I'd not have wasted any cartridges on warning shots, especially if I had no extras along!
I've never messed with grizzlies but I certainly have had plenty of run ins with black bears. Years back when my wife and I were first homesteading we lived in an 18 foot travel trailer deep in the forest. Right from the get-go we stated having trouble with pesky black bears.
Once I was woken up by a bear messing about in our camp so I jumped up buck nekkid and ran out the door with my trusty 7-1/2 inch Ruger Bisley .44 magnum. I didn't want to kill the beastie, I kinda like living where the Wild Things Roam or I'd move back to town. So I shot right under that bears belly, right past his head, BANG-WIZZ, emptied that revolver all around him.
The bear simply sat down and looked at me.
I was so hopping mad I coulda run up and whanged him over the head with the empty gun ( and at 50-odd ounces of steel it mighta done some good! ). I didn't know if I should start throwing things at it, start hopping up and down and yelling, or reload the gun and kill it or what.
So I simply gave up and went back to bed.
A few years down the road I had another interestin' run in with a bear, right outside my back door.
We'd gotten our straw bale cottage all built up and we moved in out of the little trailer.
Come summer things were feelin' to durn civilized so the wife and I grabbed our backpacks and headed off for about a week on Idahos Long Canyon loop.
When we got back home around sundown the first thing we noticed was bear paw prints on the windows of our cottage ( they looked so cool we left the muddy prints in place for the rest of the year to impress visitors!). Then we opened the front door and noticed the smell. We'd forgotten to take out the kitchen garbage when we left and that smell is what had attracted the bear.
Well, we threw the trash outside and heated water on the stove and my wife got the first much-appreciated hot shower.
I needed to go out back to the outhouse to take care of some serious business and on account of the bear prints I took my trusty Winchester shotgun along with me.
Right outside the back door I ran into that bear! We stood there a few feet apart with me just a-yelling and swearing at him something fierce. He wasn't impressed.
I emptied that shotgun into the ground right under his nose, four rounds of 3" 0000 buck ( that will teach him!).
That bear stood his ground and didn't flinch a muscle. When I was done with the racket he looked at me and went "GRRRRR...."
I figure I had the luck to run into a deaf bear!
About that time I noticed I had an empty shotgun in my hands. I was so mad at that bear I coulda happily broke the shotgun over his head, but I figured a tactical withdraw back into the house might be in order...
I went to the gun cabinet to grab the next loaded gun which happened to be an AK-47, and told my wife what all the fuss was about ( she was still in the shower. Being the first hot shower in a week she wasn't about to give it up unless the bear went for her!).
I went out the front door with that AK and the bear came around the cottage towards me. I figured "Well heck, he ain't rbackin' off. I figure I need to kill this stubborn bear" So I raised the rifle to my shoulder and as it was pretty dark by now I flipped the tiny switch that illuminated the aiming reticle in the scope.
Only the little switch already flipped, and the battery in the scope was dead, and I couldn't see a thing through the scope.
It was one of those moments fer me, and ever since I have refused the temptation to mount battery powered gizmos on my weapons.
Not being able to aim I didn't want no sloppy 20-random-rounds-to-the-body-while-the-bear-cloeses-in-on-me-and-chews-me-leg-off- kinda-kill, I re-figured real fast and decided to give him one last chance as the bear calmly lumbered towards me closing the distance, and I ripped four or five very fast rounds over the bears head.
The muzzle flash of a 16 inch 7.62x39 practically in his muzzle seemed to do the trick, and the bear disappeared into the dark.
But I knew he'd be back.
So I was a-waiting fer him. I'd be ready this time.
I'd loaded my shotgun up again only this time I thumbed a round of light # 8 shot in th' tube last.
Last in, first out as it goes with shotguns. First in was a 3" BRI sabot slug, then two rounds of 3" 0000 bucks, then the light skeet load.
A day later that bear showed up again. It was pretty durn dark and I was getting ready for bed, standing around in my skivvies brushing my teeth.
- When you brush yer teeth do you stare blankly at yerself in th' mirror or do you wander about and do other stuff while brushing?
I fall into the wandering category, and that is how I happened to look out the window and spot the bear in the yard. I grabbed up that shotgun and ran right out into the yard in my skivvies with toothbrush still firmly clamed in my mug. I was gonna get that bear!
I caught him in the rump with the load of # 8 and instantly racked that slide and brought the shotgun back on target. Heh, I needn't have worried though, that bear got hit and ran away like the dickens. I stood in the yard and it seemed I could hear him running up and over the mountain. A bear at full tilt is like a run away train and makes about as much noise as it plows through the forest!
It was a DNR employee that originally told me about the # 8 trick. See, to chase offa bear you need to hurt it. He ain't a-feared of any loud noise, but he don't like pain. # 8 will penetrate the hide but not the mussel beneath ( 'Cept at point blank range ).
So long story short, don't waste yer ammo on warning shots 'cause the bears don't care.
but that just not be a practical act for some situations. Also, I thought you were supposed to remove the gall bladder to, at least form certain species, and turn that in as well, but the link above doesn't state that. And if you are supposed to, well, while I understand the general location and function, I don't think I could find it easily without digging through a massive gut pile.Sounds like some of you guys will know the answer to all these hypotheticals. 
