oldhuntere, here is my long answer to your question.
I hike a lot in the mountains as well as hunt. I like to do a lot of photography of animals and shed hunt. While I do this I see a fair amount of bears. Some are large, some are average and some are just cubs. I carried a 357 with me while out there because I have had some very close encounters including more than one time shooting to keep bears off of me that were trying to harm me by challenging me and charging me. If you were to look, you would see that a lot of my posts include pictures and videos of bears. I get some pretty decent sized ones at times which I post here.
Twice now I have run into a particular bear that just dwarfs anything that I have posted. When I first saw it, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I was sure that my 357 would not stop it. After those encounters, I searched for a 44 caliber handgun. I found one on here from a fellow member who sold it to me. It came with the ammo that I have for it. The loads are unknown to me but I can tell you that when the gun is fired, it makes one heck of a ball of fire around the cylinder. I even wrote about it here to see if that was normal. I have never had a gun that did this. I was told that guys try to load shells to get that effect.
To answer you in the short version, I don't know. I carry it for the reason that I stated, and laid it on that bear for scale. What would you suggest to use?
