Hypothetical situation, being asked by a guy who doesn't find himself in _big_ bear territory very often (or at all):
If you were going on a trip - camping, fishing, etc, basically anything EXCEPT hunting - and you knew you were going to be in bear country (like Alaska, for example), what type of firearm would be best to have with you to defend yourself against bear attacks?
I ask for 2 reasons: One is that I am beginning research on a camping trip that will put me in big bear country for probably the first time in my life (I was in some remote parts of Maine but I don't know that even those bears were as dangerous as what I may be talking about). The second reason is that I just got finished watching one of those "I Survived" type shows about a guy who was attacked by a grizzly bear while hunting.
This guy was hunting deer, I think, and had what seemed to be a standard bolt-action deer rifle, probably a .30-06 or the like. He was surprised by a bear, which basically came out of the woods at what he said was 25 yards away. The guy got off one round, and thought he missed, and the bear was on him before he could cycle the bolt again.
It turns out that he did not miss - he hit the bear, but it simply enraged the animal. It lived long enough to maul this guy pretty bad and run off, and game wardens found it dead in the woods after the guy was rescued from a single gunshot.
The bear was a grizzly. They never discussed the hunter's rifle in any detail, so no mention of caliber was made, but they did imply that it was bolt action. I ask this question because I was surprised by the idea that this guy's rifle wasn't enough to protect him, and began wondering what WOULD be enough. I mean, do you need a Barret .50 cal., or would it be sufficient to have a smaller caliber in something that is semi-automatic?
For now, let's set aside discussion of what's legal to carry where and such; although it's not something you can ignore, for now I just want to make this a simple question of what has the power to stop and angry, charging grizzly. Obviously, there are things you should be doing WAY before you're relying on a rifle - like keeping a clean campsite, storing food in proper containers, eliminating/reducing food odors, cleaning fish away from camp, etc.