slugs or buckshot for bear?

[Lanius]

Well.. if it doesn't slow you down at all, why do people keep talking like it does?

[KodiakBeer]

I don't know. The whole design and purpose of a shotgun is for rapid and accurate snap shooting on pheasants, quail, rabbits, etc. The safety is under your thumb and it's disengaged as the barrel is swung onto the target.

[Loosedhorse]

I would have thought the answer to the OP question is obvious:

Birdshot is for birds. Buckshot is for bucks. Until they make bearshot, I'd use slugs.

[Old Grump]

Until they make bearshot, I'd use slugs.

Slugs is bear shot.

[Wildcat Charlie]

Anyone that thinks black bears aren't dangerous because they're smaller than brown bears is just not paying attention. They are very dangerous. And I'm sorry but the stuff about black bear attacks never happening isn't true anymore either. In the past two decades black bear populations have exploded and so have the number of attacks on humans. It wasn't that long ago that a hiker was killed in Kentucky by a black bear. That was in the Red River Gorge near Natural Bridge. I've hiked that trail he was on many times.

I also had a bear stalk me and my wife in Virginia not more than a mile from the KY border. It was in Breaks Interstate Park and people have been feeding bears there so it probably saw us as a source of food. We were about a mile off the pavement on a trail at the time. That was not a fun experience.

Slugs are the way to go against a bear. Even black bears have thick skulls which are sloped away from the brain from every forward angle. So any bullet that hits the head will have to be able to penetrate lots of bone that is angled like tank armor.

I have lots of bears here where I live too btw. I've had many encounters with them. And if they happen to be near a source of food (like my neighbor's grain barrels) they won't always run away without something to scare them. I use firecrackers or bottle rockets. If I do have a problem I'll either be using a 12 ga. with Brenneke Black Magic 3" slugs or my .44 magnum revolver. I carry one or the other ever since the bears started eating my dog's food all the time. I feed the dog indoors or right by the front door now. I've pretty much ran them out of the yard but they will show up sometimes still. If they do decide to make a meal of me I hope to be prepared. That's all we can do besides just giving up.

BTW I also have bears on my farm. I had a close encounter with one there too. Up until about 10 years ago I never saw a bear in this area. Now I see them everywhere. It's just like it was with deer. They went from being pretty rare to having herds of 50 or more roaming the area almost overnight. I haven't seen 50 bears at once but I've seen a bunch of them.

Just for the record I live in southern Ohio and my farm is across the river in Kentucky. That's where I grew up.