what do you think of a ruger mini 14 as an o **** wepon for bear hunting my primary is a bolt action .308 if the bear?

I live and hunt Alaska. I am a successful grizzly bear hunter.

The only way you can use a Mini-14 for bear protection is if you have the optional 40rd mags. This way you can shoot off all the claws and shoot out all the teeth - then the worst the bear can do is sit on you or gum you to death. LOL.

Honestly - you will only piss off a bear with a 223 rifle. To stop a bear the bullet must pass through the hair, hide, fat layer, muscle layers and get into vital organ and break bones. Even if you got a lucky shot into the bear's heart - it's body still has enough oxygenated blood to run 100yards and beat on your for a full minute. Considering it only takes 1 second for that paw to swipe your face off - I am not seeing your surviving the pummelling. People have been mauled and killed after shooting a bear with a 44mag pistol - the bullets were found lodged in the fat layer.

Go take a peek at the specs for the 338 Winchester Magnum. My ex wife nailed a very small grizzly in the shoulder - when we skinned it out that bear did not have a single bone larger than 1" in both shoulders - but even with all these broken bones it still charged us the full 100yd in just seconds - if the second shot had not stopped it, we would have gotten hurt bad. And this was the smallest legal grizzly fish and game has seen in ten years. (she wanted it because the hide was drop dead gorgeous and it was the perfect size to fit her living room).

For bear protection - look at a 12ga with slugs. Consider a really big pistol - like a 480 Ruger or 460 S&W. Consider a real rifle like 30-06.

When I lived in Sitka and in Kodiak I did not like hunting deer with a 338 Win mag. Especially the tiny blacktails Alaska has. Our solution was I would carry my 223 or 243 rifle and my buddy would carry the 338 Win Mag or a 12ga pump shotgun. After I got my deer - we would go out the next day and he would use his 6mm Remington and I would carry the big rifle or shotgun.

Using a 223 on a bear - would be like trying to sand blast it to death. You would need to land a very lucky shot up the nose into the brain to get it to die quick. Even if you hit it in a major blood vessel in the nice, or, got a shot that blew a hole into the spinal cord....... you would still need to retreat to a big tree of someplace to wait for it to finally die.

I have video of Kodiak grizzly being hit 5 times in a row with a 300 Win Mag rifle fired from a skilled hunter - it got up very quick after going down on those first 4 rounds - and every time it got up it advanced on the hunter's position!! Now - imagine you have your Mini-14 - you only have 1/6 the power of a 300win mag...... so your bear is not going to go down - that means you will be shooting the bear, hitting the bear - and after each shot the bear is getting madder at you and running faster toward you.

There is one interesting thing I have been told many times by guides who bring in novice bear hunting to Alaska. Something you might want to keep in mind. Might save your life. Several guides have told me they noticed that when a grizzly is stalking a person - and they shoot at the bear and totally f-up the shot and it hits the bear in the top of the body behind the head or into the rump..... the bears never seem to connect the pain with the human. Instead it will turn around quickly and bite the air, bite a near by brush, run in a circle - trying to both attack and defend themselves against a new attacker. This happens - expect it - it could be your chance to escape. Just don't run - walk.

First, you don't have 15 rounds for a charge. You have one, and he's on you, no matter the number of cartridges in the magazine.

Second, if you're going to kill a bear, you're going to have to get the bullet into a vital organ. Tiny little bullets aren't likely to get there.

Third, there's a good deal of difference between a hunting gun and a stopping gun. In the Golden Age of the African safari, lots of men used medium-bore guns to shoot elephants (318 WR and 333 Jeff, for instance), but if they had to use that gun to stop a charge, their companions were lucky to recover the remains of the feet from their flattened boots, and scoop up a lot of reddened mud for burial. You need a lot of metal thrown from something with a large hole in the end for a stopper.

In many states and Canadian provinces it is illegal to use a sub-caliber rifle on big game like deer and bear so that is one barrier;the other is it is amazingly unethical to shoot animals in such a way.

So, you need to read laws and look deeply into your conscience to see if you have morality issues.

Why would you use a weaker, lower penetrating, less reliable rifle as your stopper/backup?

A 12 ga shotgun or leveraction .45-70 would be a better option.

Go with the 12 ga and slugs.

This is your life and limbs we are talking about buddy! That .308 is FAR superior to that little 5.56 or .223 that will not have the stopping power needed. You see in a bear attack the primary thing isn’t killing the bear its stopping the bear from reaching you. Bears have had their heart blown in half and still managed to maul the shooter at close range. Also you just wasted precious seconds switching from the .308 to your other gun. It may surprise you but here in Alaska a bolt gun is preferred over a semi-auto for bears simply because its far less likely to jam. There was this native guy way up in the arctic who had a semi-auto rifle in .223 when a small young polar bear attacked him. After he emptied two magazines in the bear it fell at his feet still breathing. You want to play with death like that? For your sake and your dads don’t depend on that mini 14 or anything firing such a small caliber bullet. Have pop carry a 12ga shotgun with slugs or a rifle from 30-06 up and learn how to use that bolt gun for follow up shots. You may only have 5 or 10 seconds after you hit that bear before its on you. They can outrun a race horse under 100 yards and can get up to 35 MPH in a heart beat.

I have hunted bears for years and my den has several grizzly hides and black bear hides. I know my bears, heck I live with them 6 months of the year.

Buy a .44 mag revolver (ruger or s&w both make great revolvers) or maybe even the 500 magnum. Those will make great bear stoppers, will be much quicker to shoot, and should only need 1 (maybe 2) well placed shots to drop pretty much anything you shoot. The right ammo will obviously determine results (T. Rex thumper 700 grain in the 500 magnum would not fail you : )

Bear attacks in the lower 48 are about on par with shark attacks. More fear than reality. AS for Bear hunting? Nobody uses a .223 Remington.

Tomorrows bowel movement.

If you choose to use that as your backup, I hope you're okay with being digested.