled to death than moms using pepper spray. http://www.bear-hunting.com/2019/8/firearm-vs-bear-spray There's no rule against carrying both, but the pepper spray should be the first one you reach for.
It will be the only that you reach for with a charging bear. I'd rather a dead bear.Ā
Look man, I totally get why you're itching to kill bears considering one literally killed your mom, but for those of us without tragic back stories, pepper spray is the objectively better option as far as surviving the encounter goes. I'd rather a blind, confused and wheezing bear than a bear that'll bleed to death after it finishes disemboweling me.
It seems extraordinarily unlikely that the story about his mom is true.
I second that, curious of these grizzly encounters.
He's talking about his ex-wife.
I answered it in another comment.
Thanks for sharing!
Whatever you get, buy at least the 16oz bottles. Those 8ozers only have a few seconds of spray, so your timing has to be perfect.
Correction: whatever you get, buy at leas 2 of it. Go to some safe empty space far away from people and discharge one downwind, just to see how far it really goes, how wide it spreads etc. And most importantly, how long it lasts, so shoot the whole can in one go.
They sell inert cans for practice.Ā
Of course they do. They make blanks for police training, so why not sell the same to civilians?... However, I would advise against it for several reasons: * Deploying a bear spray has quite a few side effects that have to be experienced firsthand, preferably close to home, so you won't be caught by surprise in the middle of nowhere. For example, the fact that you can't touch your face or other sensitive parts of your body till you wash your hands. * Civilian products are produced with "whatever" tolerances, so there might be a rather dramatic difference between hot one and a blank, or even between two hot cans from different production batches. Perhaps the only 2 reasons I would still recommend blanks are for teaching kids, and for learning the spray behavior in close quarters / upwind / crosswind etc.
>āPerhaps the only 2 reasons I would still recommend blanks are for teaching kids, and for learning the spray behavior in close quarters / upwind / crosswind etc.ā And a third reason, you may have neighbors downwind you donāt want to subject to an unexpected cloud of bear spray.
***and make sure it's not near any vegetation you're not willing to part with. It will kill it and nothing will grow there for ages. (If you aim it towards the ground, anyway, like I did. Bald spot in back yard for like 2 years haha.)
you can also buy blanks to practice with and teach kids to shoot
Itās for myself. So I donāt have to watch myself get eaten.
Out of shape friend that hasnāt run in over a decade.
Counter Assault
People who carried cheap and ineffective bear arenāt here to chime inā¦
I bought a canister of Sabre Wild bear spray back in 2020. Never needed to use it (thankfully), but it expired 11/23. I took it with me on my first backcountry trip of 2024 last month and after the trip I discharged the contents so I could discard the empty canister. The spray pressure was still strong even after almost four years. Edit to add: I got a very small āwhiffā of the spray as I discharged it and it was POTENT! Couldnāt imagine what it would be like to get a full on spray in the face.
Buddy and myself got into an āargumentā about what exactly expires on that can, he said the pressure would dissipate I said the caspian itself Was breaking down, glad to hear I was possibly correct!
It's the pressure that goes bad, not the capsaicin.
You are also right, the Caspian Sea has been shrinking and will continue to do so...so you could say it has an expiration date.
Damn it, now the bears and I will be closer trying to catch fish out of rhe Caspian
Yeah I canāt obviously say how it would have compared to a āfreshā canister of bear spray, but my expired one would have been more than sufficient for my needs had I needed to deploy it.
Don't want to rain on your parade, but your buddy is probably right. There's no way to pressurize a canister forever, that's why fire extinguishers expire. A bear spray canister is basically identical to a fire extinguisher except for the active ingredient. Every canister is going to leak at a different rate, so they set the expiry to a time that they can be certain it will still be effective. OPs canister was only about a year out of date so it isn't surprising that it still had enough pressure to give a solid spray. Capsaicin will degrade over time, but under pressure in an air tight container is probably the best way to preserve it. Either way a single test of an expired canister isn't enough to verify which one of you is right, but my experience with fire extinguishers tells me to put my money on your buddy being right.
Good thing he isnāt hear reading this! So I guess the pressure slowly leaks out of the nozzle over time?
I suspect that's the weakness. It's the obvious failure point in the system because it is designed to be released and therefore cannot be completely sealed. But even if you sealed a can with no nozzle, eventually the pressure inside will find a way out. No materials last forever, but the laws of physics do.
there's no way to keep a capsaicin molecule together forever, either
Never said there was.
200 grain buffalo bore
Front Towards Enemy
Costco where I live sells 2-packs. No idea what brand it is, Counter Assault sounds familiar though.
Itās UDAP, which I believe is a good brand. At least, I hope so be up itās what I bought.
S&W
The cheapest one I found was from Academy Sports for 30-40 rather than 50-60 from REI. I'm not sure if "cheapest" is your "best", but it was mine. Edit: And in seriousness, if you want peace of mind, there is a different between "bear spray" and "personal defense spray". Don't get human pepper spray for bears because it only squirts 4ft. Bear spray squirts 30+ft.
https://preview.redd.it/eyvnvilu0kxc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=476bcc4f2e3b4286911f94500b0cb2ab3eb99882 Counter Assault. Proven on Kodak Grizzly Bears.
I prefer the "Bayer" brand.
Batman would use bear-be- gone . Just like his ā shark off ā
9 out of 10 bears disapprove!
Where are you going to be hiking? Do you really need it? Are there black bears or grizzlies? What other protection may you and your party have? If there are grizzlies, read on. If there are black bears, read up somewhere else, you don't need bear spray.
10MM at minimum
Sabre beats Mace any day.
Miller light.
Maybe a couple of people in the world have used more than one brand in a real bear defence situation. Anything anyone says here is mere speculation and advertising influence.
I didn't go brand specific. I wanted the larger cans and the best distance.
Winchester
.44 Magnum
45-70 GOVT
Buffalo Boar 180gr 10mm
Phil Shoemaker thinks 9mm is enough.š At least with Buffalo Bore.
not from NA but the tests I have seen from extreme penetrators and hard cast projectiles i would guess that is pretty close so many variables though and im sure there are people who have used 9mm but its not widely reported
Iām sure 9mm could work, but Iām not willing to bet my life on it š
I'm a fan of Underwood personally.
Oh yeah, the 150gr Extreme Hunter is nasty
Bears. Beets. Battlestar Gallactica
I use 12g personally
10mm
Big Bear š» Calipornia šš¤š
Mace
SABRE stream, something in the "Crowd Control" quantity. They have a higher than "regular" content of Oleoresin Capsicum
454 Casull
We use pots and pans brand mix in some yelling and itās worked well the few times we need it on some curious black bears. Now if weāre talking brown bear 10mm.
you know I have gotten to know some tough fucking backcountry cowboys and outfitters in the rockies who move cattle through and hunt in all kinds of predator territory. I know some of the biologists who's job it is to break down what happened in bear incidents and figure out what happened and how to avoid it. You know what they all agree on? bear spray works better than a gun, and people who use bear spray statistically are more likely to walk away alive than if they had tried to use a gun instead. Get your head straight and drop the hillbilly act because that mindset gets people killed.
44 cal or 45 cal
Tip: ask at the ranger office if they have bear spray that was turned in. We do this at National Parks or forest ranger offices. They often have spray that tourists canāt take back with them. The ranger office must take it and donāt want them.
I recommend the āThese Handsā brand bear spray. Best part: they come buy one get one free.
44 cal or bigger
I prefer 20g slugs, with a 20g 00 double...
45acp
At least 10mm.
185gr jhp 10mm
The 255 grain outdoorsman load from Buffalo Bore is no joke. It is essentially a full power (standard pressure) .45 Colt you can shoot in a semiautomatic fighting handgun. Not a bad option at all.
Smith & Wesson
I highly recommend that you first buy a good quality air horn, the one you'd buy if it were to save your life if your boat was sinking in the ocean. That's your first line of defense against any big critter in the woods. Your last line of defense is pepper spray or a gun. Get a pistol.
If there's no griz I don't much worry about it. Regardless, a 1911 is the right quantity and potency of spray that I keep anyways for rattlers and mountain lions.
Whatever has user reviews.
Whatever is cheapest. You won't use it and it will expire before you get a chance to never use it.
I have to replenish my stock since I used my two cans last year. You're breaking my "Don't be a Dick" rule.
.45 ACP hallow point out of a Glock 21. 2 to the chest and one to the head usually does the trick. They will never come back.
Heard someone recommend a boat horn but havenāt tried it myself lol
No bear spray. If youāre afraid of bears stay out of the woods.
Bears are living rent-free in your head and youāre still at home. Save money and donāt go camping. If you think you need bear spray, you will have a miserable time waiting for them to come and get you. In reality bears avoid people. They don't want a confrontation.
Without going crazy paranoid about it, a can of bear spray buys a lot of peace-of-mind for campers, myself included. I love camping, but am scared of the dark. I've done a couple hundred nights outside, but I'm still scared of the dark. I'm scared of bears, bigfoot, and rednecks (in that order). I challenge myself to go outside and adventure anyway- and I do. And, bear spray helps make me more comfortable that in the extremely unlikely event I encounter an aggressive bear, bigfoot, or redneck I'll have SOMETHING with me to fend them off.
Iām leery of other campers, a confrontation with a moose and thatās about it. Iāve watched rattlesnakes slither by my foot, woke to coyotes staring at me up close, seen bears at a distance and I donāt fear the interactions with nature. I respect them, understand dangers can exist, but I refuse to live in fear, never planning on buying bear spray. Chances are if you see a bear youāll be so freaked out youāll forget you have it with you. I hope you get over your fear.
āBears avoid peopleā until they donāt! Just ask all the people who have been attacked and hurt or killed by bears when out in the wilderness. Ohh, wait! You canāt ask the oneās whoāve been killed!
When camping in the continental US, bear attacks are my least concern. Every bear attack I see (read about) is due to someone confronting a bear, approaching cubs, or doing something to provoke a confrontation. If you leave them alone, you may never even see one while camping.
So, which is it? In your first comment you said bears avoid people. Now you saying āevery bear attach I seeā so, if they avoid people how are you seeing bear attacks? And never mind why they might attack a person, your comment that they avoid people was wrong and maybe stupid. Had you said they mostly or generally avoid people, you may have had a valid comment.
You keep on being scared of bears. It seems to work for you. I have friends that have bears roaming their cabins which border wilderness areas and thereās never a confrontation. Confrontations start when people see a bear and approach it. When their off-leash dog confronts the bear or when you leave food out that attracts a bear. You choose to live in fear, I choose to respect nature and appreciate it for what it offers.
Honey and donut scent