Illini,
I would shoot the heaviest soft point bullet I cound find for it. Shot a mag or two amd make sure the rounds function flawlessly.
We don’t have many bears at all here... Less than 5 sightings a year... mostly cougars and such are the camping threat. But when I am out, and we live in the woodlands, I always have my little .380 Auto. I have 8 rounds of Cor-Bon 90gr JHP +P and can put a tight inner circle grouping with all 8 in 6 seconds... and at the kind of range where I would have to use that... I’d be removing 40% of the creature’s brain matter!
= )