July/August 1978 - American Handgunner

of WW 296 in CDM cases sparked by CCIMagnum primers and the 200 grain Hornady.430 Hollow Point on fairly lightgame from the 6.5 inch A.M.P. and gaveit a good workout from the long barrels.Accuracy from a rest on the truck hoodhovered around 1.5-2.0 inches at 100yards from the scoped 10 incher with the29.0 grain load and around 4-5 inchesfrom the 8.5 inch barrel. Functioning wasperfect with both barrels. The 10.5 inchbarrel utilized a Leupold M-8-2X scope ina Maxi-Mount. I figured I was all set.On the Monday after the N.R.A. show Ifound out I had to leave on a business tripTuesday morning. Undaunted, but unwillingto risk one of my valuable LEJ 005Auto Mags (only 35 complete sets)through several airline flights and motels,I packed a Super Blackhawk .44, ascoped .44 TIC, one box of 236 grainNorma factory loads and several boxes ofthe original Super Vel 180 grain hollowpoint ammo.Sometime Thursday night Kellyphoned in the bad news. They had seenseveral bears but the hides were rubbedand they weren't shootable. He recommendedforgetting it this year. Businessfinished and being on the west side of thecountry anyway, I decided to try itregardless.At about 2 p.m. the next day they metme in Kalispell. First stop was to pick upa license. Since they thought I lookedgood for bear hunting in a light sport coat,white shirt and light green checked pantsthey wouldn't stop to let me changeclothes. No time for foolish things likethat-we're losing valuable time frombear hunting. At least I was able to getmy Super Blackhawk out of the suitcaseon top of.the mess in the rear of the 4 WDcarryall-and since I couldn't reach thesuitcase with the ammo in it they werekind enough to give me six rounds of the240 grain Federal ammo they had. Theydid balk a little bit at my wanting to stopand sight in. They were willing to compromisethough and stopped long enoughfor me to fire two shots and ascertain theywere hitting about a foot high at about100 yards.Seems as if I recall a few remarks similarto "What the hell you want to sight infor-you gun writers don't need sights,you got typewriters, etc. etc. etc." Theythen informed me that since I was theguest I had to kill a bear or at least hit onebefore they would shoot. I protested to noavail; I hadn't seen a bear in ten yearsand didn't want to shoot a midget. "Don'tworry, we'll tell you if it's big enough."Sure, I thought, they'll probably tell meto shoot a cub and blackmail me. In fact Iaccused them of having that in mind. (It'snice to have confidence in your friends.) Ireally wasn't concerned with not beingsighted in, as I really didn't expect to seeanything, much less get a shot at a decentbear that evening.We saw three crossing an open areaand disappear into the trees. Two of themwere year and a half old cubs or better,fully large enough to take care of themselvesand a fairly large sow. As we wereabove them we tried to cut them off for abetter look but only caught glimpses ofthem in the woods.At about 9:30 p.m. light was fading faston the old grassy logging road we wereon. Suddenly, a black shape emergedfrom the woods and immediately becamean indistinct shape in the shadows. Wefroze. Mr. Bear was very intent on fillingup on lush grass after a long hibernationand didn't notice us. He meanderedaround and finally got into the open longenough for a good look at him.Larry whispered, "He's good enough,"(Continued on page 68)Gerry Kraft doing some informal piinkingwith custom M-29.Kelly's custom 5" M-29, Zeiss pocket8x20's and track folding knife andammo.AMERICAN HANDGUNNER JULYIAUGUST 1978 47