By Jim Dickson | Contributing Writer
Bear Creek Arsenal is a new gun maker with a state of the art factory turning out precision machined guns of the highest quality.
For their Grizzly 102 pistol they have taken the basic Glock design that has become so popular and tweaked it, making their own version. Quality is at least as good as Glock and perhaps somewhat better if the number of Glock owners rebarreling their Glocks with Bear Creek barrels is any indicator. A side by side comparison between the two is revealing and shows just how hard this new company is trying to please their customers.
First up is the price. The Bear Creek Grizzly 102 sells for $295 and the best price that could found on a comparable Glock was $499.99 at a clearance sale.
Glock has a good limited lifetime warranty which you must register within 30 days of purchasing your pistol. Grizzly has a 30 day free look period. If you decide that you don’t like it you can return it within 30 days for a full refund with Bear Creek Arsenal paying for shipping back to the factory. Repairs are free and Bear Creek pays the return shipping to the customer.
Glock’s grip angle is 22 degrees while the Grizzly is 20 degrees.
The Glock has no serrations for cocking in front of the ejection port. The Grizzly has both serrations in front of the ejection port and a slide cut.
The Glock has a white outline rear sight and a white dot front sight. The Grizzly has photo-luminescent sights.
The Glock has no RMR cut for optics while the RMR cut is standard on the Grizzly.
The Glock has finger grooves while the Grizzly has their Bear Fur Stippling.
Focus on Grizzly
Now for a further examination of the Grizzly 102. The trigger pull as measured by a Lyman mechanical trigger gauge from Brownell’s Gunsmithing Supplies was 7 pounds, 14 ounces. The gun weighed 1 pound, 6 ounces and measured 6 ¾ inches long by 4 7/8 inches high and 1 1/16 inches wide.
There is an M1913 Picatinny Rail in front of the trigger guard.
Barrels can be unthreaded or threaded for suppressors with a ½ X 28 thread. There are lots of barrel options. You can get rose or gold titanium nitride options or black nitride finish. The sample gun tested came with a 416R stainless steel barrel left in the white. 416R refers to rifle barrel grade 416 stainless steel specially made for gun barrels. You can also get the Bear Claw spiral fluted barrel or the Black Wolf straight fluted barrels. In both cases the barrel is black nitride and the flutes are left bright for contrast. One barrel version even comes with a compensator.
The Grizzly 102 comes with two 15-round magazines and it will also accept Glock magazines. For those who like high capacity magazines, why not go whole hog and get some of the 34-round extended magazines available from Ammunition Depot in Charleston, South Carolina? While they may stick out a bit for holster carry they offer the home owner plenty of firepower within a compact pistol.
Shop keepers especially should take note of this as looters mobbing a store in mass has become a thing in recent years.
These magazines take the high capacity pistol to the next level and they worked reliably when I tested them. A fully loaded 34-round magazine weighs just over a pound and brings the weight of the pistol up to 2 pounds 5 ounces, which is certainly not excessively heavy. Having had abundant experience with Luger pistols with the 32 shot snail drum magazine I can attest to the fact that there are situations best handled by such a rig.
For those wanting a Luger snail drum and loader these are currently manufactured by Gun Parts company (AKA Numrich Arms) in West Hurley, New York and they function perfectly just like the originals.
I had 1,750 rounds of 9MM ammunition to fire through the test sample consisting of the following:
150 rounds of Privi Partizan 115-grain JHP
50 rounds of Privi Partizan 115-grain FMJ
50 rounds of Privi Partizan 158-grain FMJ subsonic
500 rounds of Black hills 115-grain FMJ
500 rounds of Black Hills 115-grain JHP
500 rounds of Black Hills 100-grain Honeybadger
The Black Hills Honeybadger is a unique bullet combining the best features of a solid and an expanding bullet for it has the penetration of a solid yet leaves a wound cavity like an expanding bullet. This miracle of design is accomplished by deep flutes in the bullet that are larger at the front than at the back. These flutes compress the blood and tissue like the nozzle of a garden hose forcing them out away from the flutes 35% faster than the bullet’s velocity creating a cavitation effect that creates a large wound channel.
The Grizzly digested everything that I fed it without so much as a hiccup. It pointed well and was easy to hit with.
Cleaning was facilitated by the ease of field stripping. Simply unload the gun, take out the magazine, clear the chamber and pull the trigger. Now pull the slide back slightly and depress the slide lock which enables you to push the slide forward and off the pistol frame. The recoil spring and the barrel can now be removed. The pistol is now field stripped and ready for cleaning.
Be sure to only use solvents labeled safe for polymer framed pistols. This is about as simple a field stripping as you will ever see and is a far cry from some guns that are a mechanic’s nightmare to take apart and put together. A gun that is too hard to field strip may end up not being properly maintained or even be the cause of taking it to a gunsmith for reassembly.
After the firing tests, the Grizzly was cleaned using the compact Otis cleaning kit in its take-along plastic box and Otis cotton cleaning patches. Otis also makes the Shooter’s Choice Polymer Safe Quick Scrub solvent that will not harm polymer pistols unlike some solvents which will dissolve polymers. The pistol was then lubricated with Ballistol oil from Ballistol U.S.A. which forms an emulsion when rain hits it and as long as the emulsion is 5% Ballistol the water will evaporate without rusting the gun.
Since we have had an unusually heavy rainy season here in the Appalachian Rain Forest of North Georgia that protection becomes critical.
Ballistol can also be used as a bore cleaner and if you are dealing with black powder you can mix it with water at a rate of 25% Ballistol and 75% water. For corrosive primers use 10% Ballistol and 90% water because salt is only soluble in water. Ballistol will not attack polymer plastics so it is safe for this gun.
Use Good Holster
For a holster, El Paso Saddlery makes a fine pancake holster for this gun called their Dual Duty as it has three belt loops allowing it to be properly angled for carry on either side so that you may draw conventionally or make a cross draw. The latter is more convenient when carrying a shotgun or a rifle on your strong side as it prevents the rifle or shotgun rubbing and banging on the pistol.
Leather holsters are softer and more comfortable than Kydex and don’t break when hit a hard blow. El Paso Saddlery is one of our oldest and finest holster makers. They made holsters for John Wesley Hardin, the deadliest gun fighter in the old West and they also made the crossed cartridge belts made famous by Pancho Villa and his men. I have tested the Dual Duty with this gun and could not ask for a better design or higher quality holster. This is also the most comfortable and concealable holster possible.
El Paso Saddlery can also supply single and double magazine pouches for this pistol. Users content with the spare magazine that comes with the pistol can opt for the single magazine pouch while those who buy a third magazine will be well served with the double magazine pouch.
The Grizzly 102 represents the best buy on one of the most popular designs sold today. Bear Creek Arsenal bends over backward endeavoring to take care of its customers and keep them happy. I really appreciate that, perhaps more than most people because I once had to get a lawyer in order to get a company to take back a defective gun that was actually unsafe to fire. You will never have that problem with this firm or their guns. I like that.
