What kind of bears and how was the relative effectiveness between rifle, shotgun and handgun?
Black bears.
The effectiveness between rifles, shotguns, and handguns.
Is a lot of the times situational.
Shooting a bear in a hunting situation at 300 yards with a rifle makes most handguns and shotguns impractical.
Shooting a bear over a bait at 30 yards. With a rifle, shotgun with slugs or a powerful handgun. Not much difference.
Shooting a bear at close range under ten yards not much difference in a rifle and shotgun both have to be aimed to make the shot count.
In these A prefer a powerful rifle. I have found that buckshot when the spread opens up to more the fist, size can lack the penetration needed.
With handguns having shot several wounded bears at inches a bullet through the brain ends the fight right now.
Shot placement, bullet type and caliber all comes into play.
A proper bullet placed in the proper spot well stop any bear.
Previously wounded bears, act and respond differently than non-wounded bears
Relating hunting to purely self-defense shootings do not tell the whole story.
Two different dynamics.
But a properly placed bullet tends to sort the matter out.
One you are trying to kill the bear, The other your, trying to stop the bear from hurting you.
Death my result but it is not your primary goal.
I can hear it already black bears not grizzly or polar bears.
Having shot hundreds of head of big game. a properly placed bullet does the job.