I have a cabin in British Columbia, in grizzly and black bear country. An occasional lynx or wolf trots by, much to my admiration.
For years, I've brought my stock 1895 Marlin in .45-70 up there, as a cabin gun. Also brought up a 12 gauge pump at times, because cabin owners around the lake have a big celebration with a trapshoot each summer.
For bear, I'd bring the 400 gr. jacketed Speer bullet over 50.0 grains of IMR3031. For plinking rounds, I used the same bullet but loaded to about 1,200 fps (a kid would express an interest in shooting the big "elephant gun" on occasion, so I'd use the lighter loads for that).
The only modification I've made to my Marlin was to put a Williams peep sight on the receiver, then remove the target apeture for a "ghost ring" effect.
I sight my rifle in at 25 yards with the hot loads. I figure, if a bear is farther away than that I can retreat.
Which segues into my next point:
There is this dangerous assertion among many people to hold their ground and fire away.
Balderdash!
When it comes to a large predator like a bear, take any opportunity to retreat. Bears don't understand macho posturing, but they DO understand that you're challenging their authority and territory.
My late father always told us, "If a bear comes in the cabin, go out the windows. There's nothing in this cabin worth your life."
And he's right. If an angry or hungry bear comes through the door, he can HAVE the cabin.
We always parked our vehicles behind the cabin and left the keys in them, ready to go. I used to keep the .45-70 in the cabin, and the 12 gauge in the pickup with some slugs and buckshot handy, so you had a firearm in whichever safety you took.
I've never had a close bear call. I've had neighbors near my cabin have them, though. One guy stopped a black bear in the living room of his cabin with two shots from a .303! The black bear had torn off the screened porch door and his cabin door, to get to the food he smelled.
People will tell you that black bears are relatively benign. And that's true 99 percent of the time. But just like Man, animals can suffer from insanity and NO therapist can help them.
However, I have a greater trust in four-legged predators than I do in two-legged predators.
And that was another reason I brought a gun to the cabin each year.
Back in the days of the Hippies, a bunch of them in a VW bus showed up at the cabin of a neighbor, one afternoon. They said they were hungry and wanted to be fed.
The neighbor replied that he had some wood stacked over yonder that needed splitting.
"You here by yourself?" the hippies said, moving closer.
Reaching behind the door, Corey produced a .303 and said, "Yep, me and my .303!"
Then he fired a round at the ground between their feet.
"Boy, you should have seen those Hippies run!" Corey laughed about it later, telling us the story.
A funny story.
But it could have been a tragic one if he hadn't had the rifle handy.
