AK375DGR;
Good morning, I hope the last Sunday in March finds you and yours well.
The local sheep guides sometimes will pack a rifle and sometimes not, depending mostly on the guide I'd say and where they're going. What I mean by that is if they are likely to pack meat in the Okanagan sun, the pack going in is pretty empty.
When they're guiding for black bears however, most of them seem to be armed, though not always as there was an incident 20 odd years back where a grizzly was stalking a black bear hunter and guide and the guide had the hunter shoot the grizzly finally. It was close apparently as it was subject to the CO's investigating it. I'm not sure if that guide now packs or not, but like as not I would.
A buddy of mine used to guide for black bears and the occasional grizzly up where hoytcanon did and in his case he used a Sako .375 H&H with a low powered Leupold variable. This was in the days when the early non-grooved Barnes X was on scene and he shot enough of them that it coppered the barrel up to the point where he said he couldn't get it to group anymore and resisted all his efforts to remedy the situation.
His boss packed a .338 Win Mag, not sure what rifle though sorry, but he said he never saw much difference in terminal performance on bears that needed a helping hand shuffling off this mortal coil.
I will say I do recall his Sako being nicer to shoot off the bench than a Ruger .338 Win Mag I had at the time, but that could be stock shape too. I'll note we both felt that way and he's a larger specimen than I am - but that doesn't take much as I'm no giant.
Having had all the black bears be good bears and run away from me until one didn't, I personally do not go into the hills on purpose without armament unless not legally allowed to such as in a National Park - but that's me.
Thanks for the interesting thread and all the best to you as we head into warmer and longer days.
Dwayne