Is the 10mm Auto the Best Bear Medicine?

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When the Bren Ten pistol in 10mm Auto was introduced by Dornaus & Dixon in 1983, it was highly promoted as ideal for defensive carry against two-legged assailants. Little did anyone realize that beginning with the introduction of the Glock 20 in 1990, popularity of the 10mm cartridge among those who carry handguns for protection in bear country would increase by leaps and bounds and remain so to this day. Why the Glock? Well, in addition to being totally reliable, it weighed only 26 ounces, but most important of all, with a cartridge in the chamber, the G20 held 16 rounds.

The icing on the cake arrived some years later with the introduction of 10mm ammunition from Buffalo Bore loaded with a deep-penetrating 220-grain hard-cast, flatnose bullet at a velocity of 1,200 fps. Since then, company founder Tim Sundles has received many reports from those whose lives were saved by the Glock pistol loaded with his ammo.

Tim later introduced his Dangerous Game ammo loaded with a Lehigh Defense 195-grain all-copper, flatnose bullet. The penetration of the two loads is about the same, but lube on the lead-alloy bullet produces more smoke. As a rule, a flatnose bullet punches a larger wound channel than an FMJ bullet of roundnose form, and due to straighter tracking through muscle and bone, it also tends to penetrate more deeply.

Before going further, I will emphasize that for stopping the charge of an enraged bear, a rifle chambered for a powerful cartridge is a better choice than any handgun. I will just as quickly add that a handgun does have certain advantages, with one of the more important being it is more likely to be with you at all times when working, hiking, mountain-biking, berry-picking, photographing, fishing, or just enjoying the beautiful scenery in bear country.

During a hunt for moose and caribou in Alaska, my guide mentioned that while guiding fishermen from a remote camp during summer, he carried a Marlin 1895 Guide Gun in .45-70. He had fashioned a privy about 50 yards from the tents, and on his way to use it late one night, he surprised a grizzly standing in the trail, and his Marlin was back at the tent. The bear shuffled off into the darkness, and soon thereafter, a high-capacity 10mm Auto handgun became the guide’s constant companion.

Opinions will always be divided on which handgun is best, and I am not here to choose a side. Revolvers chambered for the .44 Magnum, the .454 Casull, and several others deliver far more punch, but unless a bullet is placed into the brain or spine (not easy to do on a moving target), neither is guaranteed to prevent a raging grizzly from making contact with the shooter. And this is where some are convinced that a high-capacity 10mm pistol becomes a better choice because rapid-firing as accurately as possible increases the odds of placing one or more bullets into the incoming animal’s head. If the bear gets there, a serious mauling often takes a while, and in addition to being easier to shoot rapidly with one hand with 500 pounds of fury on top of you, a dozen or more holes in the animal is considered to be better than five or six. With the bear’s head only inches away, that’s your target, and a hard-cast or monolithic solid bullet from a 10mm pistol will easily penetrate its skull from the front or from either side.

Bear charges seldom happen to those who are blessed with a combination of common sense, situational awareness in the outdoors, and an understanding of bear habits and behavior. Unless a mature male has been injured by another bear or is protecting a kill, it usually just wants to be left alone with no more than minimal intrusion on its rightful space. Immature males are more likely to misbehave, but in my experience, all charges have been bluffs, and the bears stopped short of making contact. Even so, it can be a scary experience—one that leaves you shaking in your boots. Given an opportunity to do so, wolves will kill and eat bear cubs.

Add this to the fact that a big male bear will sometimes kill cubs for various reasons, and that is why a sow with one or more youngsters in tow can be like a bottle of nitroglycerine ready to explode. Black bears are quite plentiful and occasionally encountered in my area, and while they aren’t as likely to be troublesome, caution is still the key word. Regardless of the bear, when one does decide to do a bit of serious damage, it usually comes from a short distance away and often in thick cover. A grizzly can cover 50 yards in about three seconds, so having the ability to shoot quickly and accurately at a rapidly moving target takes hours of serious practice. A big helping of luck does not hurt.

Lessons to Live By

Some people are just plain lucky. A hiker strolling through the woods near Homer, Alaska, was foolishly carrying his Glock 20 in a daypack, and how he managed to retrieve the gun and place a bullet into the brain of a charging bear at close range was not reported, but he survived without a single scratch. Important Lesson Number 1 is to carry the fully loaded handgun at all times where it is secure while also being quick and easy to reach, draw, and fire. This is why the High Ready Chest Holster made by Galco for various large-frame autoloaders is becoming quite popular among those who carry in bear country. When in a tent at night, keep the gun by your side inside the sleeping bag.

Moving back to the outdoors, just having a handgun nearby instead of being worn can prove to be as fatal as not having one. The same goes for not keeping it fully loaded and ready to fire with a squeeze of the trigger. According to a 2018 edition of Jackson Hole News, a Wyoming guide who had a wife and five children was killed by a grizzly sow with a 1.5-year-old cub at her side. As an investigating officer with the Fish and Game Department described the tragic incident, the guide’s hunter had killed an elk quite late in the afternoon in the Teton Wilderness, and they returned early the next day to retrieve the meat and antlers.

Just as the guide had finished quartering the elk and was removing its head, the grizzly suddenly appeared, and after attacking the guide, the animal turned to the hunter, knocked him to the ground, and was then immediately back on the guide. Unfortunately, the guide had placed his 10mm Glock several yards away with other gear. The hunter picked up the gun, aimed it at the bear, and squeezed the trigger on an empty chamber. Not being familiar with the gun, he tossed it in the guide’s direction, but he was unable to reach it. The hunter fled for help.

Other incidents have happier endings. According to an Ammoland Shooting Sports News report published during that same year, Alaskan Anthony Reyna placed an arrow from his 60-pound bow through the lungs of a bull moose. The area was heavily wooded with thick undergrowth and downed trees. The hit was good, but darkness fell before the blood trail could be followed to its end. Early the next morning, he, along with friend Jimmy Cox, who was carrying a 10mm Glock in a Blackhawk Serpa holster, returned and continued on the blood trail. Crows flying around and making a lot of noise on the kill usually indicates a grizzly is not there.

One was there but laid up some distance from the dead moose, likely explaining the presence of crows. From about 10 yards away, the bear charged, and just as it was slowed momentarily by a downed tree, Cox drew his pistol and double-tapped two rounds, one striking the bear in the chest, the other striking it in the head and into the brain. The entire adventure took only a couple seconds, and the bear fell dead a few feet away. The Fish and Game Department investigated, ruled it a justifiable self-defense shooting, and estimated the weight of the bear at 800 to 850 pounds. While the bear had covered the moose carcass with dirt and brush after eating its fill, most of the meat was salvaged.

Before leaving the wonderful state of Alaska, I will mention that while the Glock 22 in .40 S&W has long been standard issue to law enforcement there, I was told that some state troopers and fish and wildlife officers carry the Glock 20 purchased out-of-pocket. During a private interview about four years ago, a trooper stated that he had five kills on nuisance moose and six on grizzlies using the Buffalo Bore load with the 220-grain hard-cast bullet. He went on to add that others in law enforcement were also carrying that load in their personal pistols.

This & That

Moving eastward, the 10mm Glock is the official cartridge/handgun of an elite Danish naval unit known as the Sirius Dog Sled Patrol. Founded in 1941, they spend months each year in the Arctic wilderness of northern and eastern Greenland, which is the largest national park in the world. They usually travel in pairs, each having a dozen or so dogs pulling their sleds. For many years they carried 9mm pistols as last-resort protection against hungry polar bears and often found them to be inadequate for the job. The replacement Glock 20 pistols have proved to be quite effective on nuisance bears.

The 10mm Auto is an excellent candidate for handloading, and due to the small capacity of the case, full-power charges of various powders are rather small. As an example, when loading 5.4 grains of Titegroup behind the Rim Rock 200-grain hard-cast bullet, there are 1,296 charges in a pound of that powder. Switch to a load of 5.2 grains of Universal, and you can send 1,346, 220-grain Rim Rock bullets downrange. This assumes a steady hand at the loading bench and no spills. The cost of 500 of either of those bullets is $77, and I include this information to emphasize that plenty of practice at the range can be squeezed into most family budgets. Full-power loads should be used, and practice at 10 yards until you can consistently draw and quickly fire several bullets into a 5.0-inch circle. Ten in the ring in five seconds is a good goal to shoot for, but keep in mind that human reaction time in the field can use up most of a second. Plenty of practice may not always make perfect, but it can save your life. Also keep in mind that powder charges in the loads I have included in this report were maximum or close to it in the Springfield Armory pistol and should be reduced by 10 percent for starting loads in other guns.

A note on choosing a carry holster for the outdoors: First of all, it must retain the gun even if you trip and fall forward or backward or are violently slammed to the ground. Equally important is smooth and instant release of the gun when drawing it from any position. The Galco High Ready Chest Holster I mentioned earlier fills the bill, and it does not interfere with wearing a daypack or a pack frame. The Galco Alaskan and Great Alaskan holsters are for revolvers. While on a handgun hunt for moose in Alaska, I carried a scoped Freedom Arms revolver in .454 Casull in a Great Alaskan holster and found it to be perfect for the job.

For those who are wondering why the Glock G20 was often mentioned in this report, it was there first, it weighed only 26 ounces, it quickly gained a favorable track record for reliability, and for several years it remained the only polymer-frame, high-capacity, lightweight (and affordable) 10mm pistol available. Today, it competes with similar pistols built by Springfield Armory, SIG SAUER, FN, EAA, Smith & Wesson, and others I may not be aware of. The Springfield XDM Elite I shot for this report proved to be totally reliable, accurate, and quite comfortable to shoot with heavy 10mm Auto loads.

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