I once had a federal 9mm 147gr fmj fp fail to penetrate a fisher cat skull at 1 foot . It didn't even knock it out. It slid around the skull and ran down the back and exited out the tail.
I once had a federal 9mm 147gr fmj fp fail to penetrate a fisher cat skull at 1 foot . It didn't even knock it out. It slid around the skull and ran down the back and exited out the tail.
On the ragged edge of the world I'll roam,
And the home of the wolf shall be my home - Robert Service
That's an important point. For those not in Alaska or the northern Rockies the choices are easier, for example in my old Midwest haunts I'd be fine hiking with a 38 sp, nothing bigger than coyotes there and in general four-legged critters would be a secondary concern. On the relatively rare occasions when I'm hiking in grizzly country I'd 1) research the regs but am almost certain you're correct about few restrictions; and 2) if at all practical the pistol would be a backup to a long gun.Originally Posted by GJM
FWIW, some years back a bunch of us went up to Glacier NP for a few days after a Soc. for Conservation Biology meeting in Missoula, I hiked mostly with a good friend from the Field Museum and often saw others from the meeting. Everyone was being very careful about bears each in their own way. Lots of respect for brown bears from those very knowledgeable people.
I bet the ratio of 10mm semi auto purchases/all handgun purchases is significantly higher in Montana, Wyoming and Alaska than in all other states.
Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.
Not really sure how the penetration in gel would translate to punching through heavy bone or what bullet profile would win in that instance. I think it would be a hard thing to test. Increased deformation and surface area to deflect vs more mass.
I don't really worry about it much, because a skull hit on a charging bear is likely to either land in the triangle just due to how they hold their heads when charging or be a glancing hit. If it starts whirling and snapping at a hit it might be a factor but at that point hitting the head seems unlikely, you're just pouring lead(or copper) into the rough center. I don't think penetration ability is going to make much difference on whether a bullet hitting the edge of the heavy bone mass is going to slide inwards or outwards.
I train to start moving laterally while firing if the terrain permits but I don't think I would get far enough fast enough to present an oblique skull shot.
If proven reliable I would prefer the extra penetration of the hardcast because the people that have to go find the bear I DLPed would prefer to find a dead bear crawled into some brush than a wounded bear snapping and pissed. I have a hard time thinking that bullet profile will be as reliable as the XPs under all conditions, but I've been wrong before and no doubt will be again.
Youse guys are making it kinda sound like context matters, or something.
Enjoying the discussion.
"It's surprising how often you start wondering just how featureless a desert some people's inner landscapes must be."
-Maple Syrup Actual
I believe it. Bullets do weird stuff sometimes. All the more reason to have as many as possible in hand.
I ran BB hard cast outdoorsman in a 9mm 226 last year for a trip to Alaska. Penetration, reliability, shoot ability were what gave me the confidence that I had a fighting chance against larger and aggressive friends. 45 Super was my first choice (wasn’t looking for rds at the time), but I couldn’t get a holster set up in time. I ended up running the Sig in a philster the whole time and it was perfect. GJM’s research over the years helped me to find an informed choice. I went with the Sig partly because I wanted a da/sa shootability, the sig shootability, and the barrel length. I might just go with the G5/17 if I had to do it over again.
I’m a lot more likely to run into a range cow or a steer or another illegal alien than a lion, black bear, or jaguar. I’d have to travel a long way to find a wild brown bear of any description.
I carry a 9mm or a .38 most of the time when hiking, with either hard cast or xtreme penetrators.
You can probably add Idaho to that list.
I'm going to expand on this a little. Not sure how many folks from California are lurking out there but it might be more than a few.
I actually don't mind the non-lead thing, for revolvers which tend to have more hunting-oriented loads I'd probably use non-lead for outdoor carry even in the absence of regs. More non-lead choices in semi-auto calibers would by a good thing in my view.
The laws that most influence field pistol choices in California are the roster, and magazine capacity restrictions. The roster is my personal pet peeve, because I knew one of the former General Assembly members (now deceased) who voted in the original version. She told me that the original intent was to discourage cheap Saturday night specials then common in urban street crime. It's since been perverted to basically ban the most modern technological innovations. We can't easily go out an buy an optics-ready pistol as one good example. The magazine capacity thing is of course obvious, 9mm is a more viable woods choice with >10 capacity. Yes we can technically use our grandfathered mags or the ones we bought during "freedom week" but not all LE understand that so there is some risk.
There is hope, we expect favorable post-Bruen rulings on one or both roster cases perhaps as soon as this summer according to CRPA, and on the magazine case also. The state will almost certainly appeal and who knows how long that takes.
In the meantime here are a few thoughts on field pistols in California:
As noted previously, my CDFW contacts recommend non-lead for carry away from urban areas. What to select depends on threat analysis.
Black bear are common in much of the state, however attacks on humans are rare and tend to occur mostly in regions where stupid tourists feed them or leave food available. Up here on the north coast there are no documented attacks on humans since the 1970s, and that tracks with my experience and that of my friends. The most common view of a bear up here in the "State of Jefferson" is the rear end rapidly disappearing into the brush. I've spent months working on sites and seeing scat and tracks every day and getting nightly hits on game cameras, and rarely seeing one of the animals. In parts of the Sierras frequented by tourists more care may be necessary.
This thread has helped me feel better about carrying 9mm XP in black bear country, which is good because I've been doing that for a long time.
Other common threats include semi-feral dogs around homeless camps or illegal grows, 9mm is plenty for that and it's one more argument for a semi-auto field pistol. We had one guy on one of my project sites with seven pit bulls, he said "only one was mean" but who knows. That said, we found that with good situational awareness we had only a couple of close calls and no actual incidents.
In some areas there are feral pigs, they're very rare up here so I haven't given it a ton of thought but there are lots in some of the outer Bay Area counties.
Gray wolves occur only in the northeast corner of the state, for now. Perhaps an emerging/future concern, but so far they seem to work hard to avoid humans. Elk are common in some counties and coastal Roosevelt elk are really big. I see them often, go around in rutting season.
One thing that makes me nervous: As a RSO I see lots of guys shooting FMJ practice ammo from their Glocks with 10-round mags, then putting HP in and holstering at the end of the evening. Asking a few if they've ever function tested their carry ammo, it's mostly been blank stares. Even one of the LGS owners has given out bad advice on that. Here on P-F most seem to know to function test everything, that's probably not common in the rest of the population though. An up side is that XP's feed reliably in every type of mag I've personally tested, and I'm only sure of HP/FP issues with the Glock 9mm 10-round mags. If any other calibers or manufacturers suffer from that I haven't seen it.
Last edited by Salamander; 02-14-2023 at 09:57 PM.
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