Options for mountain/backcountry gun..

[deserted]

I've wandered the Sierra Nevada, the Northern Rockies, the Great Basin, and the Colorado Rockies on foot and horseback for over fifty years. Worked and lived in the woods, and currently live alone on the side of a high desert mountain, with no neighbors to speak of for miles in any direction. I have never felt unarmed with only a .22 SA revolver (a Colt New Frontier Buntline, if anyone is interested). I have very likely spent more time in the woods than 95% of posters here, and: Have never seen a mountain lion but one time in 1966 in California, and it was high-tailing it over the next ridge; saw a bear once in the Bitterroot mountains, scrambling to get away up the hillside. I see coyotes now and then but again, they are always making tracks away. I shot a rattler a couple years ago out in the yard, but have not come across any in my foot travels. All that said, these days I carry a .327 Federal on a Single Seven frame, as I can load for it cheaper than I can buy .22, and it is WAY more fun to shoot than any .22 and will do whatever task needs to be done out here in the desert. Two-legged varmints are more dangerous and concerning than any four-legged one.

[Mr. Hill]

5" of snow so far in my part of Colorado and it's still snowing.

Try a .357 mag stainless revolver with a 3" or 4" barrel. That's a pretty good outdoor rig for Colorado and the weather here.

Edited: but sometimes you gotta shoot what ya brung, I know that first-hand. Use whichever pistol you shoot the best and use 180 grain (.40) or 230 grain (.45) jhp's.

[jackstrawIII]

I shoot semi-autos a lot more than revolvers, ergo I'm more comfortable with them. Around me we have black bears and coyotes. For either, I'm content with my standard 9mm/45 flavor of the day.

But if I was worried about the big bears, I'd go revolver. The simple reason is their ability to function when in direct contact with the target. I was reading the writings of an old hunting guide who guided in Africa and Alaska. He recommended a short barreled (3") magnum revolver so that when the animal was on top of you, you could shoot a bunch of rounds into it (trying to shoot through the neck into the brain) and hope for the best.

That's always stuck with me. Sounds nutty to me, but what to I know? Certainly less than him.

[MarkCO]

deserted...right there with you. I think more people are excited about the Romance of meeting a bear or a Mountain Lion than actually understand their habits in the wild.

I had a guy who worked for me who was proudly Mexican. He asked me to teach him how to hunt big game, but he was worried about bears. Without a pause, I told him bears really are no worry, but Mountain Lions will get you at night. We told him that when he was outside the tent at night, he must put his hand on the back of his neck, where they always strike. I went on to tell him that if he felt a sting like a knife, to shake his hand free and the lion would run off. First night he comes into the tent and asks us all what tricks we have for taking a dump in the woods with only one hand. We made up all sorts of things. We let him go on like that for 3 days, much to our amusement.

[walks with gun]

What do people who live every day in the outdoors carry, when I was a youngster, Game Wardens carried a four inch .38spl. now Game Wardens and Park Rangers carry .40 S&W's. The way some of you talk, it seems that if the didn't carry a pair of 20 round selective fire 765 express super magnums these law enforcement officers would only have about a three day career.

[ShootistPRS]

Game wardens carry their guns for people not the wild animals.
What gun is best depends on where the heck "outdoors" is. In my early days of back-packing (before I was 21) I carried a 22 rifle and later I carried that and my 357. I normally hiked and back-packed in the Cascade Wilderness areas and the Olympic National forest. The biggest animals we saw were Black Bears and the most dangerous were Cougars. Never had to use a gun for defense in all my years of hiking.

[walks with gun]

Just saying, game wardens spend most of their time in the outdoors, and you don't hear of them being eaten by the dozens because they only carried a forty.

[SansSouci]

A 1911A1 is a very easy gun to carry. Not many critters are going to withstand 9 230 grain +P .45 ACP rounds.

[Mr. Hill]

If the OP wants an outdoor gun, let him have it. Better to have it and not need it...

[MarkCO]

i have probably seen Game Wardens carrying at least a dozen different handguns. It does seem that the .40 Glock has been common, but I have seen 1911s in .45 and 10mm, Wonder9s and a few revolvers as well. Most of the ones I have asked also have an AR15 and a Shotgun with slugs plus a scoped rifle.

Wildlife Officers historically had the highest death rate of all LE in the country until recently. MVAs and murder were the two main causes of death.

[SansSouci]

Hi MarkCO,

I used to know a So Cal game warden who's now in Heaven. He worked Angeles National Forest in Los Angeles County. It's the most deadly national forest in America in terms of murders committed in it and body dumps. It's very close to LA. Before becoming a game warden, he was an LA County deputy sheriff. I'm not sure of the handgun he carried, although he did give me a box of .40 S&W Black Talon LE ammo. I do know that he carried an 870 and a Springfield Armory .308 Win with 20 round magazines. His closest back-up would have been an LA County Sheriff helicopter. He did tell me that he had taken a lot of serious felons to jail out of Angeles National Forest. He would not hesitate to get into thick of dangerous situations by himself. He was the essence of a man's man. I think of him often.

[Rangerrich99]

To the OP;

Your best bet is to get advice from people in your area that spend a lot of time in the woods and/or actually hunt black bears and mountain lions in the area you plan to spend time in. These are the people that would have first-hand knowledge about the animals in question and what they prefer to use when they come into violent contact with them.

That said, in general, you want to carry something that will over-penetrate a bear or a cat; you don't necessarily care that much about bullet expansion with an aggressive large predator. The reason being that these animals are large enough that it will take some time for any of them to bleed out; what is required is either a CNS hit or a debilitating hit, i.e., shattering a hip/shoulder blade, leg bone so as to drop the animal or at least slow their advance significantly.

These aren't my sentiments, btw. Many years ago I spent a month fishing the back country in both WY and MT, where I knew I could possibly run into a griz, so I asked the people that I knew that had some experience encountering these animals in the wild. I have a couple friends, from AK that are both bear hunting guides; we went to flight school together back in the day. These guys between them and their fathers (also AK hunting guides) have more than a century of experience hunting and being near big bears, so I figured they would know what they were talking about.

Their first answer was an 18 inch barreled 12 ga. shotgun loaded with hard cast slugs. They were unanimous in that respect. I told them I didn't want to carry a shotgun while fly-fishing, and they both told me at minimum I should carry a .44 mag, again using hard cast slugs. Now, both of them told me various stories of people that had killed grizzlies with calibers less than a .44 mag, but they both felt that these cases were out-liers, and that I should carry more than enough gun, provided I could quickly and accurately shoot the thing. If I could not, they advised at least .357s or a 10 mm, again using loads as hot as I could handle.

As for black bears, both advised me that a .44 mag probably wasn't necessary, and that either .357 mag or 10 mm would be adequate to the task.

They also told me that bear spray was probably a good idea, since most people don't shoot well with 300+ lbs. of angry bear sprinting towards them, and if you can get the bear to run off because you took a little initiative and sprayed them before they got into full charge mode, they probably would take off. If they ambush you, well that's what the gun is for.

Again, these are not my opinions, as I have no actual experience hunting bears and my only confrontations with bears ended peacefully. These are the opinions of two experienced bear hunting guides, both of whom have faced charging bears more than once.

On a side note, one of my aforementioned buddies, while guiding some fly-fishermen, stood off a young griz with a fly rod on the Kenai. He estimated the bear to be about 300 lbs.

As he tells it, he was guiding three clients and this bear had just been chased out of a fishing hole below them by a larger bear. The bear decided to chase them out of their hole. It charged into their hole with my buddy armed with nothing more than a 9 ft. fly rod (they were fishing in a 'no firearms' area). He kept yelling at it while swinging the rod - actually hitting the bear in the face a few times. He yelled, "they're are four of us!" over and over, as a bear on the Kenai had never attacked a group of people larger than three. He said that his mind noted that bears probably couldn't count, but he kept yelling it anyway. Apparently, the bear finally realized that there were indeed four humans and backed down and ran off.

It's a funny campfire story; at least if you're not one of those that was there that day.

P.S. Whoops, forgot to answer the other part of your question . . . if it were me, I'd choose the .40, instead of the .45 acp, hot loaded.

[roashooter]

Springfield Armory .308 Win with 20 round magazines.

that's called an M1A.....

[stephen426]

Originally Posted by Rangerrich99

He yelled, "they're are four of us!" over and over, as a bear on the Kenai had never attacked a group of people larger than three. He said that his mind noted that bears probably couldn't count, but he kept yelling it anyway. Apparently, the bear finally realized that there were indeed four humans and backed down and ran off.

I guess he was smarter than the average bear eh Boo-Boo?

[SansSouci]

roashooter,

He was a game warden, not a special forces soldier.

But then again, you might have no time to work on learning distinguishing characteristics of soldiers and civilian law enforcement. You're time is dedicated to figuring out how elk die.

Let us do the thinking, and you do the learning.

[Paul105]

This ought to be of interest to the OP if he's still around.

http://www.marksmanshipmatters.com/d...with-handguns/

Paul

[roashooter]

He was a game warden, not a special forces soldier.

But then again, you might have no time to work on learning distinguishing characteristics of soldiers and civilian law enforcement. You're time is dedicated to figuring out how elk die.

Let us do the thinking, and you do the learning.

Springfield Armory .308 Win with 20 round magazines.

what he is makes no difference....the point is...its still a M1A..

[RAfiringline]

I’ve spent a lot of time in the outdoors in both Alaska and in the Colorado mountains. I’ve had a number of bear encounters, but nothing too serious.

In Colorado, you only have to worry about black bears which are far less dangerous than grizz's or browns (there are a lot of black bears in the Wet Mountains, in particular).

Rattlers are a more common problem. A hiking pole is handy in a number of ways: you can move faster over rough terrain and through streams; sometimes a pole will stir up a rattler before your ankles are right in front of it; I suspect animals, including cougars, are more afraid of humans with some kind of lengthy object in their hand - it probably just doesn't look right to them and therefore makes them afraid.

In Alaska, moose are much more hazardous to people than bears, and there are plenty of moose in Colorado, also.

[rodfac]

WeThePeople, I'd say your 9mm, .40, and .45 ACP would suffice for two-legged threats in the back country, and probably for the 4-legged ones as well, with the exception of bear. For black bear, I think you need bear spray, and a bigger gun...and a bit of luck too.

A handgun is a last resort in my opinion, even a big caliber that you shoot extremely well, due to the speed of bear attacks and the element of surprise involved. The guys from Alaska that contribute here on TFL can give you some good advice as to guns and ammunition. Best Regards, Rod

[Wethepeople01]

Very helpful info all around!

[Siggy-06]

.22 plinker and bear spray will do for hiking defense imo. Look into ammo from buffalo bore for your 40/45. Grizzly county gets my mossberg 12 ga and bear spray.

[Onward Allusion]

Revolver in 357 Mag or Semi in 357 Sig is my personal choice. Give and take in both. Power -vs- somewhat-similar-power but with capacity.

[22-rimfire]

From the guns I have for a woods carry gun, one of the following depending on my mood and how concerned I am about Black Bear encounters (close).
SW M63 (22LR)
Ruger 3" GP-100 (357 mag)
S&W 4" M57 Mountain Gun (41 mag)

I have encountered a fair number of black bears in the woods and never had a problem of any real concern. But don't surprise them.... Even a 100 lb yearly could really tear you up.
Never lived or spent any serious amount of time where there are Mountain Lions. But would be comfortable with any of the above most of the time.

[ThomasT]

I think post #26 has my favorite answer to the OPs question. I like my Ruger 32 mags best for a woods gun. Here in Tx about the most dangerous animal I know of may be wild hogs. But the few I have seen in the wild would run away as soon as they became aware that you were there.

I have had one Black Panther run in front of my truck going down a very deserted road. I only had a couple of seconds to look at him before he was long gone. At a deer camp we had there was a mountain lion and at least one cub that would leave tracks around a small pond. I almost got to see it. I was walking back to camp and found its tracks as it jumped sideways into the bushes when it spotted me coming. I went in after it but heck, by then it was probably a quarter mile away. If I would have just sat on that oil storage tank I may have got a shot at it.

To my way of thinking running across a group growing pot out in the woods is the biggest danger you can face. But I still feel just fine with one of my 32 mags or a 4" 357 mag and a few extra rounds.

[Omaha-BeenGlockin]

Traded my 629 for a G20---lighter weight--more shots--almost as powerful

There's nothing that can "get ya" around here---bought it for my trips out west.