Thanks everyone. I'm going to look into the 35 Whelen a little more. It seems to be fairly popular caliber in AK and more than capable of taking a brown bear. I won't be hunting browns for a few years but I would feel more comfortable with something a little heavier than the 06 when I'm in the thick stuff and there's a chance of a close range encounter with one.
If I ever get home for some real time hopefully I can find someone local with some big boy guns I can fire at the range for recoil comparison. I grew up hunting whitetails with 3" mag 12 ga slugs but I don't exactly enjoy them when sighting the gun in.
The .35 Whelen is quite a nice cartridge, but not necessarily very popular in Alaska, maybe because ammo is readily available only for the most popular (.30-06, .300WM, .338WM, .375H&H, 7mm Magnum, .270, .45-70, and so on). But all of this makes no difference if you reload to the .35 Whelen, or any other cartridge for that matter.
As others have mentioned, there is nothing wrong with the .30-06 and ammo loaded with 180-grain bullets.
Read this thread:
http://forums.outdoorsdirectory.com/showthread.php/140874-Tiniest-bear-I-ever-shot
