[darkgael]

I have never shot a bear, black, brown or white. That being said, one doesn't have to have had the encounter to know something about the situation.
There is more than a little silliness in some of the posts above as far as the big Bears are concerned.
More shots on target with a 1911? Maybe more shots....but on target? In the unfortunate situation wherein we might have to shoot a big bear, it will be charging..over broken ground and moving at close to 30 mph. Maybe I could hit the bear.....but the target is the CNS and much smaller than the whole bear.
Hitting that is another thing entirely.
And.....one has to get the gun out before shooting....unless you walk around with the gun in your hand. Kinda hard to do when you are walking through the woods to the river to fish and are loaded down with stuff (that I know from experience).
Bears have been killed with a .22 rim fire......no doubt. We are not discussing hunting here. We are discussing dealing with an upset bear who is charging at you. You don't want to just kill it, you want to STOP it. Right there and now. Please don't stick to the line that a .22 is a bear stopper.
Kill is one thing. Stop is quite another.
The last time that I was fishing along the Kenai in AK, I had to hike a couple of hundred yards through the scrub to the river. I was getting out of the car at the same time as another group of guys. There were three of them. Two carried the "stuff", the other carried a .375 H&H. I walked with them.
Pete