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I would go with the tried and true .303 Savage with 190 grain bullets. This is a bear I took under identical circumstance as you describe (70 yards over bait) a few years back. Went just under 400 pounds. The 190 passed completely through the bear heart/lung zone and he went 8 yards and piled up. Great performance from a grand old cartridge.
Darryl

Darryl, your post makes me feel better about using a 99 on elk.

I’ve knocked down a half dozen moose over the years with my 300 savage. It should work fine for bear. Nothing over 200 yards and open sites. Not a problem.

Congrats Trapper.

Those 303s having been doing the job for a while now.

303=panache.

If your fortunate enough to have one, use it.

I have killed 2 bears with a 99F in 300 savage and 150 Hornady SST (#30303) handloads. Did on fine job on both of them.

50 yard shots?

Did savage make a recurve?

.303…….would be awesome.

I am sitting in the bear stand with my 375 right now, but your comments on the 303 are too convincing! Tomorrow, I will definitely bring my old 303 instead.

Is the 375 in the Big Bore?

What fun. If that were my stable of 99s I would take the .358.

Then .375

Then .300

Savage 99 brush gun, chambered in 375 winchester.

I thought I'd stir the pot some more and post this chart of the Taylor Knock Out Value of different loads that I found. I did the calculator for the Winchester Partition Gold sabots I was using and got 52.25 more than double the KO value of a 30-06 which the chart shows totals 20 and well above even a .375 H&H magnum at 38.8.



The web site had this to say:

"The "Taylor Knock Out Index" was developed by John Taylor. John Talyor was an extremely experienced African hunter. His formula was based on killing thousands of large game animals with nearly any caliber you can imagine. This formula was designed to give you a relative momentum figure adjusted for bullet diameter. Taylor called it a "power yardstick" for African rifles. The higher the number the better. For example the 44 Magnum handgun, which most handgunners consider an acceptable hunting caliber with its standard 240 grain load at 1400 fps with a 0.429 diameter bullet gets a Taylor KO of 20 (try that above). A fairly typical 454 Casull 300 grain handgun load gets a Taylor KO of 30. A standard 12 gauge shotgun slug load gets a Taylor KO of 53."

Buddy and I went out this morning to fill his tag and saw two bears. I can tell you a 7 STW works pretty good.

If this damn bear gets into my trash again tonight I think I'll be trying out a 45-70 or maybe 300 savage.

.303 all the way

Love hunting bear! They are such interesting animals. I have been blessed to be able to watch probably 75 from elevated stands. On one of my most memorable hunts I had one bluff charge me as I climbed down from my stand.

It would be fun to shoot one with my .303, but so far I’ve taken two with my recurve bows. The biggest bear squared nearly 7’. If you hit them where you should they die pretty quickly. Both of mine died within about fifty yards or so.

I've taken all of my bears with 300 Savage. I got my first with a cheap cup and core bullet. Not recommended. I took so many lead fragments out from all sorts of odd places. Everything else has been with Nosler Ballistic Tip or Hornady SST 150 grain and every bear has been dropped close to where they stood.