Nice bear, Ripp. A Really nice picture would have been with his head in your lap.
: The camp I guide from, has a double 12 loaded with 575gr. Brenneke's for trouble bears. My own 'camp' gun, when doing gaurd duty for the cook and her kids, was my trusty little .458 2" with 560gr. flat nosed hard cast bullets at 1,860fps. I also had some 350gr. "X" bullets running 2,275fps for backup when guiding. While I would have prefered a 12 pump as noted in above posts, I hadn't worked up RB loads for my 12 at that time. Trouble with rifles, is the slow bolt time between the 'fire for a scare' shot and firing to protect one's hide. One sometimes just doesn't have time to work a bolt. When they want to, bears move like cats. A serious grizzly bear fight is amazing in it's blurr of motion.
: Pumps are still the fastest action - perhaps only for a few who are willing to practise. Most people wait until they've recovered from recoil before they work the trombone - all wrong. Working the action the instant of firing is what brings the gun down out of recoil and back onto target. The eye seemingly never leaves the target. Sights just get in the way at the close ranges necessary.
: Fellow a few years back, only 60 miles West of here, was walking along a trail and was jumped by a smallish 450 pound sow grizzly. She was protecting her moose kill just off the well-worn trail. The moose was not visible from the trail - similar to Ripp's story. The bear hit him from above, knocking the rifle out of his hands, and they rolled around for a spell, her biting him all over. He never heard her coming as is normal with a preditary attack - fast and low, no bluff intended by her as is sometimes normal. He managed to get his belt knife out and after many cuts, the sow moved off and died from having her corotids cut. He managed to crawl out to his truck and drive to town - not sure about his transport. He was lucky. He didn't even know at the time of the attack, that she'd ripped his legs up, he thought only his arms, shoulders and head, yet his thighs were badly bitten and torn. He was very lucky the femoral arteries weren't cut.
: Bear Awareness course I took some time ago, noted to carry a knife with at least an 8" blade. The standard 4" to 4 1/2" will barely reach the corotids and never the heart. It takes 8" to do that. The course also enforced that a 12 bore pump with slugs was the best face to face defence. They were talking about 1-1/4 ounce Fed slugs, not the 1 ounce or smaller sabot bullets which are generally no more effective than handguns. The bullets they shoot generally lack penetration, just like the 1 ounce pure lead Fosters. The 1 ounce and handguns have worked in the past, but the 1-1/4 ounce are better. Solid WW alloy round balls are the best of all.
: In a 12 bore, a Wheel/Weight .715" to .725" (for cylinder chokes) round ball, weighing 530gr., held in a trap wad, petals cut off at 1/4" to 3/8" height, loaded over a heavy field load (Hodgdon's longshot)for 1 1/4oz shot load, running 1,400fps to 1,550fps kicks no harder than a heavy 1-1/4oz duck load and deliveres the same punch as the African 12 bore 7 dram BP 1880's load heaviest of the 12 bore African loads. If recoil means power to you, load the plastic case with 190gr. 2F, cup wad and the round ball. The recoil is quite memorable, but delivers no more power than the light kicking 1-1/4 ounce shot load. Juggling powder charges slightly, along with wads, can give you a very powerful, deeply penetrating load, one that will break both shoulders of a bear or go full length. Either tends to relax them quickly.