After talking to Sitka Deer, of Anchorage, 5+ years back before I headed North of Nome for my grizzly hunt, he convinced me that a grizzly is pretty lightly boned. He's been in on numerous kills and told me how he skinned out a Brownie's scapula and that is was nearly paper thin to a point he could see the shadow of his hand through it when held up to light.
Alan
I have a collection of bones acquired over the years. I am primarily interested in the size and shape of the humerus (upper arm, or in this case, the front leg) and scapula (shoulder blade) from various animals.
As noted above, even a brown bear scapula at its thinnest will allow some light though. The scapula is not the problem.
The humerus below the scapula however is a very heavy bone, and the extremely heavy ball at the end of the humerus that joins with the scapula is likely the most difficult resistance that a bullet might encounter. Consider that your choice of shots is not likely to be optimum under the conditions of a fast incoming blur of brown.
This head of the humerus is the size of large man's fist and is a thick and heavy bone. The humerus of a mature brown bear is perhaps a bit less heavy than that of a three year old bison. It is definitely heavier than that of a mature bull elk.
That is the bone to consider when wondering about Berger VLD bullets, and choice of cartridge perhaps. A grizzly humerus would probably be somewhat lighter than that of a brown bear, but I doubt it would likely be called light-boned by most people.
I would not trust a fast expanding bullet to defeat that heavy ball of the humerus and still have the mass and momentum to destroy vital organs and quickly kill a large animal.
I do not know about the Berger VLD as I have never used one. But I can tell you this for a fact. A 250 grain Swift A-Frame will completely destroy the head of the humerus of an adult bull elk at 13 yards when fired from a .338 Win Mag,, and will continue on to kill the elk.
That is not too much different from what might happen with an incoming grizzly and that is why I personally carry that load when hunting elk among the grizzlies.
Best of luck with your choices OP. I like that thought of the .338-06.
WyoM70
Gotta disagree with much of what you are saying... First, all leg bones in brown bears are relatively lighter than any ungulate and by a lot. It is tough, flexible stuff, not the huge bones of other critters.
Second, why are you worrying about shooting a charging bear in the ball of the humerus? They usually come straight at ya... At least when charging...
Mark Begich, Joaquin Jackson, and Heller resistance... Three huge reasons to worry about the NRA.
