You won' t find a 120 grain bullet in .243. The top end is about a 105 grain. If you want 120 you will have to move up to .257 caliber or 6.5mm. Hey, there is an idea for you. If you like the 243 for its short action and light recoil then why not try out a 260 Rem instead. Quite a bit more umph and better performance with heavier bullets while still maintaining low recoil.

frizz ,
barnes offers a 6mm/.243 caliber bullet in a 115 gr. wieght round nose if he' s interested in handloading. it' s one of the ( o ) series or originals , it says it' s suppose to retain about 70% to 90% of it' s original wieght , and expands more than 200%
i' ve no experience with it but , i just wanted to add that little tidbit in

but in my opinion , i wouldn' t go after any type of bear with a small bore , where i hunt i get about 50 yards to take a shot in and if the first bullet doesn' t take it down , you might not get a second chance.

I hear you. If I am going after anything with sharp teeth and claws I want a bigger piece of lead than 6mm. I' m thinking a 45-70 would do the trick.

I wouldn' t hesitate in the least to use a .243 with 100 grain Swift A-Frame bullets on a black bear.......but if I had a .270 or .30-06, Id rather use that.

I wouldn' t pick a 243 win as a bear gun but I have used a 30-30 quite a few times and the 243 win has more energy at 200 yards than the 30-30 does at a 100 yds. With that thought in mind I believe it would work fine the 30-30 always did .

I' m not certain that a .243 is legal in all states where bears are hunted, you might check that out.

Most .243' s I' ve seen don' t handle very fat bullets well, but I don' t see any reason you need to try to feed it overly fat bullets anyway, just get a good controlled expansion bullet, maybe a partition or PG, and make sure you know where it' s hitting, then limit yourself to about 100-125yrds, I' d say 150, but it' d have to be on smaller bruins. It' ll do fine as long as you keep in mind that you are using a slightly " underpowered" arm, it' s not going to knock them in the dirt if you just put the x-hairs on them, you' ve got to put that little bullet in a little area, and you should probably expect to send a friend in after it.

For bruins, you really won' t have to worry about them hunting you, they' re more like coyotes, they' ll do as much as they can to avoid you if they know you' re there, so unless you sneek up WAY TOO CLOSE on one and surprise it, you probably don' t have to worry about it hunting back.

My advice truly would be to go ahead and get another rifle, but then again, I' m always looking for another excuse to get a new one!