I moved to Alaska in the very early 1990s, and as a resident for 15 years, could hunt big game on the cheap, compared to the cost as a nonresident. Having hunted brown and grizzly bears prior, I was already hooked. I was also quite naïve as to the potential dangers — especially as a bowhunter. This was back in the day before the advent of extremely large-caliber handguns such as the .500 S&W Mag., 454 Casull, 10mm and the like, and so the dogma of the day was to pack a rifle, and/or have another person along carrying the same.
Long story short, one rainy October afternoon I stalked within 40 yards of a huge brown bear in southwest Alaska, that spotted me and charged. I had a Remington Model 700 chambered in .338 Win. Mag. as a backup, and by the grace of God was able to drop my bow, shoulder the rifle and get off a snapshot at 10 yards that miraculously hit the bear under the chin and broke his neck at the atlas joint. Or I’d be dead.
Decades of hunting big bears both as a hunter and an assistant hunting guide, plus lots of research, begat the question: Are handguns effective protection against a charging grizzly, brown, or even black bear? If so, what type of pistol, chambered in what caliber? And I am not talking about armchair quarterbacks whose experience is limited to online chat rooms. I’m talking about the results of real-life encounters.
Real vs. Fantasy
When hunters find themselves in a position where they have to defend themselves against an angry bear, something has gone horribly wrong. Like Superman, these creatures are faster than a speeding bullet and more powerful than a locomotive, and when they come, they are bobbing and weaving, your adrenaline is spiked, you’ll be pooping your pantaloons and everything will happen very quickly. You don’t ever want to be there.
As we’ll see in a moment, handguns can be very effective for deterring bear attacks. The truth, though, is that, in reality, any grizzly, brown bear or black bear that attacks a human is not going to be stopped dead in its tracks by a single pistol shot, unless, like the magical shot described above, the bullet strikes them in a soft spot such as the eye or up the nose or under the chin and penetrates to the brain or breaks the spinal cord. I’ve seen a bunch of big bears killed with big rifle cartridges up to and including the .458 Win. Mag., and unless the bear was shot in the face, multiple shots were always required. When push comes to shove, a large-caliber rifle or 12-gauge shotgun loaded with slugs is the ticket for protection over any handgun.
But a defense weapon is no good unless you have it with you all the time, and depending on what you’re doing, carrying a long gun is not always practical. Enter the handgun. Truth is, handguns are not ideal, but they are better than the proverbial poke in the eye with a sharp stick. Ballistically, even a hand cannon such as the .500 S&W Mag. loaded with the 300-grain Hornady FTX bullet and its muzzle kinetic energy (K.E.) of 2,868 foot-pounds, is marginal when compared to the .375 H&H Mag. loaded with a 300-grain bullet generating 4,363 foot-pounds of K.E. — which is considered near the bottom end of the acceptable spectrum for hunting big bears. Also, handguns are no good if you have not practiced with them, not just shooting them but getting them out of their holster quickly.
Is There Any Data?
Every year you read about people being attacked by grizzlies and brown bears. Most are not hunters — though some are, especially those hunting in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem, where aggressive grizzlies show no fear of man. It also happens internationally, with polar bears. In November 2023, the website Ammoland posted an article by Dean Weingarten entitled “Handgun Defenses Against Bear Attacks — 170 Documented Incidents, 98 percent Effective.” (Google the title to check it out.)
While not a scientific thesis by any means, what Weingarten did was gather information on documented cases where handguns were fired in defense against bears, including grizzlies, brown bears, polar bears and black bears. He and his group of people scoured the Internet and looked hard for instances where handguns were fired and failed to stop an attack. If the bear simply stopped attacking after the handgun was brought into play, it was considered a successful defense.
The first list of 104 incidents was published in June 2021, another 123 incidents added to the list in April 2022, and the final 25 incidents in November 2023. It’s fascinating stuff. In the final 25 incidents, handguns fired included everything from a .22 long rifle — one bullet from a nine-shot revolver went into a 500-pound grizzly’s eye and killed it — to the .500 S&W Mag. In perhaps the classic case of “something is better than nothing,” in an incident reported in the April 2022 roundup, a bear was scared off after being shot at with birdshot loaded in a handgun in anticipation of shooting grouse for the pot, not bear protection.
All told, Weingarten’s work showed that in 146 incidents out of a total of 170 studied only handguns were fired, and 24 cases occurred where a handgun was fired in conjunction with another instrument of some kind; those cases were not included in the statistics reported for handgun defenses. In the 146 incidents where handguns only were deployed, there were only three cases where they were judged to be failures in stopping the attack. This includes a 1995 polar bear attack in Norway, where a .22 rimfire handgun was used and one man was killed and another injured. In June, 2010, a geologist in Alaska fired at an attacking grizzly with a .357 Mag. revolver three times, never hitting the bear. He was badly mauled, but survived. The third was a September 2015 black bear attack in New Mexico, where a man fired a .38 Special revolver trying to scare the bear off rather than hurt or kill it. It bit through one of his boots as he was climbing a tree trying to escape. All told, 140 successful defenses out of 143 incidents adds up to a 98 percent success rate.
Choosing the Right Handgun
Weingarten’s work demonstrates that something is indeed better than nothing, and that deterring bear attacks, not necessarily stopping and/or killing an aggressive bear, is the point of the exercise. That said, if you want a handgun for bear defense, the pro move is to choose one chambered in a cartridge with some serious thump rather than a .22 rimfire.
As mentioned earlier, a handgun has to be on your person and easily accessible to have any value. Thus, it has to be reasonably compact yet chambered in a large enough cartridge to have real value. The other basic question is, revolver or semi-auto? In this, there are two schools of thought. One says that if a bear charges you’ll probably only get one shot at very close range, so you best have a handgun chambered for a big cartridge — which is where revolvers have traditionally shined.
One that really stands out here is the Ruger Super Redhawk Alaskan in .480 Ruger with 2.5-inch barrel. It generates 1,310 foot-pounds of K.E. with a 410-grain bullet at 1,200 fps — about 10 percent more than a .44 Mag. It weighs 44 ounces and is 7.62 inches long. It’s also available in .44 Mag. and .454 Casull. Then there’s the Smith & Wesson Performance Center Model S&W 500 with Hi Viz fiber optic front sight chambered in .500 S&W Mag. with a 3.5-inch barrel. It’s just 9.9 inches long, weighs 56.8 ounces, and when loaded with the 300-grain Hornady FTX bullet, its muzzle K.E. is 2,868 foot-pounds. Both are easy to carry in a shoulder rig or on your hip. But recoil is harsh, as you might imagine. Both have five-shot cylinders.
Of course, revolver fans should not overlook two old school standbys — pistols chambered in either .357 Mag. or .44 Mag. shooting heavy hard-cast loads. In Alaska, revolvers in these two calibers with 3- to 6-inch barrels have been mainstays for backcountry bear protection. Tried-and-true models include the Colt Python, Ruger GP100 and Smith & Wesson Model 629.
In recent years, large-caliber semi-auto handguns have become increasingly popular for bear protection. In truth, if a bear charges, you might get off just one shot — or maybe none — but when the poop hits the fan, being able to shoot “early and often” without having to reload is not a bad thing. Semi-autos chambered in 10mm Auto have become very popular, for several reasons. Introduced back in 1983 as an improvement/replacement for the iconic .45 ACP, it is chambered in a host of pistols that make excellent choices for carrying in bear country. These include the Glock Gen 5 G20 with a 4.6-inch barrel, Smith & Wesson M&P 2.0 with a 4-inch barrel, FN 510 Tactical with a 4.7-inch barrel and Sig Sauer P320 XTen with a 5-inch barrel, among others.
Top ammo choices for this task include the Underwood 200-grain Hard Cast, which generates 694 foot-pounds of K.E.; Buffalo Bore 220-grain Hard Cast, generating 639 foot-pounds of K.E.;HSM Bear Load 200-grain Lead Round Nose Flat Point, generating 481 foot-pounds of K.E. and 200-grain FMJ, generating 531 foot-pounds of K.E.; and Sellier & Bellot 180-grain FMJ, generating 544 foot-pounds of K.E., among others.
Want something bigger? How about the Smith & Wesson Model 460, chambered for the massive .460 S&W Mag. It weighs 4.75 pounds, is 15 inches long and shoots a 300-grain bullet with muzzle energy of 2,826 foot-pounds. It’s potent, but shooting one will make you see Jesus. Then there’s the iconic Magnum Research Desert Eagle in .50-caliber Action Express with a 6-inch barrel and 10.75-inch overall length. This is one of the most powerful handgun cartridges out there, but the pistol’s size and weight make it impractical for everyday carry in the woods. Best hang on tight with both hands when touching one off. And ammo costs are off the charts.
Avoiding an encounter with an aggressive bear is your best defense. Sometimes, though, it happens, and you need to be prepared. A self-defense handgun does you no good in bear country if you’re not carrying it with you all the time. It also has to be carried where it can be quickly accessed, such as a chest harness. Being able to fire it accurately is more important than packing a large-caliber pistol you can’t shoot straight. Remember that even the largest handguns fall well short of the bear-stopping power of a big rifle or 12-gauge with slugs. As an instructor once told me, “A slow hit beats a fast miss, every time.” And as Dean Weingarten’s work shows, aggressively firing a handgun even at big bears has been proven to be an effective deterrent.
