Polar Bear Attack Stopped with .500 Magnum

[Sanders]

On March 5, 2005, two people were attacked by a polar bear in the remote area of Kapp Lee, Edgeøya, in the Svalbard archipelago.

The .500 Smith & Wesson revolver had been on the market for just over two years when this occurred. The individual responsible for security had one of those big revolvers on his person.

This story was uncovered as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by AmmoLand. The names of the individuals involved were redacted. The original account is a translation with some grammatical and spelling errors.

What follows is the account, edited for readability. The names Paul and Sally have been substituted for the redacted names. This is what happened.

Paul, Sally and two more people were airlifted from Longyearbyen to Kapp Lee, Edgeøya, and landed at 2:21 PM. The helicopter flew the two other people a bit further away to install a digital camera to take pictures of Storfjorden.

Paul was responsible for the security of the research and security against polar bears.

He was very experienced with polar bears. He had numerous encounters but had never had to kill a bear. Paul and Sally had a dog with them, for additional protection against polar bears.

As the helicopter took off, Paul loaded their two weapons. He loaded the 30-06 rifle magazine with four cartridges. Then he loaded the handgun with five rounds in the magazine (cal. 50) and took out the flare pistol. (The handgun magazine almost certainly refers to the revolver cylinder, because of translation effects).

https://www.ammoland.com/2022/11/pol...th-500-magnum/

[aviator]

Mean round, that's a very big cartridge.

[JD Miller]

I better run out and get me one those 500 s/w magnums