I do not hunt black bears but we are seeing more and more around our hunting land here in Virginia. I was worried about not having enough gun if I had to do something about a black bear only having a 12 gauge and OO buck. Well the other day after the first hunt and heading back to lunch a guy in m club came up to me and told me that the he went on a bear hunt 5 years ago and all of the guys in this bear club use shotguns except 2 that use 30-30s. He killed a 310 lb black bear at 35 yards with OO buck only 2 shots. They killed 8 bear that weekend and all were killed by shotgun, that made me feel better about a bear encounter.