Handgun Defense Against Bear

For some reason this topic has become popular--I see several videos come across my YouTube feed every week lately. Most of these videos presume that you will be fending off a 1,000+ lbs. Kodiak and recommendations for a defensive handgun is generally the bigger the better. For instance, the producer of the video below contends that even the .44 Magnum is not powerful enough for bear defense--at least, not the big brown bears in Alaska.

VIDEO: "5 Big Bore Cartridges for Alaskan Trail Defense, and 5 to Pass On"

Go Big Bore Or Go Home (17 min.)

    The reality is that most of us--even those who spend a fair amount of time camping, hiking or hunting--will never need to defend ourselves against bear. For instance, I was talking to a friend who does quite a bit of camping and fishing and asked him about any bear encounters and he candidly admitted that he has never even seen a bear in the wild outside of Yellowstone National Park. I also have never encountered a bear in the wilds. But there are areas or circumstances which can make an encounter more likely. For instance, Alaska seems to have more than its fair share of bear encounters, and it can be an issue with backcountry hunters in areas of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado. I suspect that it would be more common in the Eastern United States simply because of the greater density of wild game and food available.

    There is also the type of bear you are likely to encounter. Alaskan brown bear (the infamous Kodiak bear) can get to sizes of over a 1,000 lbs (454 kg). But for those of us in the lower 48 states, the largest bear we would encounter would be the Grizzly bear which are typically 290 to 400 lbs. (130–180 kg) for adult females and 400-790 lbs. (180-360 kg) for adult males. But Grizzly bears are rare. In the lower 48 states, a person is most likely to encounter a black bear which are substantially smaller: females typically weigh between 130 to 200 pounds and males between 200 and 400 pounds. 

    I don't discount the need to carry a gun for defense against bear, but the reality is that unless you have experienced problems with bear, you probably are not going to carry around a 4 or 5 lbs. revolver with you. The real question is whether you need to do so.

    Dean Weingarten is a hunting and gun writer (he does a lot of writing for Ammo Land) who has collected a substantial amount of data on defensive handgun use against bear attacks, and will update that information over time. His latest overview of the topic was on June 19, 2023, and of 170 documented incidents, he found handguns to be 98% effective. Weingarten relates:

In 146 incidents, only handguns were fired. Three of those are judged to be failures.  Another three are judged to be indeterminate, including a case where the bear was driven off, but it was unclear if handgun fire or bear spray was the determining factor.  Twenty-four cases occurred where a handgun was fired in combination with another deadly instrument. Those cases are not included in the statistics for handgun defenses.  Three failures and 140 successes out of 143 cases is a 98% success rate.

He has since found a fourth failure involving a polar bear that repeatedly charged a group ignoring "cracker shells" and a shot from a .44 Magnum. But, as Weingarten points out, there is no indication in the report that the bear was struck by the shot. He comments:

Of the four incidents where we have documented when a handgun was fired and failed to stop an attack, this is the weakest case. The other three are detailed here. In only one of the four incidents, the defender clearly attempted to kill the attacking bear. That occurred in the famous polar bear defense attempted with a .22 pistol. 

    But that comment raises another point which is that successfully stopping a bear attack (which doesn't necessarily require that the bear be killed, only that it be driven off) doesn't generally require a magnum handgun. He documents cases from the lowly .22 up to .500 S&W in this most recent update, although most were .357 Magnum.

    In his April 2022 update, he provided 20 new cases of incidents and writes:

Of these 20 cases, 15 involve a single, known, pistol caliber. Here are the current numbers of cases for those calibers:

• 9mm – seven documented cases, all successful
• .38 Special –  four documented cases, three successful, one failure
• .357 magnum – nine documented cases, eight successful, one failure
• .40 S&W  – five documented cases, all successful
• 10mm – six documented cases, all successful
• .44 magnum – 37 documented cases, all successful
• .45 Long Colt – 2 cases, successful, this includes the .45 Colt/.410 revolver.

Caliber seems far less important than the willingness to use the firearm and kill the bear.

In his June 2021 update, he notes that he had found seven cases involving a .22 rimfire pistol. "Six were successful, against black bears. One failed against a polar bear." This isn't to advocate for the .22 as a bear defense weapon, but that it can work (except, perhaps, against the really large bears). But more common defensive calibers like the 9 mm (7 cases, all successful), .357 Magnum (8 cases, 7 successful), .40 S&W (3 cases, all successful), or .45 ACP (9 cases , all successful) can work. And as for the .44 Magnum which was not powerful enough according to the video above, his 2021 article noted that he had found 30 cases, all successful, including against brown bear in Alaska. (As noted, he has since found a failure against a polar bear where it probably was not even hit, but he also has additional successes).

    Weingarten has also offered up other tips in other articles. First, and foremost, he recommends a handgun over bear spray for defense against bears. While he admits that it is difficult to ascertain how often bear spray is successful in bear defense (although he cites a study claiming a 93% success rate), he points out that "Seven times as many people have been killed by bears when bear spray has been sprayed in defense than have been killed by bears when a handgun has been fired in defense." Considering that handguns have been around much longer than bear spray and are probably more widely used than bear spray, that may be sufficient information to make up your mind which to use. And, second, as he relates in an article examining the three failures he had found up to that time, if you do use a gun, you need to actually shoot to stop the bear. The failures generally involved people more concerned about not hurting the bear than on defending themselves. 

Related articles:

• "Alaskan State Parks Grizzly Bear Target, A Training Aid for Bear Defense"--Ammo Land.
• "Bear Guns For Elk Country"--Guns Magazine. The author of this piece argues against the large, heavy magnum revolvers, writing:

    In the field, as in an emergency at home or on the street, a handgun is useful only if it’s with you and quick to hand. After a couple of days on the mountain, a heavy, bulky revolver is easy to leave in camp. Mid-size revolvers and autos make more sense — in holsters you can access fast from awkward positions.

    An elk guide I know prefers his .357 with heavy hard-cast bullets. SA or DA, a .357 revolver can be made slimmer and lighter than a .44 Magnum. While big-bores have the clear edge in power, bullets of high sectional density from stiff .357 loads hit hard and bite deep. In auto pistols, the 10mm is more than a match, its 180- and 200-grain bullets packing over 600 ft-lbs. Buffalo Bore lists a 180-grain JHP at 1,350 FPS for 728 ft-lbs., also a 220-grain hard-cast at 1,200 FPS for 703 ft-lbs. This 10mm load is shared by Grizzly Cartridge, which also sells a 200-grain flat-nose at 1,250 FPS. Muzzle-energy: a “mere” 694 ft-lbs! Underwood wrings 676 ft-lbs. from a 150-grain solid at 1,425 FPS. Black Hills has a 10mm HoneyBadger load, the 115-grain fluted bullet exiting at 1,664 FPS with 695 ft-lbs.

    The only round to challenge the 10mm in standard-size auto pistols is the .400 Corbon, developed in 1995 by Peter Pi on a necked .45 hull. It kicks 165-grain bullets at 1,300 FPS, for 619 ft-lbs. While the .400 Corbon is only commercially chambered in a few pistols, the 10mm appears in countless 1911 platforms and other autos from SIG, GLOCK and Springfield — even revolvers!

He also believes a semi-auto makes more sense because they are flatter than a revolver and typically hold more rounds. He also recommends carrying a bear defense gun in a chest holster.

    In my view the best place for a back-up pistol (or bear spray) is on your chest. Hunting coats that overhang a gun in a belt holster can impede a draw, especially if you’re flat on the ground. Reaching for a gun on your belt, or in a shoulder holster, also involves much hand and coat motion. Opening your coat to access a chest holster is quicker, less obtrusive. If you get knocked down, your hands naturally come up close to your chest to shield your vitals. You can reach a chest holster face-down or face-up.

    If you spot a bear close by and it’s too late to slip away undetected, staying still makes sense, at least for the moment. Easing your hand slowly to a pistol’s butt in a chest holster shouldn’t change your profile or your position. Want to pull off a mitten in cold weather? Your teeth are inches above the gun.

His choice of a chest rig is Galco’s Great Alaskan chest holster. I have a Gunfighter's Inc. Kenai chest holster which I like because it is kydex and has a comfortable harness system that is easy to put on or take off. I also like that you can buy extra holsters and easily switch out what is on the harness. I have two holsters--both for revolvers--and am thinking of one for a semi-auto.