Protecting Yourself In The Backcountry
When you’re out in the woods hiking or camping, you need to be aware of the dangers that exist and know your predators and dangerous critters that roam the land. This is an essential part of your survival skill set along with fire making, shelter building and water sourcing among other skills. You should carry enough firepower to defend against the largest predator you may encounter.
For most in the continental U.S. I’d say the most likely predators are black bear and mountain lions. With these, you don’t need an elephant gun or anything crazy, but something that hits hard will be your best bet to get a quick stop of an aggressive or surprised animal who is trying to defend its territory, or offspring. In most cases these animals have a natural fear of humans, but that doesn’t mean you can always count on that fact. There are plenty of accounts of attacks, and people being severely injured by these wild animals.
There are plenty of options in regard to defense when out in the forest, and plenty of resources and discussions online, but I’m going to focus on my personal choices based on what is in my inventory, and some options I plan on adding to increase the versatility and effectiveness of what I carry.
I personally believe in redundancy, and will always carry a sidearm in addition to a long gun. Most would probably choose a .44 magnum revolver or a 10mm semi-automatic, and those are probably the best options, but in most of my uses, these calibers don’t really have much of a place. I do plan on getting a .44 mag revolver one day, which will pair nicely with my lever action rifle in the same chambering, allowing ammo interchangeability.
My choice in a sidearm is a Glock 35 in .40 cal. I have it loaded with Buffalo Bore hard cast ammunition in the heaviest weight available. Some will say not to shoot lead in a barrel that doesn’t have standard rifling, such as octagonal or polygonal rifled barrels, but this is not the case with hard cast bullets, and leading isn’t an issue as would be with regular lead ammo. This gives me a capacity of 15+1 ready to go in a small and light form factor.
I would certainly rather have a rifle if a bear was charging me, but I consider this a last ditch weapon if something caused me to need it in case of a failure of my primary weapon, or the inability to get it into action in time.
As for my primary, I have two options which I alternate between depending on how I’m feeling, or If I’m in an area where I may see more fellow adventurers. My typical first choice is an Ar-10 pattern rifle chambered in .308 (Aero M5). With animals like bear, you will want a deep penetrating round in order to deliver enough damage and get through to the vitals especially if shooting it head on. A controlled expansion, bonded core or a solid copper bullet would be considered ideal for this purpose. You wouldn’t want to shoot a bear who is charging you and just make it angrier, because while you may have delivered a fatal shot, what you want is immediate stoppage, or as close to it as possible. Here’s an interesting article on ammo choice for bear.
If I want to be a bit more “under-the-radar” and not carry a magazine-fed battle rifle, I will bring along a lever-action Marlin 1894. This is a 7-shot .44 magnum rifle with a 16″ barrel and I load it with hard cast ammunition from Grizzly, or Buffalo Bore in the heaviest weight available. Hard cast bullets stay together and penetrate deep, so you can get more effective stops on dangerous animals.
Now one thing to note, is that I absolutely love bears, and would hate to have to shoot one, but I understand the nature of wild animals, and I am not willing to be attacked by one in order to keep myself from having to dispatch an aggressive bear. Same holds true for any animal unless I intend to harvest its meat for sustenance.
Some other threats to your safety while in the woods are venomous snakes, and it would be unwise to ignore the danger they can pose. In most cases they will avoid you, but there are circumstances where you may cross paths with them. The best course of action is to back away and maintain distance. Go around them, and when stepping over/onto logs or rocks, step up, and then jump over the other side so as to not inadvertently step too close to a place where they could be laying.
9mm Snake Shot
There does exist ammunition such as snake shot, which are small shot contained in a plastic bullet, but there shouldn’t be many instances where this would be necessary. These can also present issues with reliable function in semi-autos, so testing would be advisable if you find yourself wanting to have this as an option in places where there is a larger snake population.
There aren’t likely too many Circumstances where that would be needed and it would be wrong to shoot something simply because it’s dangerous. Plus, snakes are beautiful and magnificent creatures, and you’d be a jerk to hurt anything for any reason other than a threat of immediate risk of great bodily harm. We are after all in their home, and they deserve the respect to roam freely, unharmed.
