We always hunted bears here in September over bait and in our experience black bears are not that hard to kill, but they are hard to find after you shoot them. They live in close proximity to dark over grown vegetation and wet swamps and ours have come out at last light. In September they are putting on fat for the winter and growing out their coats that soaks up blood like a sponge. Bears have soft feet and don’t leave scuff marks like a deer where they run. Your experience with mono copper bullets not doing a lot of damage on deer mirrors my own and for that reason I would not use them on a black bear. Maybe a TTSX, but the TSX left such a lousy impression with me, I’m done with Barnes entirely. A heavy 180 cup and core bullet to assure complete penetration for a larger exit wound would be my choice. Probably a Hornady Interlock, Nosler Accubond or a round nose Remington Core-Lokt. You are not going to have an ideal shot angle on a called in bear and hitting only one lung might lose your bear. In that case, I would try to break a front shoulder. Bears are bigger boned and heavier muscled than a deer. Use the ‘06.
A couple anatomical points...
Humans are lucky, each lung comes in its own sack (pleura) collapse a lung and the other is much more likely to maintain function for a while. Other critters are not so lucky.
Bears are much lighter boned than ungulates, the comparison is not even close. OlBlue shot a Kodiak bear and I cleaned a scapula. It was a beautiful sunny day and I took a picture of an orange-handled knife through the bone. It has been posted here many times.
Their bones are remarkably flexible and, I assume, very tough. They are not particularly hard.
Muscle is like water to bullets.
After many years of cup and core use I will take a solid copper every time.
