Naphtali,
When I read your post, my very first thoughts were that you need to seek out and listen to the advice of IDAHO 1945, aka Dick. He is a true SME when it comes to bears and handguns, having decades of experience hunting them with all manner of handguns in the Rockies. When I scrolled down and noted that he replied, I chuckled, and was glad to see that he had. May on the web often simply regurgitate what they have read elsewhere, and what they read is often information that has been read somewhere else. Idaho1945, has enough handgun hunting experience to fill numerous books and that includes bears of the Idaho/Montana variety.
For more than a decade I have been gently nudging him to write a book!
I would heed his wise counsel.
