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I more or less agree with what the others say about a handgun compared to a rifle, but personally, I do carry a 44 mag a lot of the time when I'm hunting or hiking in bear country. It has a 3-inch barrel and that's enough for up close work. A fellow in my church was attacked and chewed up pretty good by a brown bear. Even though he was a very experienced hunter who had killed many bears, it was on him before he could get his rifle lined up. If he had a handgun on his person he might have been able to get to it even with the bear on him. I have been in the situation where all I could see was fur in my scope and the animal was moving too fast for me to know what part of his body I was actually seeing. I use my own hand loads and bullets designed for penetration. (Years ago a federal agent gave me some Teflon coated bullets to load for my 44 when he heard what I was trying to do.) I would rather use the 338 I'm carrying but I might not have the chance.

Message Thread:

• Back up hangun for bear defense hunter1339 Dec 04 2005
  • Back Up alaska bush man Dec 11 2005
  • Lightweight sidearm Dirtysouth Dec 06 2005
  • Interesting Reading Daveinthebush Dec 06 2005
  • What I do bradb1169 Dec 06 2005
    • Great Posts Jake_65_65 Dec 06 2005
  • Another opinion martyv Dec 06 2005
  • Thought Process Jake_65_65 Dec 05 2005
    • Thanks, Jake! Michael Strahan Dec 05 2005
  • Bear Backing Brian Richardson Dec 05 2005
    • Jum in Delta Snowwolfe Dec 05 2005
  • Handgun bear protection Kirk Dec 05 2005
  • Jim in delta AlaskaCub Dec 05 2005
  • Heres what I figure Jim in Delta Dec 05 2005
  • Back up gun PastorBob Dec 05 2005
    • Back up Snowwolfe Dec 05 2005
  • take overkill jklingel Dec 05 2005
  • The archives are full of bear protection info... Michael Strahan Dec 05 2005
    • I forgot to mention iron sights Michael Strahan Dec 05 2005
      • no front sight homerdave Dec 05 2005
    • regarding the bear protection thing... sourdough Dec 05 2005
    • bear protection sourdough Dec 05 2005
      • You nailed it on the head Sourdough AlaskaCub Dec 05 2005
    • second what strahan says AlaskaCub Dec 05 2005
      • bear in a scope mariner Dec 05 2005
        • Handgun for bear protection?!? TABoylan Jan 02 2006
        • Mariner response AlaskaCub Dec 05 2005