Did anyone happen to catch the NRA article about Phil Shoemaker killing a grizzly with a S&W 9mm and Buffalo Bore ammo? What a badass!!

Impressive story. Be prepared to use what you are carrying.

no doubt, I'll never dog cuss a 9mm again! but I doubt I could have hit a bear that was charging me anyway, that takes super nerve to stand there and put shots in the vitals in an instant like he did. I guess thats one big reason to hire a guide that knows what he's doing!

Here's the link to the story:

https://www.americanhunter.org/articles/...ith-9mm-pistol/

Thanks for putting that up there! I know very little about computers!

Phil is a baaaad man, with PLENTY of bear experience. His daughter guided our very own Darrell to a trophy Brown Bear a few years ago.

Lucky , lucky people..... Taking clients into bear country with a 9mm was kinda reckless on his part. He once wrote about using a smaller caliber handgun like a 357 with solids so you can control the gun for headshots and as you see he could not hit the head. His clients were super lucky as was he. I talked with a few big game handgun hunters about this yesterday and we all agree that if any of you are in big bear country that you carry something larger then a 9mm.....Super lucky......
Bigger is always better when around something trying to kill you

Not just a 9mm, but a single stack 9mm. Not sure I understand his choice.

me neither

James i was thinking the same thing. Being i lack experience in big bear country i hesitated to make a comment. Being his clients lives were in his hands i think it was irresponsible to take a single stack nine . A 9 over 44 mag.

They were very lucky.

I agree. Carrying a single stack 9mm was plain irresponsible. From his own account it sounds like he didn't even have a spare mag.

His clients survived not because of proper preparation or skill, but purely due luck.

I don't think luck will get you very far or make you very successful in Shoemaker's line of work .... not for 30+ years anyway.

I can't recall his name, but there's a PH in Africa of some experience and notoriety that carries a Glock 9mm on his hip everyday, as well. He's reportedly used it successfully on several occasions.

"Phil Shoemaker has been around a long time but he got real lucky on this one. He's one of the most respected guides in all of Alaska but if he was guiding clients I'd say he should probably receive a fine of some sort because that's stupid if you're doing it on your own but if you're risking other peoples lives that's a whole nother ball game. Just my opinion but killing that bear with a 9mm will get someone else killed on down the road. Very few bears are vegetarians..... if there's fish there are bears, take a gun that will protect you & your clients".

Above is a quote from one of the members and like the saying goes "monkey see monkey do" someone will think a 9mm is all they need for big bear protection. I hope you guys can see where I`am going with this.

I use this paraphrased statement often as it has MANY applications (especially this one):

"If you ain't that Indian, don't try to use that arrow."

Let's break this down factually. 1-Phil is very experienced with large Alaskan bears and a guide of high repute. 2- Anyone that has read much of Phill's articles knows that he has always advocated handguns they recoil little for rapid shooting trying for a central nervous system hit. 3-Phil carefully tested the ammo and determined it provided adequate penetration. 4- Despite the fact that the bear got as close as a couple of feet of the client Phil kept the bear from getting to the client with his weapon. 5- Phil not only protected himself and his client from harm, but also killed the bear to prevent harm to others from a wounded bear.

Lucky? Luck always plays a part no matter the armament. Phil was prepaired and proficient. The results would not have been any better if Phil had used a 500 Nitro Express!

Mmm, I kinda think it would. for all of Phil's notoriety, he sounds like an idiot. If I ever hire a guide, remind me to check his sidearm.

Exactly how would the outcome have been better? Both Phil and the client were uninjured and the bear was killed so as not to indanger anyone else, after all that is the objective. If it were me I'd check my own side arm and not worry about someone else's

I would hunt with Phil Shoemaker anytime I don't care if he's carrying a slingshot for a sidearm! I think he's been around more dangerous critters than most on here and he's still alive so I think he knows what to carry! I would much rather be around someone who can shoot what they carry instead of someone carrying a cannon that they can't hit anything with it. I think a lot of people read to many magazines and internet stories. I'm not saying a 9mm is a bear gun, but it was that day! Punching paper with a hand cannon is a lot different than punching a bear at 3 feet! I don't think it was luck at all I think it was skill!

Let me remind everyone embroiled in this so-called controversy. There are NO DEGREES OF DEAD! Evidently on that day, on that bear, at that moment, THAT 9mm was enough to kill the bear with body shots. Period. Indisputable fact. The fact of the matter is that not only are his clients alive, they are uninjured. Period.

I think it's worth noting that these "bear defense" situations pretty much mimic traditional "self-defense" scenarios. For every incident you can site where having the WRONG gun was an issue, you can find ten thousand incidents where having NO gun was a much bigger problem.

Handguns are weapons of convenience, IF you pick a gun that's convenient enough to carry ALL the time. The mere fact that you are always armed - and able - will usually determine the outcome.

The rest is quite often superfluous.

Guess my thought is i wouldnt use a tack hammer to drive a railroad spike . I wouldnt pit a 9 mm against a brown bear when i have a 44 mag. They are lucky god was looking after them.

LOL

Ya know, most folks these days view the lowly 7x57 Mauser to be a marginal big-game cartridge and you would be very hard pressed to find anyone carrying or recommending it for use against dangerous game.

But, a guy named WDM Bell used just such a cartridge in the previous century to kill over 800 elephants. Big-bore rifles were all the rage back then but he just didn't find them necessary.

While he killed well over a thousand elephants alone, there's no telling how many other game animals fell to his rifles. I'll go out on a limb and venture his experiences exceed those of anyone opining on this or any other internet forum.

I view guys like Shoemaker (and the handful of others like him walking around) to be cut from similar cloth. The only "luck" these guys generally rely on is the kind they make for themselves.

The overwhelming majority of us can't really identify with any of that because we simply don't have it in us.

I feel he did just fine. I live in Alaska and you can be attached by a brown bear in downtown Los Anchorage but you don't need a 500S&W in a chest holster to walk around. I would think that more grizz in Alaska have been DLP with pistols of 357/45colt or less than the more modern big bores. The last recent ones I know of were with 45acp, 9mm and 10mm and all bears died no one hurt.Mr Shoemaker can share my fire any time.

Spot on, Phil is a top notch guide no question about it.

John, I agree totally with what you said. Although I don't know Phil Shoemaker or his daughter Tia personally I have referenced them many, many times over the years because of their experience & I still have that same respect. I just feel like this time he made a very bad choice & got extremely lucky. The only reason 2, maybe 3 people didn't get killed was that the bear didn't charge him, a head on charge at that distance most likely would have been a very different outcome, I'm glad we will never know. But the bear was after his clients so he was shooting into soft tissue & the bear was focused on someone else.
Like you I've always stressed bullet placement & penetration, he got both but at that close distance it might not have been enough, fast enough to save any of them.
If you carry a 9mm to defend yourself, that's on you, but if you carry one & other's lives are depending on you, I think its a huge lapse in judgement. Yes he pulled it off but I think only because the bear was attacking someone else & he was shooting from the side, I could be wrong.
Still, it was an amazing feat & I still have very high regard for him. It seems most are agreeing with you.

Dick

Phil Shoemaker is probably the best known big bear guide in Alaska....period. He had some real nice words for me when I handgunned my Cape buff and if anyone can kill a charging brown bear with a 9mm its him... I have only hunted brown bear twice in my life and when I look at the paw of the one on my wall and think of what the lady said about smelling the bears breath, I have to say they were lucky, because one swipe of those claws would have likely took her head off. Mr. Shoemaker is a well known sportsmen and some people will listen to him without question and I`am sure the orders for the 9mm ammo he used have gone through the ceiling. The point of this is how many other folks in a similar situation can kill a "charging brown bear" with a 9mm like he did....Otherwise I only wish I had the money to go on a brown bear hunt with him...
PS Anyone who comes out on top of a charging brown, regardless of what weapon he uses, is lucky to be alive. Just ask JWP how many times Phil shot a brown with a .505 Gibbs even though the gun was loaded with Woodleigh soft points and had to much expansion....

I first heard about this a couple days ago on another forum where members are praising him and their new found admiration of the 9mm. When you read his account of the incident its obvious that the stars aligned just right at that moment and he and the people counting on him were very lucky.

I respect his skill and experience with bears. I also know that its easy to get too comfortable when you're in potentially dangerous situations on a daily basis but nothing has gone wrong for a while. I could not disagree more with his choice to carry that gun/round especially in this situation. Its one thing to make that decision when you are alone and will be the only one paying for it. When others are counting on you to defend them its extremely irresponsible.

Everyone chalking this up to his skill/ability needs to analyze exactly how this incident unfolded. Read how the bear reacted with each shot. Most importantly, there was no brain/spine shot that stopped the bear instantly. With the first shot to the neck the bear began spinning, follow up shots were in the vitals and the final shot was in the pelvis as it ran away. The bear was within 2-3 feet of his clients when he shot it. At that distance you might have time to blink before the bear would be on you. The bear had plenty of time after it was shot to seriously injure or kill someone which many other mortally wounded bears have done. You can't count on a bear "spinning" after the first shot allowing you to keep shooting as the vitals present themselves. He and his clients were very lucky the bear reacted the way it did after the first shot.


Like others mentioned I worry about the people who due to this incident now think their 9mm is to be counted on for bear protection. On that forum I brought up the example of Larry Kelly's brown bear hunt. For anyone not familiar there were two brown bears killed on two different days. He killed a very big brown bear one day with one shot from a 44 magnum. A smaller charging brown bear the next day takes 16 rounds between 375H&H, 44 mag and 375JDJ from both Mr. Kelly and a very experienced guide to stop it. That just shows you can't count on any two animals or situations to go the same way. How many of us have shot deer in the same spot with the same round and had some drop like a ton of bricks and others cover a long distance before dying?


There are reports of a guy who was attacked on the street that used a 22 WMR North American Arms mini-revolver he had in his pocket to kill his attacker with one shot. There are many more reports of people who continued their attack after being shot multiple times with more powerful rounds. I own a 22WMR NAA mini-revolver. Its better than nothing but it would be my absolute last choice for self defense since I have more powerful rounds available. Just because someone got lucky and it worked in one situation doesn't mean its a good choice.

Sorry for another long "rant" post!

+1 to what pab1 says. I would not speak against Mr. Shoemaker's skill, experience and fame, but that doesn't make every decision he makes right. Nor does success automatically equate with right. I live in grizz country too. I've hunted them. I've killed them. The overriding reality of all grizzly bears is their complete unpredictability. For lowly, little ol' me, Mr. Shoemaker went to Vegas and bet on black. Just because the wheel happened to roll up a black this time doesn't mean I'm taking the rent money and heading to Vegas too.

The results are the results. I am not seeing anything that would indicate that Phil,is advocating anyone to do as he does? So if he was sitting around the fire and telling this story would some of you insult this man as you have here on this forum? Disagreement is one thing but it seems tough to disagree with what he did and the results he got. Unless any of you are so incredibly talented you can predict the future it seems as waste of presumption to say some of the things that you said about this man or this incident. Unless one of you were actually there? Was anyone posting actually there?

It is an interesting exciting story take it for what it is.

Its not my (or from what I can tell anyone else's) intent to insult him. I respect Mr. Shoemakers vast experience. That doesn't mean that every decision he makes is above questioning.

Some of the comments I've read on a couple forums make it obvious he is a hero to some and can do no wrong in their eyes. Fred Bear has always been one of my hero's. That doesn't mean I agree with everything he did. There are a couple shots on game he took that made me cringe when I read about them and I would consider to be unethical. That doesn't lower my opinion of him. It just proves that as legendary as he was, he was human.

When you look at the facts in Mr. Shoemaker's own words there is no denying that there was a large amount of luck involved. When he shot the bear in the neck it was sheer luck that the way it reacted was to start spinning. There is no magic spot on a bears neck to aim for that makes them spin on command. At 2-3 feet the bear could just as easily been on his clients as has happened with many bears that have been shot in defense at close range. If the bear had reacted that way, which was just as likely, and the client had been injured or killed, everyone would be asking what the heck he was thinking using a 9mm for bear defense.

No one can say if this incident would have gone any differently with a more powerful round. When people are counting on you for protection I can't agree with choosing a minimum round. We have grizzlies in this area and I often go out on multi-day trips with only a .54 cal traditional muzzleloader. Kind puts me in touch with and makes me appreciate how vulnerable mountain men were. Any time my son is with me I have my Redhawk on my belt loaded with 320 gr Cast Performance bullets over H110. I don't take chances when he is counting on me for protection.

well said my friend.....

Well said.



Insult, no. But, I would certainly question his choice of sidearm.

There is nothing to question. Phil has about 33 years of experience with these bears. He has alway maintained that he preferred a light recoiling handgun that he could shoot accurately fast. He tested his choice of ammo and found that it provided enough penetration. He was proven correct as he killed a 900 pound bear in an all out charge. The bullets penetrated from one side of the bear to the other.

Phil's choice proved itself under adverse conditions

Did we read the same story?

I've reac all accounts that I know of and have read Phil for decades as well as talked to him a few times. According to Phil the bear was about 900 pounds, no one was injured and the bear was killed, thus not a threat to anyone else.
The putcome doesn't get any better than that.

All out charge???

I think he's referring to the "all out charge", not the weight.

Yes, unless you don't believe Phil:
458Win is Phil on AR

Picture of 458Win
posted Aug 15, 4:03 AM Hide Post
Wayne, I have been hunting brown bears for 38 years, live within a Federal Wildlife refuge, see brown bears on nearly a daily basis and can assure you that it was an all out charge!

I am not recommending a 9mm, nor any other handgun calibers. The 357, 44 and larger rounds do give deeper penetration, and would be my choice if I knew I had to face a charge with a handgun, but loaded with proper bullets the 9mm does work.

Anyone who claims the 30-06 is ineffective has either not tried one, or is unwittingly commenting on their own marksmanship
Phil Shoemaker http://www.grizzlyskinsofalaska.com

I was too slow typing. By the time I hit submit you beat me to it.