The problem is not that it won't kill a bear, it will. The biggest problem is that bears don't always go down on the spot and are difficult to track without a good blood trail. Their soft feet really don't stir things up much so unless there is snow it's hard to follow foot prints. They have very long hair and a lot of fat which clogs up the bullet wound quickly. In short: big diameter bullet equals good blood trail, small diameter bullet equals difficult if not impossible tracking situation. Make sense?
Makes too much sense for anyone who wants to hunt bear with a .243 to pay any attention to.
I've shot or been in on at least half a dozen black bears shot with .243 or 6mm, probably more like a dozen if I think awhile. We lost one of them that was hit at the back edge of the shoulder broadside. I was watching the bear through binos when the shooter hit it at about 90 yards, and I am sure the bear died, hit through shoulder into lungs with a 95 grain Nosler Partition. It was in heavy rain and rain forest and there was no blood trail past ten feet from the hit. I've posted on this earlier.
As anecdotal evidence favoring .243 for black bear, later the same day the same hunter with the same rifle and bullet killed a gorgeous dark chocolate black bear that dropped instantly on the spot. I've also seen bears killed with .22-250 (not to mention .22 rimfire, several bow/arrow combos and a tire iron) so .243 killing power is a given.
I'd not pick a .243 with any boolit as my first choice for hunting black bear, based on a fair amount of experience/observation. Our mileages does vary. Yet if that's all I had in hand I would hunt them with it and not feel much handicapped. I would limit my shot selection a little more than with say a .30 with heftier bullets. Go forth and ballistapply.
Scenar: agreed that black bears, like deer, are one of the easier animals to kill.
