MH, Our brown bear season just closed four days ago and it marked the 34th year that I have been guiding in Alaska. If I have learned anything it is that while they can be amazingly tough and tenacious when wounded, they are still flesh and blood and all it takes to kill them is a well placed, stoutly constructed bullet. The last hunter in my camp who used a .270 with 150 Partitions dropped his bear virtually within it's tracks ( although it did spin before dropping) It certainly didn't go 24 feet. Does that mean the 270 a "better" round than your 375 ? Of course not, but it certainly means it is adequate for the hunter who is a competent shot.
Calibers like your 375, and my 458, may help compensate for more marginal hits or put the big bears down a little quicker and keep them down a second longer, but they are certainly no more lethal.
Okay, but I am confused. You use a .458 Win for backup on, and for killing, big bears, right? Not a .270; not a .308; not a 30-06; not a 300 WM; not a .338 WM; not a .375 H&H; etc ..., but a .458 WM, right? Is there some value to that?
I don't care to read the entire thread, so at the risk of repeating what someone may have already mentioned:
Hunting a Brownie with a 270 loaded with stout bullets, and guiding a hunter for Brownies using a 458 are two different things.
I feel sure Phil wants to stop a Brown that is pissed off and coming, or headed for the alders with a 270, 30-06, 338, 375 or 416 through the guts from the less-than-stellar shooting from a client.
Nut
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