How many bears have you personally encountered @Ulfreida? Myself about 6. Lost count, it’s a side note of my life. Like the moose that graze our yard.
I have had personal encounters with Black Bears staking out our house. Pots and Pans would not scare them off. A shot of a large weapon into the ground did.
My advice - Do not lecture about things that you do not know.
To be fair, I am not sure this is a case where you can find one example where someone killed an adult grizzly with a pistol and say that pistols are a reliable defense against grizzlies.
I admit to no experience with guns or bears but it seems obvious these are large, powerful animals. It seems a charging grizzly will only go down with a head shot (seems to me the heart is an unlikely shot to make) and their skulls are thick. You’d need a very good hit to get in there.
Can it be done? Sure, as was shown. Is it something you want to bet your life on? I am guessing probably not.
Moderating:
This is veering into thread shit territory. If you think there’s no useful discussion to be had, this is probably not a good thread for you.
Moderating:
@Ulfreida: As your last post is nothing more than a major threadshit and this is the second post that needs moderation in this thread, I will do for you what you should have done on your own.
You are no longer allowed to post in this thread. I won’t give you a warning though.
Can it be done? Apparently so. Could you take out a leg with a different wild shot? More likely. And you may be able to at least slow it down.
You will not out run it, that’s for sure. Hell, I’d shoot with .22 to try to dissuade it.
Me too. I mean, if you find yourself in that situation you go with whatever you got. As you said, you won’t out run it.
Amazingly enough I once read that a .22 has killed every major game animal on Earth including an elephant. But to a charging bear it would be like a bee sting. As for the talk of shotgun slugs I would prefer the slimmer waisted slugs that are hardened and designed to penetrate:
https://forum.cartridgecollectors.org/t/want-pictures-of-sabot-slugs/44652
Or the solid “Russian” style:
Lots of black bears. They’re our neighbors.
No grizzlies.
And that is a suspension for ignoring moderator instructions.
Moderating
I’m going to keep this as just until Monday.
In this thread and elsewhere, there have been mentions of black bears, at least, mostly ignoring humans and just going about doing bear things. Grizzlies are far more dangerous. But in my one-time experience one has to be cautious around any bear, including the black bear.
One year when a friend and I were camping in remote wilderness – a designated wilderness park, but remote nonetheless – it was apparently a poor season for the berry crop and hungry bears were foraging farther than usual, including into small towns. At one point we’d had a mama bear and her two cubs visit our campsite twice. We had properly strung up perishable food on a rope between two trees where they couldn’t reach it, but Mama Bear got into supplies that we thought would be safe, like canned goods that Mama Bear actually opened with her teeth.
I was getting a little concerned, but the problem was solved for us when the bears went over to another campsite across the lake where some foreign tourists did not know enough to keep food out of their tent. The bears barged in for the food, and though the couple wasn’t hurt, they were terrified and their tent was completely demolished. It was their report to the park office that sent a couple of park rangers our way, armed with both a tranquilizer gun and rifles.
They asked if we had encountered the bears. Then they kindly offered to paddle off across the lake so as not to further disturb us. I begged them to stay! They fried up some aromatic steak over a campfire to attract the bears, and sure enough, in comes Mama Bear and the two cubs. The plan was to tranquilize Mama and then relocate her and the two cubs much farther north.
Sadly, Mama Bear was unhappy about being stared down by us and the two rangers, and rose up on her haunches in a distinctly aggressive move. I still think she should have been tranquilized but this was too much for one of the rangers and he shot her. I think I’ve posted about this incident before. It was one of the most horrible things I’ve ever experienced.
The good news was that the two cubs were later found and were successfully relocated, and park staff told me they had seen evidence that the cubs had learned to forage and were capable of looking after themselves.
But the moral of the story is that I wouldn’t regard even a black bear as necessarily benign, although I sure as hell wouldn’t shoot one unless it was a life or death situation. I would just keep my distance.
Ha! I was at the range with my cousin, shooting my .22 semi-auto pistols, one day when a local cop came in to practice for his recertification. Not only were we, two past-middle-age women who occasionally shot for fun, more accurate than he was, I wound up lending the guy a screwdriver from my range bag when his gun jammed and he couldn’t get it unjammed. When we left he was on his cellphone to his sergeant seeking help.
Good advice for any wildlife bigger than a rabbit.
When I was in Canada I was talking to a ranger (or whatever they are called there) and had mentioned my seeing several black bears. I asked how dangerous they were and he said definitely keep my distance, do not approach but he also told me that many more injuries occur when people approach deer. They seem not so big and benign but if they get skittish they will rear-up and whack you in the head with their hoof. Apparently far more people are injured by deer than bears.
tl;dr Enjoy the wildlife from a comfortable distance and all will be better for it.
Although I did pull over on the side of the road once where mountain goats were hanging with people. They seemed fine with it. The rams with the big curled horns stayed some distance away keeping a watchful eye. I suspect if someone got too aggressive with the females/kids those rams would get involved.
By any chance did he have a thick French accent, and was his name Jacques Clouseau? 
Nope, bog-standard suburban north of Boston cop. Nice enough guy, no Dirty Harry.
Good advice. Sighting a black bear is not cause for freaking out, but neither is it an opportunity to “get a closer look.” The bear would likely run off if you approached. But it’s important to remember the vast difference between “likely” and “definitely” when dealing with a large animal that can easily kill you if it decides you’re a threat.
Black bears have ripped the door off of my shed twice. They also get into our cars. About 4 times now I guess. The advice is to not lock your doors because they will just rip the handle off.
Can’t really see into either my wifes or my SUV. So before approaching, I will fire a large round into the ground looking for any movement of the car on it’s springs. Then I will cautiously approach.
The way I see it, we are encroaching on their land, not the other way around.