I've used the 30-06 with 180 psp bullets for many years in the more open areas. In the tighter woods/brush i use a marlin 444s with 265gr sp bullets plus its a great brush gun. Back in 94 i wanted to bump up from the '06 so i could do a fly in special hunt someday and i picked up a remington 700 in 338win mag. with 225gr psp bullets after looking at all the ballastics at that time. The 338win mag has 4,000ft lbs @ muzzle and 2,700ft lbs @ 200yds thats the muzzle energy of an '06 @ 200yds. Its kind of big for blackbears but it does kill them dead on the spot.

My next move is to reload my 444 marlin with 270gr & 300gr bullets to teat them out.

My only close call that we ever had was in the thick pines were i probably shouldn't of been that very thick stuff anyway. What ever we jumped was going the other way when we spooked it. I been tracking bears with 13" paws in a few different places in the mountains. They say that bears don't get that big. I like having enough gun to handle any shot/game now. We hunted bears since '73 and the hunt is the most fun. More fun than the kill.