never has this icon been so appropriate

There's a scale! At the far right of the cartridges is a Zippo lighter.

what size is right for large bears?

AIEEE GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE. That's my preference, anyway.

Folks who've done it say you want heavy bullets over .35 caliber, so with a handgun you'd be looking at the big revolvers, .44 Magnum and .45 Colt and up. I can't see hunting bear with a handgun, personally. Gimme a rifle, at least .45-70 Gummint.

A late friend had a doozy of a story about a bear: he was helping out at a scout camp when a trouble-making bear that had been presumed to be relatively small and inoffensive turned out to be a rather large and irritable grizzly. Which charged them. He still had nightmares, maybe thirty years later, about the bear charging, only in the dreams his feet were in pails that had been filled with concrete.

(The day was saved by an old fart -- a local, I believe -- who had joined the posse with a double rifle he had left over from an African safari, something ungodly like a .450 Nitro Express. None of their other weapons fazed the grizzly, but the old fart's first shot caused it to sit up, looking very startled, and his second shot dropped it when it started to come forward again. All eyes turned to the old fart, who said reverently, "God damn. Ain't never had to shoot nothin' twice with this before.")

Oh! didnt realize that was a lighter!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rifle_cartridges

Word on the street is that 12ga shotgun slugs are useful in that situation as well.

Thanks man, reading that quote on my RSS this morning killed off far more than my daily quota of brain cells. I think the splitting headache I'm getting is my poor gray matter screaming while it dies.

Priest
warriorpriests.blogspot.com