On the evening of September 6, 2024, Owen Beierman, 12, and his father, Ryan, 43, were hunting bears near Siren, Wisconsin. Siren is about 50 miles north and 50 miles east of Minneapolis, in northwest Wisconsin.
Owen shot a 200 lb black bear with his .350 Legend rifle. The bear ran off, leaving a strong blood trail. Even mortally wounded bears often run for some distance. The Beiermans borrowed a Labrador retriever from their neighbors and started tracking the bear about 20 minutes after it was shot. It was already getting dark. Game is often shot just after sunrise or shortly before sunset.
The Beiermans could not know if they would find a dead bear or a wounded bear. They were in thick brush when the first indicator happened. The dog came running past them in full retreat. They managed to take a few steps forward into a slight clearing.
Ryan saw the bear, very close, under an oak tree, only 6-10 feet away. His eyes met the bear’s, and the bear leaped at him. He fired eight shots, a mag dump, very fast. He says he managed to miss all eight shots. The bear bit his leg, and then Ryan pistol-whipped the bear with his empty handgun. The bear let go of his leg and attacked his arm and face. Owen, seeing the bear on top of his father, shot the bear again, stopping the attack. It all happened very fast. From the nypost.com:
It was dark when they again came across the wounded bear staring at them from under an oak tree, the dad said.
“He was in a stance like a cat about to pounce,’’ Beierman told the Star Tribune. “The next thing I know, he was on me. He charged and knocked me down,” he said.
“The bear was fighting for its life, and I was fighting for mine.”
The neighbors proved to be very helpful. They loaned their dog to help find the bear. The neighbors helped call aid and transported Ryan to where he was transferred to an ambulance. They field-dressed the bear and hung it up so the meat would not be spoiled before butchering. It is not difficult to find neighbors like this in northern Wisconsin. They are to be treasured. From the nypost.com:
Their neighbors then stepped in to help, with one cleaning the bear and hanging it up for the family while another drove the father and son to the hospital, Ryan said.
The pistol used by Ryan appears to be a Rock Island Tac Ultra FS 10mm.
Here is an image of Ryan’s pistol, from the video done by kare11.com.
If you look at the magazine, you can see it has staggered witness holes and a crease before the front of the magazine, both of which are on 10mm magazines from Rock Island, but not on .45 ACP magazines from Rock Island.
Here is a 10mm Rock Island Tac Ultra FS magazine advertised on the Rock Island website.
A 10mm may not be decisive if no shots hit the target. A common adage among shooters is “you cannot miss fast enough.” The Tac Ultra FS has light collecting sights. From Foxnews.com:
“I reached for my sidearm initially hoping to scare the bear away with a warning shot,” said Ryan. “He was only 5 or 6 feet away, point blank. As he charged, I shot to kill. I shot eight times but missed. I had no time and I never got the gun high enough to use the sights.”
Bear attacks have been increasing in Wisconsin with increasing bear and human populations. This bear was shot with a rifle, tracked, shot at with a pistol and finished with a rifle. Because a pistol was fired in defense against a bear, it will be included for completeness of the data. It is a combination defense, not a pure pistol defense. According to kare11.com:
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) says the attack on Ryan is the 14th in the state since 2013.
At 200 lbs, the bear appears to be a young adult boar. When bears are wounded while being hunted, it is far more likely they will attack people who are hunting them. Because this bear did not run further, it is likely the would it received was mortal. It is likely the bear would have expired if allowed a little more time. It is easy to see why the desire to avoid wasting game, combined with dwindling light and an available dog, resulted in a quick response.
A Conservation Officer of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resouces said the hunt was legal, according to kimt.com.
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.
He should have aimed before pulling the trigger and maybe one of those 8 rounds would have found the bear .
I just got back from a successful Black bear hunt in Northern Mn. I used a Hornaday American Whitetail sabot round, 325 grain, 1850 fps, 58 caliber out of my Browning Gold Hunter (rifled shotgun barrel). The shot was quartering toward me, at 25 yards. Execution was perfect, and that perfect shot and large caliber projectile did not knock him down. The bear pivoted and ran away before I could get another shot. I thought that I would be tracking him for days. Luckily he lost control and sprinted in a semicircle back to me and died in mid stride.… Read more »
That kid will be and is now 1 of the 100
Five, eight, 15 if they are all misses doesn’t really matter.
I’d say he should carry something with more rounds – but cops often empty their 15 round G19 magazine without hitting. Usually they take a breath while reloading and start actually aiming. Apparently if you haven’t been there before (as I have not) active panic is common – resulting in dumping magazine ineffectually.
Ryan dumped all eight rounds as bear travelled a few feet, after which it latched onto his leg. Wouldn’t it have been far more effective to shoot at contact range than to use pistol as cudgel?
any injured animal is dangerous , and both should have been at the ready when they peered in the opening, dog running away should have set off alarms