A long time ago, my wife and I were camping on some timberland we own in northern Minnesota. It was spring. The land is about one mile from the road and very remote. We set up the tent about 50 feet from the truck and unpacked. We had our dog with us, a little mixed breed terrier named Robert. After dark the dog had been wandering around in the woods, but came tearing back and jumped into the tent. Robert would not come out of the tent, like he had seen a ghost. We did not think much about it, and eventually turned in for the night. We had a trusty old 30-30 Marlin in the tent loaded in the unzipped case.
About 6:00 am we awoke to the dog whining. Wife thought the dog needed to go out and got ready to unzip the tent to let him out. She noticed there was a large black bear about 5 feet from the tent chewing on the only thing we left out of the truck, a bar of ivory soap. The soap had been next to the fire pit and the fire was still smoking pretty well. She whispered that there was a bear just outside, I grabbed the rifle and creeped to the door to see if the bear needed to be shot.
He started walking away up a hill with the dog whining and freaking out in the tent. I watched the bear continue walking away and thought, I guess he will not need shooting this morning after all.
At about 30 feet, I think the dog noise got the best of him, he turned around and started eyeballing the tent (with two naked people and a small loud dog in it) I think he was seeing a delicious little hot dog!
At that point I was starting to think, wait a minute, he may need shooting. In a second, he lowered his head and began a low deep growl. I hollered at him so he would understand that there was more than one little loud dog in the tent. That seemed to be all he could take. He roared and started towards the tent wide open.
I knew he would need shooting at that point. I understand that most bears may do some false charge or stop short or rush past without any problem, this actually passed thru my mind, but I was laying naked in a tent with a loaded cocked gun pointing at him. He would be on us in an instant. I decided that if there was ever a good time to shoot him it was then. I blasted him the first time at about 20 feet from the tent. He went down, but he was not anywhere near dead. Since I shot up at him head-on from a prone position as he ran down the hill, I believe the shot traveled up thru his guts and disconnected his spine somewhere behind his front legs. At that point he really started roaring and flopping around, doing his best to swim towards the tent. I was doing my best to blast him more. I ended up stopping his forward progress, but I needed to reload the gun and shoot him a few more times before the last quiver was out of him. He finally died about 3 feet from the tent door. It was a shame since he probably never meant any harm and would have just rushed past or stopped on his own. (or not)
Minnesota is a state that allows someone to shoot a bear that is about to attack them. (as if it would have mattered) The bear never got quite close enough to bite or maul us, so I felt no need need to involve any game warden types. We got dressed and crawled out to look the scene over. The bear was in miserable shape, full of ticks and coated with mosquitoes. It was obvious that he had just woken up from his long winter nap. He was bigger than me and it was tough to drag him out of the trail and into the woods. There is no built in handle to drag a stinky bloody flea bit bear with. I believe he weighed more than 350lbs.
I realized that a 30-30 is a pretty poor gun to stop a bear with and you better plan on hitting him good enough the first time to allow yourself to shoot him some more. I do not know what kind of handgun would be able to do the deed, but we started bringing the .444 Marlin with 265 grain softpoint handloads along and the dog stayed home.
Robert was later killed while playing in traffic, the dog was always trouble, but still a good dog.
I wanted to pass this story along for those people who think there is no good reason to have a gun, maybe you may accidentally or unintentally shoot something that shouldn't be shot, but there are places and times in this world where stuff needs shooting. I was quite glad to be able to make the choice that morning.
I believe the first shot was enough to kill him. I was trying to do more than just kill him, I wanted to stop his forward progress also.
I had enough time as he charged to pick a spot and commit for the first shot. After he was down, roaring and flailing very close to the tent, many of the next shots were less aimed and more pointed. He was very mad and in no mood to hold still for that clean head shot that he needed.
I believe that the gun had five rounds in it when I pulled it out of the case, I keep a box of shells in the case with the gun, so after I fired till empty I needed to take my eyes off him to reload, and only put in about four more rounds. I suppose I shot at him 10 times, but only first shot allowed me to shoot some more. In the frenzy that happened after the first shot I hit him all over and missed a few times. At the time pointing seemed better than aiming. I probably could have shot him a few times less, but I had the gun out, it would need cleaning anyway, and I wanted to be sure he was dead.
In the big picture, this was a small bear, I wonder what you would need to stop forward progress of a large bear, I doubt there is a pistol made that could do the deed.
The gun I keep around now is a Marlin .444. this might not do the job either if not for a well placed early shot.