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That was the last time he packed the old "light" 8mm mauser. His load was a good one, though, 225gr. SPEER RN @2,400fps.
It was also the last time he carried only 1 magazine of ammo.

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Sounds like he finally got some sense. 3 cartridges in 8mm? As a guide backup? No way.

I haven't hunted bear. But have stood in front of taxidermied browns. And seen them in Romania. As a GUIDE more cartridges and something bigger, YES. The .375 sounds a good idea.

The client sounds like he should practice more than shooting paper off a bench.

I harp on on about of farcebook about learning and practicing to rechamber cartridges at the shoulder. Not at the waist or dropping the rifle down. The South Africa PH courses stupidly train prospective PHs at their "weekend expert" courses to drop a rifle down to the waist to work the bolt. So the squinty manlybeyed expert PH can "peer around".

Really it's teaching them to domit an easy way rather than the proper rifleman way

And many reloaders are obsessed with finding ejected brass. Rather than having good rifleman skills especially with dangerous game.

Practice and positive strong movement of the bolt will also be a benefit from field shoulder practice.

Practising shooting a target, targets, a running target, live animals, from the shoulder, no sticks, might mean less anxiety, and actually firing the rifle.

A bear crashing down a scrubby mountain side at you definitely sounds like a stressful time for anyone. But exciting and a great memory afterwards if one survives and does what's needed.

One might not know how one reacts in an emergency. Certainly adrenaline, anxiety, sudden stress affects ones normal behaviour. Having been a skydiver, hunting buffalo and elephant intent on killing me,I have some assurance I won't panic. Of course one can make mistakes still. A lot depends on one's mental state at the time as well.

Thanks for the story Daryl. Always enjoyable to think through scenarios. When one can't currently experience them.

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John aka NitroX

...
Govt get out of our lives NOW!
"I love the smell of cordite in the morning."
"A Sharp spear needs no polish"

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