Ok, I challenge anyone to find 2 cases where a handgun discouraged an attacking bear.
Shady, I don't know if yours counts. The guy was just as much attacking the bear as much as the bear attacking him.

 

A handgun is minimal against human attacks and with the excitement of a bear attack it should be considered more of a noise maker to scare off the bear than to figure on it killing it. Make the shots count but don't expect them to do much. More chance and luck than a sure fire method of defense.

 

I'am with Starky on this one. I read an article somewhere that said there are no known cases of anyone surviving a bear attack when using a hand-gun. Most times the bear will mame you bad enough even after you've emptied your clip into it, leaving you to die. The guy who wrote the article suggested you carry either a high powered rifle in lever action, or a semi auto shotgun loaded up with slugs. As for the topic about 9mm against a .45, in this case I would go with the 9mm. Cheaper ammo, possible to shoot without ear protection, lower recoil, and imo just more fun to shoot. Also, I dont think you will encounter a grizzly while pheasant hunting, but if you do pop in some slugs.
Wow, big deal the .357 doesn't have the energy as the .44, but it has more velocity. Either one wont save your **** if being charged by a grizzly. My advice would be to shoot as many different calibers and models as you can, and make the desicion on what suits you best. It is a very tough choice so good luck. Oh wait this thread is over a year old[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img][img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-shocked.gif[/img]

 

Yeah, my example was just to illustrate that even with your barrel planted in the fur you're darn lucky to walk away from it. Personally with a charging bear there are very few weapons I would choose, and they all end with "Super Mag" or "Nitro Express" or "Howitzer".
[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-cool.gif[/img]

 

I have owned lots of rifles/shotguns but I was in the same position of "which pistol" when I took my conceal & carry class. When I took my range test I barrowed a ruger 9mm from the range and I shot very good with it. Since then I wanted a little more power and bought the ruger 40. I'm a big guy and the larger grip feels more comfortable to me. I have shot 44mag revolers and 45 auto and I cant hit crap with them. Dont discount the ruger 40, its also a good auto.


PS) The bear thing: maybe get a cheap marlin 30-30 cut the barrol and strap on your back full of heavy loads. Pop off a couple and run like hell to the closest tree and hope it bleeds to death.

 

ActualRealLifeGunGuy

Old Post, but you are correct. 10mm quote caught my attention as well. I hate to see it "10mm" falling by the wayside as the popularity of the .40 has taken off. It is twice the round the .40 is, felt recoil and controlabilty have doomed it I hate to say.

As to the arguement in the post, its the same old thing on every gun board. Smaller faster bullets are said to have more knock down power than larger slower bullets. " Even logic must give way to physics" :> [Stopping power = Mass + Speed] [More Mass + More Speed = More Stopping Power]

Just my thoughts.

 

Starky pretty much hit the nail on the head. As a very last resort I would take a .44 or larger class. A buddy of mine that was born and raised in Alaska always said he preferred a 12 gauge with slugs or a heavy rifle for bear protection. He thought if you were down to a handgun in a bear attack you were going to get mauled one way or another and at least after dumping 6 rounds into the beast you can beat him over the head with the heavy .44 revolver. He related a story where a guy he knew up there dumped an entire Glock 21 into a Grizzly that was rampaging through their camp and it kept on going like you had shot at him with a Daisy Red Ryder. Another hunter with him finally dropped him with 4 shots from a Marlin Guide Gun.

As a personal defense handgun I prefer a .45 no question. I trust a Glock 21 with my life. I love Glocks plain and simple. Just like a Glock; plain and simple. I also carry a Sig 226 9mm sometimes but I consider that more of a back-up gun. That and I simply love the Sig. I simply love shooting the thing. Wonderful ergonomics, accurate, great trigger, just a joy to shoot. In my eyes the modern "wonder nine" 9mm achieved perfection with the Sig 226. That coming from a Glock fanatic. My next .40 will be a Sig without a doubt. I would tie Sigs and Glocks as my personal autoloaders. That being said I have my eye on a new Kimber. I've owned a couple Colt 1911s but had reliability problems with each of them. Kimber seems to have good reliable ones and I'd like to give the old warhorse another try.

 

WOW, very interesting thread...

First off, my wife and I use a Taurus 4" barrel .44 mag for bear protection. Up here we get some of the world's largest brown bears, and a lot of them too. Watch the hunting shows on ESPN outdoors or whatever and they come up here for the big bears. My 120 lbs wife (Okay, 133 now that she is pregnant!) can shoot this gun with no problems, and it is easy to carry while hiking or while quartering up your moose or caribou. A lot of people up here have a sawed off 12 gauge with slugs. I would feel safer with that too, but it isn't as easy to carry.

You are right though, we don't hear about too many stories where a hand gun saved the day. Up here everyone practices the rule of "safe six". It states that there has never ever been a documented account of a bear attacking people when in a group of 6 or more. There is just something about having a .44 on our hip...

One question for you gun people, my buddy says he can load .45 bullets hotter the the .44 mag. Is this true???

 

I wouldn't want any hand gun if I was facing a grizzly. I wouldn't woory to much about being attacked by a black bear because the odds of that are slim. I hunt bears in northern Minnesota and have sat in a tree six feet off the ground and had a sow and two cubs within 15 feet of me. Once they seen me they were gone so fast I could't of shot them if I wanted to. As far as the .357 vs .44 the formula for the energy is velocity squared x bullet weight divided by 450,240 eguals the ft lbs. of kinetic energy (on paper). A real life comparison would depend a lot on bullet weight and design. One rule of thumb is the bigger the hole the better the blood trail (to a point as there is such a thing as overkill). It is quite possible with the right load that a .357 could have more knockdown power, But in most cases it won't and in everything I have ever read the .357 is the bare minimum for whitetails. A black bear is no tougher to kill than a whitetail as long as the bullet placement is right and a large caliber is not usually needed. In fact the only bear out of the 35 bears my party has killed in the last 5 years didn't go down in it's tracks and that bear was shot with a .450 marlin. We have shot bears with 30-30, 30-06, .270 ,
.300 , .338 , .308 , .450 , .50 cal muzzle loader and 12 gauge with slug. To be perfectly honest the larger calibers waisted a lot of meat and the biggest bears that were over 400lbs dressed fell to a 30-06 with 180 grain bullet. However if you were faced with a pissed off bear whether it was a black bear or a Grizzly chances are you are in trouble no matter what gun you have. Think about how a persons adreniline gets when he gets mad, A grown man can be hard to stop with a hand gun. I personally like shooting a .44, But the ammo gets expensive. Sorry for getting off the topic, But I was just trying to give an example why bigger isn't always better evn though I would choose the largest caliber hand gun I could handle. Hanguns just don't have the punch of even the smaller caliber rifles in my opinion.

 

If he is talking about a .45 auto, he is full of BS.
If he is talking about a .45 Winchester Mag, THAT is very possible![img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]