Your post makes me consider why I have this dilemma. And I haven't been thinking about bears - at least not primarily. The ones around here don't seem to be too big - although I don't really know.
I suppose it's a matter of weight, utility, and trajectory. These things considered together. Lyman and Lee have very anemic max loads for the .44 special and this makes the 5 shot GP100 look like a house gun. Shooting a 250 grain bullet at max velocities in the medium to high 700 fps range means lobbing the bullet at any longer ranges. Yet that same bullet edging over 1050 starts to reach out nicely and would likely still be fun to practice with.
Another thing I like about the .44 special. Is that there are a lot of low power loads tested. In the case that I was scrounging lead. I could, in a pinch, have a limited, but decent gun shooting softer lead in these slower power ranges. Not ideal, but more inspiring than the .38 special.
Your post about bears gets me thinking a bit. I've never hunted, but I have killed and butchered rather a lot of livestock. And I've killed more than a dozen cattle - all steers or bulls - heritage breeds in the 500 to 700 pound range. And I killed them all with a .22 long rifle HPs. I'd shoot them in the forehead, and nearly all went down shuddering, and then I'd close in and cut their throats down to the spine. I'm not saying a .22 is a bear gun. It's not. But since my farm days I haven't worried about bears the way some people do. But then, I'm not in Alaska either. And if I was, I'd probably do what you do.
I probably wouldn't buy a Taurus. Had one when I was a kid. After about 12 shots, it would lock up. I always assumed the cylinder got hot and expanded to pinch the frame.