Re: Large Brown Bear taken with Vortex Optics
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Sendero_man</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Congrats on the great bear !
specs on your rifle ?
thanks Scott </div></div>
The rig is a 338 Norma Mag that I built with a bartlein 5R med palma contour, jewell trigger, on a carbon fiber A-3 stock. I was shooting 250 gr accubonds @ 3000 fps.
The best part about the rifle, for this particular hunt, is the Vortex scope for a couple of different reasons.
Day one, I was one of the back up rifles, for a client of the outfitter and had the opportunity to shoot a bear that the other client had wounded at 70 yards. I placed a shot at 100 yards behind the shoulder and again at very close range where the bear charged us at 20 feet. Yes...<span style="font-weight: bold">20 feet</span>! So luckily I remembered to adjust the power setting of the scope, before approaching the bear at close range, from 10x at 100 yards down to 5x for close range shooting. (A 1-4x power TMCQ reticle would of been optimum had that been the only purpose of the rifle, but it wasn't). Needless to say it was a very surreal moment. All of this was captured on video and I'm trying to get a video from the outfitter. Plus friends that know me here know that I don't embellish or fabricate hunting stories.
Day two, myself and a guide move to a remote outcamp (shack & tent) a few miles away from the main camp. That evening we had brown bears in camp not wanting to leave. (Snorting, snapping, etc., 20yds outside our tent). One of the guides grabs my 460 S&W and flashlight to confront and/or scare the bear away. The bear doesn't want to leave the area so this goes off and on for a couple of hours during the evening while we are trying to get some sleep. The guide loses his patience and tells me to grab my flashlight and rifle to take care of the situation once and for all. So standing in the rain in shorts, tee shirt, boots, rifle and flashlight, against my better judgment, we are trying to scare this bear away from camp hidden in the tall grass in the dark. I tried to look through my scope at 5x, while holding a flashlight in my left hand under the forearm of the rifle and couldn't see squat so I remembered that I had the illuminated reticle so I turned it on high. This gave me a little comfort since I was able to see the reticle had I needed it. Luckily we didn't and the bear took off after we made numerous loud vocal announcements of our presence.
Day 4, I was able to get my bear to within 200 yards and to make an easy broadside shot after a 4 mile stalk.
So for all the typical hunting conditions someone sees in Alaska (cold, rain, snow, wind, humidity) the Razor HD held up beautifully and never fogged up or let me down. Scouting with Vortex Razor HD on 20x at longer distances while the guide was hogging my spotting scope made for easy glassing.
I don't want this to sound cheesy but I can't emphasize enough on the optics for this particular hunt. If any of you plan on a brown bear, sheep, mountain goat or expensive elk hunt, the most important part of your arsenal is high quality optics. You will be spending "days" behind your optics looking at and judging game.
Shooting at a brown bear is like trying to hit the car door window of a honda civic. Anybody reading this thread could probably do that with little effort even at long distances. What was key to a successful hunt is quality glass trying to spot and judge animals at 4-5 miles away. I was able to do that with the glass I had.