.45 ACP vs. Brown Bear

At 3:30 a.m. one morning, Jim Landess heard banging on his Sterling, Alaska, home. The pounding woke Jim's son, Montana, who ventured from his bedroom to the front room to see what he could see about the nuisance. He saw quickly when he opened the curtains: Turns out the nuisance was a brown bear. No surprise there: Alaskans are used to encountering brown bears. After all, the bruins are popular denizens of Sterling, which sits on the Kenai Peninsula. At least that's what Jim thought when he and the family dog joined Montana at the window.

Still, Jim grabbed his Hi-Point .45 ACP pistol, just in case, and fired a couple warning shots. The report of the gun, no doubt aided by a lot of yelling and barking, scared off the bear. Then everybody went back to bed.

Then two hours later the bear returned. And it banged on the house again, too. This time, the bear was on the porch. Its proximity posed a threat; if it kept banging, it might very well break through the front door. While encountering brown bears is rather normal for Alaskans, dealing with them inside their homes is not.

So Jim hustled upstairs, and from an elevated perch outside on a deck, he fired seven rounds into the "center of the bear" to prevent it from entering the house. The bear went "crazy" for a few seconds, Jim said, then ran about 50 feet and expired.

Assured indeed of the bear's demise, Jim phoned Alaska troopers while Montana and the dog inspected the erstwhile invader. Now, keep in mind Alaska authorities take a grim view of killing brown bears without good reason--like hunting or self-defense, for instance. Of course the latter reason kicked in for Jim, and at last report he will endure no legal problems.

This entire story is true and occurred in July 2014, as relayed to Charles Brown of MKS Supply LLC, marketer of Hi-Point firearms. At this point, clearly Jim Landess likes his Hi-Point, which he purchased for protection while fishing only three weeks prior to the aforementioned nighttime bear encounter at his home.

Who says you need a big-bore, high-powered rifle to defend yourself against brown bears? Looks like a $200 pistol does the job just fine--at least as long as you're perched tactically above your 450-pound target.