First off, I am in no way an expert on this nor have I ever actually seen a grizz in the wild. However, I have had the opportunity to work (guide) with several guys who guide sheep and moose hunts in the Yukon and NWT. All of them swear by their Marlin lever action 45-70's as grizz guns. These are guys who sleep in grizzly country day in day out for months at a time and usually with several hundred pounds or meat not to far away.

I have also worked for the Alberta government and been required to take a bear safety course. Based on that course, I wouldn't trust my life to bear spray. One of the things we did in this course was fire off a can of it at a target 5 meters away. This was stuff that was advertised as being effective to 10 or 15 meters (I can't remember for sure) and I can tell you without a doubt that maybe 1 of 10 cans actually painted a recognizable pattern at a distance of 5m. on average 2-3 m was the distance required to get a good blast on the target. too close for me.

The second thing we did was shoot a twelve guage with 3'' slugs at 15m and then 5m. We were given 10 seconds to get two shots into a pie plate at 15m and two into a smaller circle at 5m (two in the magazine, two in your pocketses). Easier said than done.

Finally, we were told that if we were ever in a position where we felt it was our life or the bear's to put as many shots as possible in the triangular area from just below the bottom jaw to between the two shoulders. We were told that this was the best chance of breaking down a charging bear. Hopefully i'll never have to find out if it works as i'd likely be too busy filling my pants to shoot accurately.

Again I am no expert, this is just my $.02 based on what i've been told.