I have been a student of the defensive use of firearms against wild things since the 1980’s. I killed a charging black bear in my yard in Alaska with a .308 rifle and deterred a charging brown bear with 12 ga cracker shells. Both encounters were less than 25 yards when I opened fire. Handguns are for last ditch survival and are very specialized for this purpose. I carry a Ruger Redhawk .44 magnum loaded with heavy cast lead solid bullets at high velocity in an easily accessible chest holster. PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE. Draw, flash sight picture, fire, repeat, repeat, repeat until it becomes automatic. If you have time grab a long gun. I now live in NW Montana with lots of black bears and an increasing grizzly population. Most importantly BE BEAR AWARE!
Many shots with a 10mm Glock is better that one or two from a revolver i n a similar amount of time. The muzzle rise from a .454 Casul or other hard kicking magnum makes followup shots slower than a with semiauto weapon.
I killed a 300lb plus black bear that came at me at around 10 feet. Drove a 44mag 315gr hard cast at 1300fps between her eyes and down into the body.
We ended up about 5 feet apart.
She was Dead right there.
I have killed several other black bears with the 44 and or 41 mag. With proper bullets and shot placement the results were just fine.
I have also shot bears with rifles and shotguns. Proper bullets and proper shot placement is the key.
I have also convinced bears that they had better places to be instead of causing problems.