28-8/16 must be the world record for archery it's sure not the biggest killed with a gun. I have 4 in my shop now about that size. The biggest is 28-11/16 and 3/4" of the nose bone is missing from a fight. It would be at least 30" if not much bigger! I know of a couple that are over 30" but those are very few and far between. 28" is the minimum just to enter a brownie with a gun, so 28.5 would not likely put this one even in the top 100 I bet. I'll check my book..................
Ok 28-8/16 will get you a tie for 213th place so it's certainly not a new world record bear but maybe for archery it is? B&C Record is 30-12/16" . That;s 2 full inches bigger.
Having cleaned 1000's of bear skulls in the last 12 years I can honestly say if it's green scored 1/16 over the Number 1 it will never dry that big!
I would guess it will lose a minimum of an 1/8" which is only a 1/16" in width and a 1/16 in length. If the skull gets boiled it will likely lose over a 1/4 inch, maybe much more. I shot a 8 year old black bear last year that scored 20-3/16" I let the bugs clean it and and then I let it dry for the 60 days. It is now just a tiny hair over 20" just under 20-1/16" barely making ithe minimum for the B&C records. That bear with much less mass lost just almost 3/16" so a bigger mass will likely lose more just by proportional mass.
The older a bear is the less it will shrink because the conneceting plates which make up the skull are usually fused together preventing them from moving or shifting when the skull dries. A young bear at 20" will end up well under 20" but a very old bear over 10 years old will likely retain almost all it's size unless boiled.
Green scores are difficult to have exact but almost never smaller then then the finished dry skull. There is a panel of ten people who must measure all top ten entries. They will all score the skull independantly and then average them for the final total. This only happens for the top skulls not every one of them. It's certainly a huge bear, nothing short of magnificent.
