AdventureBound;
Top of the morning to you sir, I trust that the start of the second week of the year has been good to you thus far and you're well.
Since you're reading material by the late James Gary Shelton, if you've not read his other two books on bears, in my opinion they're worth a read.
He lived in Hagensborg which is half way up the BC coast to Alaska where there is no shortage of bears. As well as being a bear guide for awhile, he became the one who got the call all over the province to do bear attack investigations and finally he developed and taught a bear survival course which was mandated for some work by WorkSafeBC - the worker's compensation and safety body for the province.
Because of that background he was able to get a pretty broad overview of negative interactions with bears, not only in hunting situations.
To be clear here I'm not trying to start a bladder pressure contest with anyone and there's a thousand roads to Mecca, but his books convinced me that buckshot in a shotgun was not a prudent option and that all slugs were not created equal for that matter.
Again if some of the gentle readers here have killed bears with Brand X buckshot, that's more than I have with buckshot from X or Y and like as not I'll not convince them it's not the Hammer of Thor for the task.
More or less where I'm at now as far as projectile choice, I'm looking for a minimum of 24" of straight penetration, then practicing enough to hit where I need to and praying the combo carried that day will be up to the task if needed.
Hopefully too, it goes without saying I'm praying even more fervently that I don't need to test out my theories on any of the increasing numbers of interior grizzlies popping up in our neighborhood.
All the best to you in 2024.
Dwayne
