My wife and I used to do a lot of camping on Forked Lake campground in New York states' Adarondiak State park. We used to usually get an isolated site alone on a tiny island that wasn't out of swimming reach of Black bear. The campground had, as usual, many stories of nasty confontations between hungry bear and campers. As it was a long paddle in the canoe to get the hell off the island, I used to bring a mag-na-ported and tuned S&W 29 in .44 mag, with a fistfull of 2400 in each case under a heavily constructed 240 grain bullet- Sierra or Speer. The holster was a nice leather thumbreak highride- I forget who made it. Never did see a bear there, though, much less a pissed off one. One night I woke up for some reason, and I'm lying there trying to get back to sleep when I heard the very loud bang of something heavy hitting the metal food bin. It seems not all campers used to secure the big steel bins provided there for food storage. The bears had learned that they could often get the door open by giving it a good whack, and that's just what he was up to. I was very happy to have had that gun then, although he moved on without harassing us over in the tent..
Now that same gun wears a new 6" underlugged heavy barrel and gets used for target shooting. For other duty, which frankly it seldom sees anymore, it has a cheap leather fully flapped holster from Cabelas' to protect the old Hogue wood grip from getting banged up, and a kydex from Blade tech for easy access.
Nowdays, I'd take a tuned S&W 617 in .22 . Plinking is great fun, and you get to leave the ear protection home. If I'm in bear country, I'll bring a good trusted rifle, or my .44 mag Win '94 if there's a good chance of heavy cover.
If it's to be Grizzly country, I'll bring a 75mm cannon. Although my personal rule in shooting wildlife is this- only if it tries to attack me or mine. Otherwise it's live and let live.
