AK: Grizzly Bear, Two 10mm Pistols, 5 yards, July 19, 2025

On July 19, 2025, Brett TerBeek and his hunting partner Andy were scouting for a moose hunt in the interior of Alaska. They were 60 miles up a remote river, about 3/4 of a mile from the river bank toward some high ground. They carried 10 mm Glock model 20 pistols in chest holsters for self defense. A huge grizzly charged them from 10 yards in thick cover. They stopped the bear at 5 yards with 16 shots of controlled rapid fire. Tyler Freel has been documenting the incident. From outdoorlife.com:

Brett told me that as Andy said that, he turned and saw the huge grizzly’s head rise from the brush, only 10 yards away. The boar locked onto them and laid its ears back as it sidestepped the moose carcass he had been on. He came lunging straight through the brush toward both men.

“Andy fired the first shot,” says Brett, “and I remember seeing a perfect sight picture in the center of the bear’s mass as I squeezed the trigger.” 

Both Brett and Andy served as Green Berets for a decade before going to PA school together in the Army, and Brett credits his years of service using the 9mm Glock G19 for being able to fire rapid, controlled shots with the larger-but-similar 10mm Glock G20. 

In Tyler’s article, Brett recounts the shooting.

“He was crashing through the brush directly at us and, afterward, branches were all broken and plowed over and we found at least two that our bullets struck. When he got to about five yards, he turned to his right to step into a more clear path towards us and we kept shooting. As he moved into that open lane, I knew I had at least one or two of the fifteen rounds left — I hadn’t been counting — and I needed to save those until he got right on top of us.”

Additional information was found in a podcast interview of Brett by Tyler Freel.

The incident happened somewhat after 5 p.m.

Brett and Andy knew they had to skin the bear to turn the hide and skull over to the Alaskan authorities. They did not want to have to go to the boat and come back to the moose kill where they shot the bear, as there might be other bears attracted to the kill. They spent about 4 hours skinning the bear using a knife and Leatherman they had with them.

Brett and Andy found the bear had been hit by 13 of their 16 shots. One shot hit the top of the head above the skull and went into the neck.  It may have hit the spine. Another shot broke out front teeth as it went into the mouth. Roughly 10 other shots hit the chest and ribs. 1 shot hit a front paw. It is possible the two shots which hit saplings continued on into the bear. Brett had considered leaving his Glock handgun at the boat.  Instead, he took it with him as a precautionary measure. Your seat belt doesn’t do you any good if you don’t put it on. Your pistol cannot be used to stop a bear attack if it is a mile away, back on the boat. Brett and Andy did not expect to be attacked. If you expected to be attacked, you would go somewhere else or do things completely differently. Both men had extensively practiced with their pistols.

Situational awareness and proper tactics were key to surviving this encounter without injury. The two men had caught a momentary whiff of decay, but could not tell what direction it came from. 75-100 yards later, Brett and Andy caught the strong scent of decaying meat. They immediately stopped and drew their pistols. This saved them a critical second in reaction time. They knew an attack was possible. They were mentally prepared. They did not have to overcome the mental set of “This cannot be happening to me.”  The shooting happened in a few seconds.  Andy had two shots left in his 10 round magazine. Brett had seven shots left in his 15 round magazine. Brett says the image of a perfect sight picture for his first shot is burned into his memory. Brett says all his shots were controlled fire.

Andy was carrying Federal premium rounds. In the interview, Brett said he had a smorgasbord of ammunition in his magazine, including Buffalo Bore hardcast 180 grain bullets. The ammunition had been given to him by writer Tyler Freel, who had used Brett’s pistol in a different article. Tyler had installed tritium night sights on Brett’s pistol. Brett said it was dark in the heavy brush, and the tritium sights helped with the sight picture.  

Defense of Life and Property (DLP) incident reports in Alaska are not available to the public. It is only because Brett knows and trusts Tyler Freel that this incident came to public attention.  Many successful defenses using handguns against bears are never publicly recorded. 

Most media is not interested when a bear is killed without any injury to humans. Most people at risk of bear attack do not know writers they trust. In Alaska, thousands of bears are killed without injury to humans every year. It is called hunting. It is not news. Some bears which are killed in self defense are recorded as bears harvested while hunting.  In at least one incident, it was recorded that Alaskan authorities prefer bear kills to be recorded as hunting kills, to reduce paperwork.

The number of recorded, successful defenses against grizzly bears, by people using handguns, has increased significantly in recent years. One of the reasons for this is the killing of a grizzly bear is required to be reported by federal law in the lower 48 states. It is required by Alaskan law for DLP incidents.

It is likely most successful defenses never reach the public eye because people are not injured. In the lower 48 states, if people are not injured, and charges are not brought, many cases have only been found because of diligent research and Freedom of Information Act requests.

If humans are injured or killed by a bear, there are much stronger incentives to publish articles about the incident.  It is the opposite of “survivor bias” in data selection.

©2025 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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