Sorry if I misunderstood. Thanks. If I see a shootable moose before a bear this time, I probably will go for that, which would mean salvaging the meat and probably foregoing a bear. But there are more bear than moose where I'm going (probably because the bad bears are eating the moose(s)).
I'm not going to take a shot while guided that my guide asks me not to take. But it goes without saying that some rounds can produce better results in some circumstances than some others. I tried to illustrate that above. I can't believe you don't believe that. As an extreme, you wouldn't take the same shot at any animal with a bow as you would at the extreme range of a 30-06, 7mm or whatever. In my opinion, a 45-70 is about as good as it gets at close range on just about any bear, but I personally wouldn't shoot any animal with a 45-70 at some middling ranges that I would feel fine with taking with other rifles. My guide and I both seem to have the same common sense on things. But it's more my limitation than his. He might ask me if I felt comfortable taking a shot (he actually seems to trust my judgment, and part of the equation is the guided shooter's comfort, not just that of the guide who is not looking through the sight and taking the shot).
Last hunt, he saw me pass up a shot where he gave me the go ahead, and I waited briefly before I took the, even better, one I took because I wasn't confident of the shot with the bear passing into some alder brush. I waited for the bear (hopefully) to come out more in the clear. So, he might think something looks okay, and I might decide to pass it up. It's not that he's dictating that I must shoot no matter what I'm seeing through my scope. Then, there's the actual performance of the bullet. It can't be surprising that some bigger bullet moving fast might do better on an angled shot on a large animal than a smaller bullet moving slower. If not, there's no reason to hunt brown bear with anything other than a .223.
You're focusing too much on the guide thing. If I moved to Alaska (I'd like to, but can't now) I would be hunting without one. But I think my guide and I see eye-to-eye on all this. A good guide paired with a good hunter involves some delegation and discretion. It's NOT a guide seeing a shootable animal and always saying from several feet away "now shoot! ... what are you crazy?! I said shoot damn you!!!" My guide is not going to MAKE me take a shot I don't feel comfortable with even if he says it's okay. Last time, my waiting a minute risked the possibility that the bear would run off in a direction making him practically unshootable before I got a chance to shoot. But by taking that risk, I ended up with a better shot after he broke out into more open area that perhaps avoided the need for my guide to track a wounded bear. Could I or someone else have made the earlier shot? Probably. I'm just fairly conservative in my shooting when hunting. And what I'm willing to shoot personally depends to me on a lot of factors including the animal's posture, movement, and distance, etc ... and ... what weapon I'm shooting. It's just me. Silly, I know. I know it's really hard to believe, and I don't expect that, but if I moved to Alaska, and was not legally required to have a guide, I might not take ridiculously stupid shots at a brown bear and might not refuse to take ridiculously easy ones. Could someone have terrible judgment just because he doesn't reside in Alaska? Perhaps, but not necessarily.
