One of the persistent myths about shooting bears in self-defense is a bear’s skull is nearly bulletproof. Bears skulls are not bulletproof. However, bear heads are big. It is easy to miss the brain or spine if you aim at the wrong spot or aim away from the brain because you are afraid the bullet will “bounce off.” This is exacerbated by trophy hunters’ hesitancy to shoot a bear in the head. A powerful shot to the brain cavity will fracture the skull, making measurement for the record books impossible.
It is difficult to hit the brain of a bear if you deliberately aim to miss the bear’s brain. It is difficult to hit the brain if you are aiming at a place where the brain is not. Here are some examples where the myth and poor understanding of bear anatomy prevailed.
The year appears to be about 1915 or later, as related by the writer Calvin H. Barkdull on page 153 of Blood on the Arctic Snow, published in 1956.
“The bear stood directly facing me. I saw the long maine on is neck and shoulder hump rise and fall several times. I waited for him to raise his head so I could get a heart shot from the front. I knew a head shot from the front would only irritate him.”
The narrator shot the bear several times with .45-90 black powder loads from an 1886 Winchester rifle. He finished the bear with a headshot to the base of the ear.
A .45-90 black powder cartridge is fully capable of smashing completely through a big bear’s skull and brain with a frontal shot. The normal black powder load is a 400-grain bullet traveling at 1300 fps. You have to know the right place to aim. In this AmmoLand article, the position of a bear’s brain and how to aim for it are explained.
Aiming between the eyes is not aiming at the brain if the bear’s nose is pointed at you. Aiming for the bear’s eye is not aiming at the brain if the bear’s nose is pointed at you. Below is a case where the shooter aimed for the eye and missed the brain.
November 1986, Kodiak Island, Zachar Bay, .454 Casull, Grizzly bear. From More Bear Tales, p. 104-107.
George Malekos was confronted with a large grizzly bear at 10 feet away on a gravel ridge, covered with snow. He had nowhere to turn. He aimed at the bear’s eye, and shot. He fired two more times as the bear whirled around, and disappeared.
“So I aimed for the bear’s eye and I squeezed the trigger”.
His guide, Jack, confirmed his poor understanding of bear anatomy:
Jack asked me if I had hit the bear and I told him I had shot him in the eye.
“Then you’d have a dead bear”, he said.
Later, he and his hunting companion shot the same bear with their rifles. They found the .454 round had creased the skull above the eye, then another shot from the .454 revolver had penetrated one foot of the bear as it was whirling around.
A Canadian game warden made a similar mistake with a large black bear when he aimed between the eyes of a black bear standing on its hind legs, looking directly at him. As the bear was large, the bear’s head would have been a little higher than his own. A line from eye to eye would be at the very top of the brain or just above it, with a thick skull at a slight angle just at that line. Hitting just half an inch high would mean the bullet would barely impact the skull, if at all, but would plow a bloody furrow in the hide and flesh along the skull above the brain. From winchestercollectorforum.org December 23, 2020:
I decided [to] try and take this bear down with a shot directly between the eyes as his head was clearly visible and I was gettng concerned since I was clearly annoying him and he began showing signs that he might make a charge. I would only have seconds before he was on top of me at that range. I knew that the gun was dead on at that short range. This was clearly a bear that had absolutely no fear of man and had probably never seen one in his life other than the fire fighters and now me. I squeezed the trigger and the bullet hit the bear between the eyes. He didn’t drop but instead immediately spun around and took off a run into the dense brush behind him.
When you aim where the brain is not, good shooting means you still miss the brain. People who are hunting bears for trophies do not want to shoot bears in the brain because doing so ruins the skull as a trophy.
This is likely what happened with Larry Kelly in his famous encounter with a brown bear coming into a hunting cabin in Alaska. From Hunting for Handgunners, p. 225, 1990:
Bob was having trouble with his gun and had backed up into the table, knocking everything over. I had backed into the stove, knocking that over. I pointed the .44 at the bear’s chest from three feet away and fired. I expected the mighty .44 to blow the bear right out of the doorway, or at least to do a little more than get his attention. He only turned his head and looked directly at me as if the muzzle blast had bothered him.
A big bear’s brain is about the size of a pint jar. For an accomplished hand gunner such as Larry Kelly, it would be hard to miss from three feet if you knew where it was at. Yet Kelly shot the bear in the chest. In an emergency, you do what you have trained to do.
Many guides are careful to tell hunters not to shoot the bear in the head. It will ruin the trophy and the ability to score it for the record books. In this case, with clear shots at the bear’s head, Larry and his guide fired a total of seven shots at the bear’s chest and shoulder. Those shots can knock a bear down and slow it down. But only brain or spine shots would stop it right now.
There is a particularly sad case of Michael and Darcy Staver in 1992 in Glennallen, Alaska.
It [a black bear] broke a window to get into the cabin where they were staying and drove them out.
The couple sought safety on the roof. Michael fired several shots at the bear with a .22-caliber handgun to try to scare it away. It left. When it did, he jumped down from the roof and took off to get help. He took the gun to defend himself, thinking his wife would be safe on the roof. She wasn’t. While he was gone, the bear climbed a spruce tree next to the cabin, got onto the roof and killed Darcy.
Larry Kanuit, the author of several bear books, reports Michael Staver was very careful *not* to hit the bear for fear of enraging it. P. 251 “Some Bears Kill”.
Many bears have been killed with .22 rimfire. It does not require a brain shot, although brain shots work well. Shots from a .22 to the lungs will kill a bear in minutes. Shots to the abdominal cavity will probably kill the bear in days.
If you are afraid of shooting a bear because you believe it might make them mad, the effectiveness of your shots is greatly reduced.
The myth of big bears’ skulls being bulletproof comes from a misunderstanding of where a bear’s brain is positioned inside the head and skull. If you aim to put the bullet where the brain isn’t, it is easy to miss the brain.
About Dean Weingarten:
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.
Forgive me but this article was horrible to read. It repeated itself several times and didn’t actually provide any useful information. Where to actually shoot. It only told where not to shoot. That’s not the same thing. Could have saved a lot of typing by simply posting the link saying, ‘aim here’.
There’s literally a photo of a bear skull with the brain case labled…
What a silly response to someone who wants a simple declarative statement like the entire rest of the article provides. You hunt with Adam Kinzinger?
Would you like somebody to put a nipple on the answer and feed it to you? There’s a photo. Two photos, in fact. Well-labeled photos. These photos are so clear, that even a person who is completely illiterate and unable to comprehend written English could walk away having learned where the brain of a bear is located. For heaven’s sake, a bear could look over your shoulder as you read this article and understand where its own brain is located. I’m terribly sorry you people didn’t enjoy your free article that our brother in arms wrote to help keep us… Read more »
Some guidance on how to map from that bare skull to how a bear looks with flesh and fur would be helpful. Paul Harrell once told me to aim for the nose, and that advice looks like it might work so long as I’m crouched down at bear level and the bear’s mouth is closed. That second photo in the article is at an odd angle, and it took me quite a while to realize it must be a straight down shot. I suppose that in the moment we just have to know enough about the skill shape to interpret… Read more »
@Benv for some reason the usual ammoland peanut gallery has a love affair with Dean. If you say anything negative they’ll pounce on you with degrading comments. They forget that everyone who reads Ammoland isn’t the next great white hunter, expert gunsmith or tactical expert.
Dean seems to have a bear fettish and sometimes refers to himself as “this correspondent” but he usually shares some interesting stories!
I agree, the carved skull pictures were not the best graphics by themselves. A picture of a real bear from different angles pointing out where to shoot would have been a perfect fit.
Dean does write a lot about bear and animal defense, and I actually appreciate that focus of his. Dean provides good information to counter the prevailing onslaught of untruth in these matters.
If Joe Biden was Abraham Lincoln in that theatre.. He would have survived.. The guy has no brain whatsoever.
Jill would have just stepped out onto the balcony and emptied her double barrel shotgun into the ceiling, scaring John Wilkes Booth away.
i wonder what would happen in these situations if you shot the bear in the mouth? it would seem easier to get to the spinal column through the mouth.
bingo! straight in towards the high part of the back of the mouth. next time you hold a bear skull, you’ll see.
Let us not forget little Bella Twin, an indian woman taking a record Grizzly with 22long from the side of it’s head. Luck was also on her side that day, claiming ‘…a spot midway between the eye and root of the ear…’ was where her father told her to shoot.
I was thinking if the bear is standing up and it is 7 foot tall, maybe shooting right under the chin would put the bullet into it’s brain. I am glad Dean wrote the article. I always thought the best place to shoot it would be the chest to take out the lungs and it is a much easier target to hit when a bear is charging you. Glad Yogi has never charged me, I would have made a Boo Boo.
Here is the article which contains detailed descriptions of where the brain is inside a bear’s skull and how to know where to shoot at when looking at a bear’s head.
https://www.ammoland.com/2019/11/carved-polar-bear-skull-shows-where-to-aim-when-attacked/#axzz8UpKETrL2
There is a link in the above article, It could have been appropriate to include a diagram from that article in this article, instead of just a link.
I mean… the bear skull photo with the labeled brain case seemed adequate to me… IDK why people are having issues with that unless it was added later. It was a good article, Dean. Thank you for your writing.
Might save my bacon one day.
Helpful! Dean, thank you for posting that link.
I have shot bears with rifles, shotguns, and handguns of different calibers. I have placed killing shots on some very active wounded bears from muzzle touching distance to feet. I have seen wounded bears run off from head shots because of shots that just missed the brain. I seen many sculls hit by rifles and high powdered handgun bullets. Those sculls were destroyed for trophy purposes. Some were close to being pulverized only held together by the skin. Knowing where to place your shot or where not to. Is the key to effectively stopping a aggressor. Deans explanation of shot… Read more »
If would be more helpful to tell us where to aim, not where not to aim.
There’s a photo of a bear skull with the brain case labeled, providing this information.
To be honest, I was surprised at the quality of this article. Dean normally does a great job. We all have an off day!
Now who can argue with that? I think we’re all indebted to John Galt for clearly stating what needed to be said. I’m particularly glad that these lovely children were here today to hear that speech. Not only was it authentic frontier gibberish, it expressed a courage little seen in this day and age.
“I expected the mighty .44 to blow the bear right out of the doorway” lol another barber shop talk believer in “stopping power” who watched too many movies
Should just use a 9mm. Ol’ Joe says it’ll blow a lung right out of the body.
Congressman Moskowitz says “Do you know why you don’t hunt with an AR-15 with a deer? Because there’s nothing left.”
Maybe that applies to bear too LOL
That’s only if you use the shoulder thing that goes up with a thirty-caliber magazine clip.
and fires all 1,000 clips in one second.
This is the way.
Thanks for remembering and reminding us. We need to advertise any chance we get what a stupid jackass he is.
I watched a video of him yesterday talking to the troops. He mentioned who it was that he put in a position. The troops did nothing. He said “clap you bastards”.
FJB
Tump 2024
Where do we shoot? Lungs, up the nose?
Leg
Of the guy next to you
lol
and then run like hell?
Shoot Dean behind either ear for his uncharacteristically horrible article…..of course, you know I’m kidding. Tomorrow’s article will be your usual excellent offering.
I’m sorry to hear that you didn’t enjoy reading your free article.
From the above article: “ In this AmmoLand article, the position of a bear’s brain and how to aim for it are explained.” The words in red indicate they are a clickable link, which in this case leads the following http address: https://www.ammoland.com/2019/11/carved-polar-bear-skull-shows-where-to-aim-when-attacked/#axzz8UpKETrL2 Within the referrenced article are more words in red, indicating yet another link to a Facebook page, presumably with further information on where to aim to best hit that bear’s brain. (I cannot see what is on the Facebook page because I have never subscribed to censorship heavy Facebook and never will. Neither do I use the Google search engine… Read more »
A simple sentence: if he’s looking straight at you, shoot him in the mouth. Solves the whole staring at a carved skull (pretty neat, though) and trying to figure out from side and plan view what a furry frontal view would be. Or use an RPG to the navel.
I’ve never come face to face with a charging bear, but IMOA I’d have to shoot what the bear presents while charging. The stock brown bear photo would probably be what we’d see in a charging bear, straight on and fast. I’d shoot center mass and aim for just over its head and try to connect with a spine shot or under the chin trying for heart or lung shots. I’ve watched video of bears running and they appear to lope with the head bobbing up and down so the shots will be head, spine, chest and repeating shots to… Read more »