Black Bear Taken in Kitchen with 5.56mm Rifle
BY Herschel Smith
1 month, 2 weeks ago
And an SBR at that! Here is the scoop.
- Did you get to keep the bear? No. He contacted both the sheriff and Parks and Wildlife. In self-defense bear shootings, the animal is collected by authorities.
- How did the bear get in? It climbed a second-story deck, opened a cracked window by pushing in the screen. Due to mountain weather and a lack of AC, the window had been left ajar.
- Is your hearing okay? Yes. The firearm was equipped with a suppressor, and the shooter routinely suppresses all his guns.
- Did you know it was a bear? No. He only confirmed it upon visually identifying the animal inside the home.
- What gun did you use? A Geissele Super Duty 11.5-inch AR-15 in 5.56, which he described as a personal favorite.
- Any damage to the house? Minimal. All seven rounds hit the bear. One fragment nicked the floor, but no other property damage was reported.
- What ammo did you use? Hornady Critical Defense 55 grain. Despite common skepticism about the 5.56 round on large animals, the ammunition performed effectively.
On September 5, 2025 at 4:31 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:
Many jurisdictions – county, local, state, etc. – prohibit hunting white-tail deer with .22-caliber rifles, stipulating .243-cal. as the minimum. Many of these laws were written when .22-rimfire cartridges were the most-common type encountered, as opposed to .22-cal. center-fire. Moreover, even for high-performance .22-cal. cartridges such as 22-250, bullet design was not such that a humane kill could be assured.
That was then, this is now. Bullet design has progressed enormously since the mid-20th century, and the AR15 is the self-loading rifle platform most-familiar to America’s hunters. It isn’t only black bears which have been taken with AR15s, but the largest coastal Alaskan brown bears and grizzlies, too. While many authorities on hunting still prefer larger-bore cartridges, it is now a matter of public record that plenty of bears and other large/dangerous game species have been taken with Eugene Stoner’s rifle.
With the caveat that the right bullet design and material are paramount, as a hunter I would not feel under-armed with an AR-pattern rifle…
On September 5, 2025 at 6:57 pm, PGF said:
The 11.5-inch SBR or braced pistol is an excellent length for maneuverability and effectiveness. It’s a very comfortable length indoors and out, in a variety of close to mid-range applications. If you want to try a braced pistol, go for the 11.5, you’ll like it.
I don’t understand the point of shorter lengths especially in larger rounds. Just get a .44 wheel gun in that case. And 14-inch seems redundant if you already own rifle length AR platforms.
On September 5, 2025 at 9:54 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:
@PGF
Second that regarding the 11.5-inch length AR barrels. Any shorter than that, you lose terminal performance pretty quickly and also there start to be reliability issues due to the dwell time being too short, and so on.
A lot of empirical knowledge about SBRs was developed as far back as Vietnam, when special ops personnel in the Navy SEALS and U.S. Army Special Forces – MACV-SOG, too – tried a variety of short-barreled variants of the basic AR15/M16.
Major John Plaster, today well-known as a FA trainer and author, was then a young MACV-SOG army officer who logged a ton of operational experience. He was armed with a CAR-15 and later spoke very highly of it in interviews. They had a few SOPs to keep them working, mostly pertaining to keeping them clear of water in the bore and action, but nothing they couldn’t handle, apparently.
On September 6, 2025 at 9:05 am, george 1 said:
The feds were angry because he shot the bear 7 times?
I am angry that the feds get paid to tell people how angry they are that someone had the temerity to defend themselves.
On September 7, 2025 at 7:43 am, Latigo Morgan said:
Ol’ Sam Foster, one of the last of the professional bear hunters in Southern Arizona, if not the last, never carried anything other than a Ruger Single Six in .22 Magnum (WMR). He’d go into bear dens and put one behind their ear. Crazy bastard. Cancer killed him, not a bear.
What I learned from Sam? Since something is going to kill you anyway, go ahead and use a .44 Magnum.