Glad to hear that SLR, I have been using a Marlin 336 30/30 for some time now, but I have often considered taking out my H&R with .243 barrel.. I may well run into a black bear also, and some claim my .243 is too light. My load is 85 gr Speer"gameking", 37gr Varget..should be doing about 3200 fps. I also have some with 40gr IMR 4895 pushing the same 85gr to about 3300 fps. What do you think ?