So are you all saying that it does not matter...10mm glock, S&W .500...might as well have a .22 rimfire or .38 snubnose, bear wins regardless of caliber & skill-level?
Every year in Anchorage at the "fur rondy" the state auctions off bear pelts taken in "defense of life and property". I don't know what an average year is, but in 2009 there were 117 pelts for sale. That's 117 bears killed in defense of life and property. Doubtless, many of those bears were nuisance kills rather than self-defense kills, but that's a lot of bears in a state with a small population.
In the same vein, there may be anywhere from 5 to 10 people mauled per year, with perhaps 2 or 3 deaths. In some years, nobody at all dies.
With those rough numbers, it's safe to say that being armed puts you well ahead of the odds. Yet, that's deceptive because most of those bears are killed by hunters with rifles. Hunters are the ones out there at the hungry time of year packing raw meat around, hanging meat near their camp, etc. When a hunter has to shoot a bear, he's got some pretty heavy artillery at his disposal and he's probably got a friend or two also shooting. People don't hunt alone up here.
Still, the way I see it, you'd better plan on getting one shot at best. And you'd better plan on that shot being less than perfect. If you have a caliber heavy enough to go really deep you might hit spine or even the pelvis at the rear. Anything that knocks the bear down or even slows him up increases your odds of getting a second or third shot.
If you shoot a bear right in the nose with even a 9mm, he's probably going down right there. There's nothing but some thin bones between the nasal cavity and the brain, but making that shot is just... unlikely.
Brown/Grizzlies are ambush predators. They are not Hollywood bears who stand up and roar, then waddle at you while you gun them down. 90% or more of these events happen when you either walk up on a bear in brush and he silently charges from close range or he silently stalks in and rushes you, usually from the rear. They don't start the rush until they are very close and a bear can run at 35 miles per hour. There's not much time.
