Well, during my 20+ years of active forestry employment and most of that was alone for extended periods in some of BC's most remote areas without breaks, there was no bearspray. I have tried it on fighting male Rottweilers, found it useless in that scenario and just do not trust it in the mountains of BC-AB, given the swirling winds, etc. YMMV and I do not debate bearspray as it is one of those kinds of topics that just gets everyone riled to no good end.
So, my preference has always been for a CRF rifle that I am so familiar with that I can operate it in pitch dark and this is one consideration where the Kimbers are concerned. I has one on order from an Albertan shop in 2006, when I turned 60 and my wife insisted I buy it....I married "smart" too.....
and after I examined the first few Montanas to come into Vancouver, I decided that they were not for me.
I dunno, by the time you have a good smith cut the excess weight off a Classic short Mod. 70, install custom alloy bottom metal and then get a good barrel and so on, customizing a Montana is going to cost serious coin. I wish that we could buy the actions and stocks and they had a Mod. 70 type bottom metal option, don't care for blind mags in BC weather and then, send it all to Kolenbrander and get back a pretty fine working .35Whelen, but, that is still 5Gs, at least.
