Revolver equivalent of the "field pistol"

[JTMcC]

In all my years hiking/hunting here, the 4 legged threats that required uses of a handgun were dogs, be it ferals or hunting dogs poachers use. I have yet to draw a handgun on any of the dangerous game here, the 375h&h has ended any potential encounters with anything else. So two legged threats being priority, and 4 legged threats being a worst case scenario. There's excellent bonded bullets as well as monolithics available here. Import stuff does come in from time to time,swift, Barnes.

In that case, I'd look at a DA .44 magnum and load some of those quality bullets, 280 gr. Swift Aframes or the 225 Barnes XPB or a tough 300 (vicinity) non expanding with a big ole meplat and be content.
The N frame, 8 round .357's would be tempting to me but given the size of your animals I'd stay in .44 land. Probably with the XPB's, that's very solid big dog medicine that will deal well with much larger things.

I'm in a situation where I need the ability to drive deep in larger animals in an emergency, but want to be able to deal with snakes & dogs & coyotes on a regular basis on the low end, and of course the human element in between those extremes. My current choice is a S&W 329PD with XPB's (and a shot shell in snake areas).
Good luck with your choice.

[Salamander]

There's a lot of good information above, and the point has already been made that the choice depends on the threat and the situation. So I'll try to come at it from a slightly different direction. I started as a wildlife biologist and although I've long been in management, I still get out on a lot of project sites to get things started and still directly supervise numerous field biologists. Some of that work happens on remote sites, and some of it happens at night. We're required to write a safety plan prior to starting each project, which kind of focuses the analysis.

First, with adequate preparation there are only a few parts of the continental US where I'd be very concerned about wildlife. I understand about fear of the unknown, as a scientist I don't have that to fall back on. If you think about it, in much of the eastern half of the country where the majority of the population lives, there's nothing larger than coyote and deer out there. I'd be more concerned about two-legged threats there, anything wildlife related could probably be handled with a light, small caliber trail gun. I'm about to get a team started on a project in Illinois and there's really nothing four-legged there that I'm worried about.

Where I live, on the northern California coast, black bear and mountain lion are relatively common. However attacks on humans are very rare (for example, see https://www.sfgate.com/sports/articl...as-3139245.php ). Dive deep into the stats and most of those negative interactions are around tourist-heavy parks where idiots feed the wildlife and bears lose their fear of humans. In my county and the adjacent counties I can't find a single verified attack in recent decades. Of all my biologist friends... as past president of the local chapter of The Wildlife Society I know a lot of them... only one has ever had a negative interaction which in that case resulted in her being treed for a short time til backup arrived. That was on active timberlands, so who knows maybe the bear was pissed that it's home had just been destroyed. I'm not entirely kidding, if most local shelter had been removed and food was suddenly scarce, she may have encountered a very hungry and grumpy bear. My personal encounters with bear have almost always been glimpses of the back end of an animal rapidly departing the area. Big cat sightings are relatively unusual because they have such huge home ranges, while some of those animals especially at night acted like a big disdainful haughty cat they still all departed, just not always as quickly as a typical bear. I will say it gets the adrenaline pumping when encountering a big cat in the dark on a trail at a few tens of feet distance. That said, we're usually far more worried about skunk out for a night time walk, and need to go around those pretty regularly.

In this area the biggest threats are typically humans and dogs associated with illegal grows, or with homeless camps. I tend to carry a 3-inch 357 or a 9mm semi around here. The revolver is preferred in the backcountry in part because I can easily change out street ammo for non-lead (to stay fully compliant with state regs), and then back again on the way out. It used to be a GP-100, more recently I've gone to a 3-inch Colt King Cobra which I shoot slightly better and which is also lighter and easier to conceal.

Two counties to the south feral pigs start to become a possibility, and that can influence the choice of firearm and caliber.

In the interior mountain west where brown bear may be present, then I'll go with a 4-inch 625 mountain gun in 45 Colt and a 255gr Keith @ 900fps load, or occasionally a 4-inch 29-2. I sometimes also carry the mountain gun here in California just because.

Note that I haven't said anything about snakes. That's because working biologists respect them but aren't afraid of them. On Arizona projects I've encountered an average of two or three western diamondbacks and Mojave rattlers a day... during endangered species clearance surveys when we walked an average of 13 miles per day on transects through creosote bush scrub... and walked around snakes, maybe took a photo or two. The majority of snakebites in the US happen to drunken losers taking a dare to kiss a snake, to people keeping them as pets who get careless just once at feeding time, or equally stupid variants. Don't touch the snake and there's very little risk. In high density habitat, wear good boots and walk around the occasional encounter and the risk is nil.

Most of the time our safety plans identify things like ticks, heat or cold, and slips-trips-falls as the greatest risks. I've had people in the field almost every day for the past 32 years, most of those folks aren't carrying anything stronger than bear spray, and we've never had a wildlife related injury. So as always pay attention, but don't overthink the wildlife stuff at least in most of the US. Be more careful in brown bear country, and in other parts of the world with big game.

[okie john]

There's a lot of good information above, and the point has already been made that the choice depends on the threat and the situation. So I'll try to come at it from a slightly different direction. I started as a wildlife biologist and although I've long been in management, I still get out on a lot of project sites to get things started and still directly supervise numerous field biologists. Some of that work happens on remote sites, and some of it happens at night. We're required to write a safety plan prior to starting each project, which kind of focuses the analysis.

First, with adequate preparation there are only a few parts of the continental US where I'd be very concerned about wildlife. I understand about fear of the unknown, as a scientist I don't have that to fall back on. If you think about it, in much of the eastern half of the country where the majority of the population lives, there's nothing larger than coyote and deer out there. I'd be more concerned about two-legged threats there, anything wildlife related could probably be handled with a light, small caliber trail gun. I'm about to get a team started on a project in Illinois and there's really nothing four-legged there that I'm worried about.

Where I live, on the northern California coast, black bear and mountain lion are relatively common. However attacks on humans are very rare (for example, see https://www.sfgate.com/sports/articl...as-3139245.php ). Dive deep into the stats and most of those negative interactions are around tourist-heavy parks where idiots feed the wildlife and bears lose their fear of humans. In my county and the adjacent counties I can't find a single verified attack in recent decades. Of all my biologist friends... as past president of the local chapter of The Wildlife Society I know a lot of them... only one has ever had a negative interaction which in that case resulted in her being treed for a short time til backup arrived. That was on active timberlands, so who knows maybe the bear was pissed that it's home had just been destroyed. I'm not entirely kidding, if most local shelter had been removed and food was suddenly scarce, she may have encountered a very hungry and grumpy bear. My personal encounters with bear have almost always been glimpses of the back end of an animal rapidly departing the area. Big cat sightings are relatively unusual because they have such huge home ranges, while some of those animals especially at night acted like a big disdainful haughty cat they still all departed, just not always as quickly as a typical bear. I will say it gets the adrenaline pumping when encountering a big cat in the dark on a trail at a few tens of feet distance. That said, we're usually far more worried about skunk out for a night time walk, and need to go around those pretty regularly.

In this area the biggest threats are typically humans and dogs associated with illegal grows, or with homeless camps. I tend to carry a 3-inch 357 or a 9mm semi around here. The revolver is preferred in the backcountry in part because I can easily change out street ammo for non-lead (to stay fully compliant with state regs), and then back again on the way out. It used to be a GP-100, more recently I've gone to a 3-inch Colt King Cobra which I shoot slightly better and which is also lighter and easier to conceal.

Two counties to the south feral pigs start to become a possibility, and that can influence the choice of firearm and caliber.

In the interior mountain west where brown bear may be present, then I'll go with a 4-inch 625 mountain gun in 45 Colt and a 255gr Keith @ 900fps load, or occasionally a 4-inch 29-2. I sometimes also carry the mountain gun here in California just because.

Note that I haven't said anything about snakes. That's because working biologists respect them but aren't afraid of them. On Arizona projects I've encountered an average of two or three western diamondbacks and Mojave rattlers a day... during endangered species clearance surveys when we walked an average of 13 miles per day on transects through creosote bush scrub... and walked around snakes, maybe took a photo or two. The majority of snakebites in the US happen to drunken losers taking a dare to kiss a snake, to people keeping them as pets who get careless just once at feeding time, or equally stupid variants. Don't touch the snake and there's very little risk. In high density habitat, wear good boots and walk around the occasional encounter and the risk is nil.

Most of the time our safety plans identify things like ticks, heat or cold, and slips-trips-falls as the greatest risks. I've had people in the field almost every day for the past 32 years, most of those folks aren't carrying anything stronger than bear spray, and we've never had a wildlife related injury. So as always pay attention, but don't overthink the wildlife stuff at least in most of the US. Be more careful in brown bear country, and in other parts of the world with big game.

This should be a sticky somewhere.


Okie John

[Stephanie B]

This should be a sticky somewhere.


Okie John

Agreed. Maybe there should be a "helpful hints/words of wisdom" thread that is only mods can put stuff into (the kids call it "curate"), such as posts like that one there.

[JTMcC]

There's a lot of good information above, and the point has already been made that the choice depends on the threat and the situation. So I'll try to come at it from a slightly different direction. I started as a wildlife biologist and although I've long been in management, I still get out on a lot of project sites to get things started and still directly supervise numerous field biologists. Some of that work happens on remote sites, and some of it happens at night. We're required to write a safety plan prior to starting each project, which kind of focuses the analysis.

First, with adequate preparation there are only a few parts of the continental US where I'd be very concerned about wildlife. I understand about fear of the unknown, as a scientist I don't have that to fall back on. If you think about it, in much of the eastern half of the country where the majority of the population lives, there's nothing larger than coyote and deer out there. I'd be more concerned about two-legged threats there, anything wildlife related could probably be handled with a light, small caliber trail gun. I'm about to get a team started on a project in Illinois and there's really nothing four-legged there that I'm worried about.

Where I live, on the northern California coast, black bear and mountain lion are relatively common. However attacks on humans are very rare (for example, see https://www.sfgate.com/sports/articl...as-3139245.php ). Dive deep into the stats and most of those negative interactions are around tourist-heavy parks where idiots feed the wildlife and bears lose their fear of humans. In my county and the adjacent counties I can't find a single verified attack in recent decades. Of all my biologist friends... as past president of the local chapter of The Wildlife Society I know a lot of them... only one has ever had a negative interaction which in that case resulted in her being treed for a short time til backup arrived. That was on active timberlands, so who knows maybe the bear was pissed that it's home had just been destroyed. I'm not entirely kidding, if most local shelter had been removed and food was suddenly scarce, she may have encountered a very hungry and grumpy bear. My personal encounters with bear have almost always been glimpses of the back end of an animal rapidly departing the area. Big cat sightings are relatively unusual because they have such huge home ranges, while some of those animals especially at night acted like a big disdainful haughty cat they still all departed, just not always as quickly as a typical bear. I will say it gets the adrenaline pumping when encountering a big cat in the dark on a trail at a few tens of feet distance. That said, we're usually far more worried about skunk out for a night time walk, and need to go around those pretty regularly.

In this area the biggest threats are typically humans and dogs associated with illegal grows, or with homeless camps. I tend to carry a 3-inch 357 or a 9mm semi around here. The revolver is preferred in the backcountry in part because I can easily change out street ammo for non-lead (to stay fully compliant with state regs), and then back again on the way out. It used to be a GP-100, more recently I've gone to a 3-inch Colt King Cobra which I shoot slightly better and which is also lighter and easier to conceal.

Two counties to the south feral pigs start to become a possibility, and that can influence the choice of firearm and caliber.

In the interior mountain west where brown bear may be present, then I'll go with a 4-inch 625 mountain gun in 45 Colt and a 255gr Keith @ 900fps load, or occasionally a 4-inch 29-2. I sometimes also carry the mountain gun here in California just because.

Note that I haven't said anything about snakes. That's because working biologists respect them but aren't afraid of them. On Arizona projects I've encountered an average of two or three western diamondbacks and Mojave rattlers a day... during endangered species clearance surveys when we walked an average of 13 miles per day on transects through creosote bush scrub... and walked around snakes, maybe took a photo or two. The majority of snakebites in the US happen to drunken losers taking a dare to kiss a snake, to people keeping them as pets who get careless just once at feeding time, or equally stupid variants. Don't touch the snake and there's very little risk. In high density habitat, wear good boots and walk around the occasional encounter and the risk is nil.

Most of the time our safety plans identify things like ticks, heat or cold, and slips-trips-falls as the greatest risks. I've had people in the field almost every day for the past 32 years, most of those folks aren't carrying anything stronger than bear spray, and we've never had a wildlife related injury. So as always pay attention, but don't overthink the wildlife stuff at least in most of the US. Be more careful in brown bear country, and in other parts of the world with big game.

I would add these comments:

People who live in areas with heavy lion populations can and will have reason to deal with them outside of an attack on humans. Lion in my area regularly square off with dogs, kill & eat livestock. interaction isn't based on a cougar targeting a person.

The boulders and mountains that make prime lion territory also makes prime snake country. I've never bothered much less killed a snake out in the wild, but when you live here every day, the snakes that come in and get under the kids trampoline, the cars/trucks, the porch steps, etc.... those get shot.

There are people who work with or in the vicinity of large animals that do at times become belligerent and injure or kill, tearing up corrals, trucks, trailers, and attempting to hurt little old people.

So there are situations that go beyond say "an encounter while visiting the outdoors" and they can be much more common due to the circumstances.

[Clusterfrack]

Agreed. Maybe there should be a "helpful hints/words of wisdom" thread that is only mods can put stuff into (the kids call it "curate"), such as posts like that one there.

Great idea. Done.

https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....ords-of-Wisdom

[TheNewbie]

Excellent post @Salamander.

There is more concern on my part hiking in the east vs the west Texas mountains. Mainly due to ticks, but I’m not sure even that is based on a rational concern.


I’ve spent a lot of time hiking remote areas and I even spent some solo time cruising the remote border areas of Texas. The one mountain lion encounter shows the need to be prepared for the potential “big event”, but cuts, breaks, insect bites, getting lost, etc are less thought of but more likely.


I would rather have a world class med kit/with great wilderness medical training, great map and navigation skills, and a decent pack, than the best field gun. Give me the above and a sp101 and I would be ok anywhere in the lower 48.

[GJM]

There's a lot of good information above, and the point has already been made that the choice depends on the threat and the situation. So I'll try to come at it from a slightly different direction. I started as a wildlife biologist and although I've long been in management, I still get out on a lot of project sites to get things started and still directly supervise numerous field biologists. Some of that work happens on remote sites, and some of it happens at night. We're required to write a safety plan prior to starting each project, which kind of focuses the analysis.

First, with adequate preparation there are only a few parts of the continental US where I'd be very concerned about wildlife. I understand about fear of the unknown, as a scientist I don't have that to fall back on. If you think about it, in much of the eastern half of the country where the majority of the population lives, there's nothing larger than coyote and deer out there. I'd be more concerned about two-legged threats there, anything wildlife related could probably be handled with a light, small caliber trail gun. I'm about to get a team started on a project in Illinois and there's really nothing four-legged there that I'm worried about.

Where I live, on the northern California coast, black bear and mountain lion are relatively common. However attacks on humans are very rare (for example, see https://www.sfgate.com/sports/articl...as-3139245.php ). Dive deep into the stats and most of those negative interactions are around tourist-heavy parks where idiots feed the wildlife and bears lose their fear of humans. In my county and the adjacent counties I can't find a single verified attack in recent decades. Of all my biologist friends... as past president of the local chapter of The Wildlife Society I know a lot of them... only one has ever had a negative interaction which in that case resulted in her being treed for a short time til backup arrived. That was on active timberlands, so who knows maybe the bear was pissed that it's home had just been destroyed. I'm not entirely kidding, if most local shelter had been removed and food was suddenly scarce, she may have encountered a very hungry and grumpy bear. My personal encounters with bear have almost always been glimpses of the back end of an animal rapidly departing the area. Big cat sightings are relatively unusual because they have such huge home ranges, while some of those animals especially at night acted like a big disdainful haughty cat they still all departed, just not always as quickly as a typical bear. I will say it gets the adrenaline pumping when encountering a big cat in the dark on a trail at a few tens of feet distance. That said, we're usually far more worried about skunk out for a night time walk, and need to go around those pretty regularly.

In this area the biggest threats are typically humans and dogs associated with illegal grows, or with homeless camps. I tend to carry a 3-inch 357 or a 9mm semi around here. The revolver is preferred in the backcountry in part because I can easily change out street ammo for non-lead (to stay fully compliant with state regs), and then back again on the way out. It used to be a GP-100, more recently I've gone to a 3-inch Colt King Cobra which I shoot slightly better and which is also lighter and easier to conceal.

Two counties to the south feral pigs start to become a possibility, and that can influence the choice of firearm and caliber.

In the interior mountain west where brown bear may be present, then I'll go with a 4-inch 625 mountain gun in 45 Colt and a 255gr Keith @ 900fps load, or occasionally a 4-inch 29-2. I sometimes also carry the mountain gun here in California just because.

Note that I haven't said anything about snakes. That's because working biologists respect them but aren't afraid of them. On Arizona projects I've encountered an average of two or three western diamondbacks and Mojave rattlers a day... during endangered species clearance surveys when we walked an average of 13 miles per day on transects through creosote bush scrub... and walked around snakes, maybe took a photo or two. The majority of snakebites in the US happen to drunken losers taking a dare to kiss a snake, to people keeping them as pets who get careless just once at feeding time, or equally stupid variants. Don't touch the snake and there's very little risk. In high density habitat, wear good boots and walk around the occasional encounter and the risk is nil.

Most of the time our safety plans identify things like ticks, heat or cold, and slips-trips-falls as the greatest risks. I've had people in the field almost every day for the past 32 years, most of those folks aren't carrying anything stronger than bear spray, and we've never had a wildlife related injury. So as always pay attention, but don't overthink the wildlife stuff at least in most of the US. Be more careful in brown bear country, and in other parts of the world with big game.

Excellent summary, and perhaps without intending it so, you make a persuasive argument for the Glock 19 sized service pistol as the most practical field revolver niche firearm. Easier to holster in a range of field rigs, better weight to capacity ratio, less entry points for field debris, easier to red dot, easier to change iron sights on, easier to carry extra ammo for, easier to shoot, and easier to change from JHP to penetrator ammo which I facilitate by leaving a Gold Dot in the chamber.

[Salamander]

I would add these comments:

People who live in areas with heavy lion populations can and will have reason to deal with them outside of an attack on humans. Lion in my area regularly square off with dogs, kill & eat livestock. interaction isn't based on a cougar targeting a person.

The boulders and mountains that make prime lion territory also makes prime snake country. I've never bothered much less killed a snake out in the wild, but when you live here every day, the snakes that come in and get under the kids trampoline, the cars/trucks, the porch steps, etc.... those get shot.

There are people who work with or in the vicinity of large animals that do at times become belligerent and injure or kill, tearing up corrals, trucks, trailers, and attempting to hurt little old people.

So there are situations that go beyond say "an encounter while visiting the outdoors" and they can be much more common due to the circumstances.

I live in ranch country, so yeah I get what you're saying. One of the things we tell newcomers moving here from the big city is not to let their dogs run loose. If it harrasses livestock and has a collar and tags, they may get a call to come and pick it up, along with a stern lecture. No collar, and it may just disappear. I'll add that lions get blamed for a lot of things done by coyote. According to the Forest Service, lion density ranges from 3.7 to 6.7 per 100 square km. They move around a lot, and even in good habitat there may be a lion present in a given spot only a couple weeks of the year. Coyote are seldom seen but way more common than most people appreciate, and if I saw one harrassing my neighbors chickens... Snakes, having them around kids or animals could be a problem. Me, I'd probably sweep one into a garbage can and relocate it so it could eat mice somewhere else, but I'm trained on how to do that safely and most people aren't. In reality my approach is to close off the hiding places, in my case it's possum that try to get under the house and we've finally figured how to keep them out. Two of them did meet a quick end and they weren't ever a risk, just really annoying scratching around late at night.

[Salamander]

Excellent post @Salamander.

There is more concern on my part hiking in the east vs the west Texas mountains. Mainly due to ticks, but I’m not sure even that is based on a rational concern.


I’ve spent a lot of time hiking remote areas and I even spent some solo time cruising the remote border areas of Texas. The one mountain lion encounter shows the need to be prepared for the potential “big event”, but cuts, breaks, insect bites, getting lost, etc are less thought of but more likely.


I would rather have a world class med kit/with great wilderness medical training, great map and navigation skills, and a decent pack, than the best field gun. Give me the above and a sp101 and I would be ok anywhere in the lower 48.

Ticks are a legitimate and very rational concern. I've been lucky and never had a problem, but a few colleagues have had Lyme disease and they tell me it's not fun at all. One of them was in the hospital on an IV for a week. I was with him the day he picked up that tick, it was near Kankakee Illinois; I was lucky and he wasn't. We do have ticks in the west, but the really extreme abundances I've seen have been on Long Island in the pine barrens up at the north end; in the New Jersey pine barrens; in northern Indiana; and in the Ozarks. Best advice I can give is check carefully as soon as practical. I find a lot on my clothes but rarely give them time to attach. The most serious cases I know of, the person didn't find them for days.