The Alaska Professional Hunter
APHA REMEMBERS
{ TOOLS OF THE LEGENDS { WRITTEN BY PHIL SHOEMAKER
Andrew (Andy) Robert Runyon was born in Maine in 1928. He was always attracted to hunting and firearms. During WWII he served with the merchant marines and after the war he enlisted in the Army, requesting Alaska as a duty station. In 1949 he became an enforcement agent for the USFWS and three years later met guide Lee Hancock and began working as a guide. By 1958 he was registered and began his own business “Exclusive Alaskan Hunts”. He built a homestead at Lake Louise and continued to work with both Lee and Bill Ellis in the Wrangell mountains. He really loved brown bear hunting and eventually narrowed his guiding to an area around Ugashik Lake on the Alaska peninsula and the Aliulik peninsula on Kodiak.
In well over 50 years of guiding in the state, Andy became known as one of the states very best brown bear guides. During his early guiding career Andy used a Winchester model 70 .375 H&H but a serious, dangerously close encounter with a wounded bear made him reconsider his choice of armament. He tried a 458 Winchester and, while he admired its close-range performance, he wanted a flatter trajectory in order to stop wounded bears from escaping. Fred Barnes, the founder of Barnes bullets, had developed a new “wildcat” cartridge design that utilized a 375 H&H case shortened and necked up, (or a 458 case necked down). It fired a 400 grain .411 diameter Barnes bullet 2400 fps. Despite the actual .411 bullet diameter, Fred followed English protocol by using bore diameter and christened the round the 404 B-J Express. Either Fred, or possibly Randy Brooks, the new owner of Barnes bullets, gave Andy his rifle.
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The last time I dropped in to visit with Andy he showed me a rifle and new cartridge he was designing. It was based on a combination of features from the .400 Schuler, the .400 Neidner and Charles Newton’s .400 Adolph Express. Basically, what Andy wanted and was designing was something very similar to the 416 Ruger. Had it been introduced before he died he would have his perfect bear rifle. This coming year, with the support of Ruger, we will be auctioning a .416 Ruger at our annual fundraiser, in honor of Andy Runyon, Alaska Master guide #34.
WINTER 2021 / www.AlaskaProHunter.org
Andy eventually lost the rifle in a cabin fire, but by then the .416 Remington cartridge had been introduced. It was a little longer than the .404 B-J express but a virtually duplicate in performance. Andy began using it but he was always thinking about and designing the perfect rifle. From his vast experience he had come to the conclusion that a short, .40 caliber magnum would best offer the performance he wanted in a rifle for hunting big bear. Andy liked his rifles short and lightweight and was looking for a cartridge shorter than the normal 375 H&H length. On the range the difference between the bolt throw of a full-length H&H cartridge and a standard 30-06 or Winchester magnum cartridge seems miniscule. But under stress, when a wounded bear is rapidly approaching, any time advantage seems huge.
