Bear spray (pepper spray in large cans) is proven more effective bear defense, statistically, than guns. I owned forest land in British Columbia in an area with a dense population of grizzlies. Walking my property I could dangle a can of pepper spray on my finger like it was car keys. With pepper spray, you can immediately deploy it, basically can't miss, and it is proven effective at driving off bears. Occasionally a determined bear returns. It seems to me that the pepper spray is a rapid, almost sure-fire way of making the bear back off, giving you time to ready a firearm. And instead of a 30mph rushing bear, you're then aiming at a hesitating bear. Watch video of charging grizzlies and brown bears: their heads bob around and would make a really tough target.

Thanks for the comments.

Out of interest how many times have you sprayed a bear? Brown bear and black bears, please separate. Thanks.

Interested in how many times and how effective. Eg if still having to use a firearm?

I never sprayed either species of bear, or shot one. Didn't mention that I also lived a while in SE Alaska working on a remote site where the foreman asked me to bring my shotgun to work. Grizzly/brown bear attacks are a situation I've had to seriously consider and prepare-for, but haven't experienced.

On my BC acreage, the trees were so thick an encounter would have been at extremely close range. Much too close to even draw a handgun or un-shoulder a long gun. At the time my immigration status didn't allow a gun permit (I'm American) anyway. Dangling pepper spray on my finger I could have used it which -- per published info -- would be highly likely to cause the bear to leave or at least back off.

Studies consistently report that bear spray is significantly more effective than guns. Everybody thinks that if *they* had the gun, their results would be better than the average. This might have been true for Jim Corbett or WDM Bell with a .450 but is proven to be untrue for the majority. Anecdotally, I've seen numerous reports of people with guns failing to hit or stop bears,, of people shooting their own leg when a bear is on them, of people shooting hunting partners in the melée, etc.

This might be of interest, one of many articles to be found along with published studies:

http://www.bear-hunting.com/2019/8/firearm-vs-bear-spray

My last home was in a small BC mountain town where *black* bears literally roamed the streets. They were considered overgrown raccoons, just laughed off. It was nothing to walk past a house and see a black bear raiding the plum tree in the front yard, or see the neighbor trying to shoo them from his garbage bin on trash day. Scat was on the sidewalk on main street. Black bears routinely got into cars overnight, ate the sandwich wrappers from the back seat and pooped.

But if a grizzly was spotted, people spread the word and became cautious to the point of avoiding walking park trails etc.

A big grizzly is 1.5x the size of an African lion, and a big brown bear is 4x the size of a lion. They are considered far more ill-tempered and determined than black bears. Grizzlies and browns are two different regional populations of the same species, but the browns grow far larger.

I might be moving to Montana, again grizzly country. My unhesitating choice would be to carry spray and have it in hand in thick trees etc. Then also a revolver, in the expectation that I would have time to draw and aim if the spray at least backed off the bear. This is consistent with what I *read* about bears and see of their behavior in videos, and with my experience carrying and shooting handguns. It is based on what I think are reasonable assumptions, not macho posturing about guns or wishful thinking about spray.

Shotgun slugs are considered much more effective than handguns but depending on the activity I might not haul one around.