r/canadaguns • u/Ill_Storage_8569 • May 18 '26

Buy recommendations Bear charge scenario: bolt gun splits?

I'm new to measuring splits between shots, and curious what everyone's baseline is for medium bore rifles at 25 yards or so?

Trying to decide if I should put together a 223 trainer or just run a lot of snap cap drills.

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u/Ok_Rush_246 May 19 '26

I’ve never tried doing speed runs with a bolt gun other than a 22. The British “Mad Minute” was at 300yds but its somewhat applicable:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_minute

At 25yds, I don’t think you stand a hope in hell getting a second shot off at a charging bath. Your best bet is to make the first shot count

If you do want to build a 223 trainer, Tikka’s work flawlessly with MDT poly mags

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u/Ill_Storage_8569 May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26

The one bear incident i had, the bear hung out and circled about 15 yards out for a bit before it decided to eat my dog. I wound up getting it with my knife, a little falkniven f1. The other time I bumped a sow with some second year cubs between me and the truck, that one I scared away but she came back. All I had was the ruger 1022, but it went fine in the end. Third one a bear wouldn't leave the tree planters truck so I put one in the dirt in front of it with the 30-06, and it ambled away. A bear that kept getting into tents wouldn't be deterred by an angry French crew with rocks and and ice axe, just kept doing laps around camp; it got an 06. Final one was a real low key one, but I came around the corner of some trees at the edge of a cut block when I was doing danger tree assessments, and bumped a sow and cub about 20 yards away. Everyone made good decisions there and nothing happened.

Good elk and moose rifle too, field supervisor had a moose refuse to leave the sled trail a few weeks ago and it wound up doing a number on his sled and fracturing one of his vertebrae.

Anyways long story short I'm running a 375h&h with a shortened barrel, lost less than 100fps going from 26" down to 20". Got a great deal on it and fell in love with the cartridge, and it's a really handy little package now. I've got about 400 rounds through it this year, and I'm trying to prioritize training. It's not really for sudden charges, it's more for the ones that won't leave and then things get hairy.

Edit: forgot about the one where i got a bear with my recurve, and had another one come in to check it out while I was dealing with putting it into game bags. It just hung out and went for the gut pile after buddy and I left though.

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u/iatekane May 19 '26

What rifle is the .375 H&H?

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u/Ill_Storage_8569 May 19 '26

It's an A bolt 11. I wish it were a controlled round feed, but it feeds perfectly and i like the faster bolt throw it has. That 3rd lug hangs down and picks up the next cartridge really reliably. Got a screaming deal on it or i would probably be on a model 70 still