In the handgun world, the medium-powered 9mm Luger cartridge has become the overwhelming favorite in America, and much of the rest of the world, today. Light recoil, adequate power for a defensive handgun if you’re not after dangerous game, and lots of bullets on board. Relatively cheap ammo, too.
Still, whether the topic is long guns or handguns, the higher-powered ones do have a place. Here’s an article I wrote on that topic for Backwoods Home magazine back in 2010. Not much has changed on the matter since
What an excellent article! No elephants, or Tyrannosaurus Rexes ever come around Mas’ place. : )
In Constitution-ignoring, slave states, we are often limited to 10-round magazines. Makes sense to carry more powerful rounds than 9mm Luger, if we can. Also, it probably sounds better to some unenlightened prosecutors, judges and juries to hear the defendant only fired one, two or three rounds into the attacker, rather than emptying a magazine into him. So, if I am stuck with limited capacity magazines, I want to fire more powerful rounds, in the hope of stopping the attack sooner.
Of course, a prosecutor might now accuse a Patriot of using extra powerful rounds, because he wants to be a vigilante. In which case the Patriot should have moved to a free state, or refrained from carrying a gun in the anti-Second Amendment, slave state.
In the 44 magnum world, what barrel length?
I once shot a short barrel, Ruger 454 Casull Alaskan, along with a bunch of 44 magnums (Colt, S&W and Ruger). The 44s were actually pleasant to shoot. The Alaskan was miserable. After three shots, I quit.
For me – EDC is a 2.5 PC M629 or a M69 combat magnum. For fun – my 6 inch M29.
https://theothermccain.com/2026/09/03/crazy-people-are-dangerous-57/
Apparently, 9mm worked but I would have wanted something more.
I’ve found that a lot of the magnumitis involved in picking deer rifles lies in the mistaken belief that they shoot like lasers and you don’t have to allow for bullet drop. In their imagination, if you can see ’em, you can hit ’em.
I never needed more than one .44 Magnum handgun shot to collect my Pennsylvania white tails. And, they were handloads I’d backed down a couple hundred foot/seconds from the factory loads. Bambi never noticed the difference and I shot them much better than the factory loads at hunting distances.
I was at the range one day when a gent arrived with a plain jane British double in .450-,400. He was going to Africa and decided if he was going to play the role, he was going to do it right. He was going to sight it in from the bench, but I suggested that sitting might be the more prudent position. I watched his first shot with interest. That Kynoch load produced muzzle flash visible in broad daylight and his heels lifted 6 inches off the ground. After a brief pause, he turned his head slightly and said “Thank you”. After a brief pause, he fired the second barrel and managed to keep his heels down. The gun did shoot to point of aim at 50 yards. I didn’t ask what he was planning to shoot with it, have to admit to more than a tinge of envy.
Another reason for bigger bullets is New Jersey, which prohibits civilian use of hollowpoints. Which I don’t worry about since I’m not going there.
larryarnold,
You are partially correct. In New Jersey, only active duty police officers are allowed to “carry” hollow points. Retired officers, and civilians are allowed to have them in their homes, for the purpose of repelling intruders, or to fire them at targets on a range. Civilians, if they have a permit to carry, cannot “carry” hollow points. What do we do? Technology comes to the rescue. According to the NJ State Police, if the cavity in a hollow point is filled in with polymer, then the round is no longer a hollow point. So, we buy Hornady Critical Defense rounds, and Cor-Bon Pow’r Ball, which have that polymer in the cavity. So, thankfully a ray of enlightenment found its way into the law, and like I said, technology came to the rescue for us in NJ.
IIRC, that’s when you’re out in public, but things like the Hornady flex-tip bullets are legal. I don’t go there either.
The place where we used to live (the Soviet Socialist State of MN) has some weird deer hunting regulations. The southern part is shotgun/slug only, while rifles are allowed in the northern portion. When I started hunting up north I needed to pick an appropriate rifle caliber. My method was simple; I went to a bunch of gas stations to see what calibers they had on their shelves during deer season. The overwhelming majority of time the calibers that were always available were .30-30 and .30-06. I picked the ought-six because I wanted something that would be an “almost anything in North America” caliber. I think I made the right choice, since a bolt gun (as opposed to the M1 Garands I used to have) recoils pretty good but not so terribly that it affects my shooting. The longest shot I ever took at a deer in MN was a measured 125 yards.
On the other hand I standardized on .45 ACP for defensive handgun purposes. I like a big (230 grain), dumb (JHP), and slow (880 ft/sec) bullet. These days I’ve tried some of the light-weight compact 9mm’s, and they seem to have a nastier recoil than my tried-and-true 1911A1’s.
Now we live in NW Wyoming and we have grizzly bears nearby. Some people would feel under-gunned with a .45 but I’m pretty sure that 7 rounds delivered accurately will deter (but maybe not kill) a bear. Lots of people I know sneer at it, but I’ve tried .44 Magnums, and I simply can’t handle the recoil. I’ve tried them with long barrels (6″) and it’s a little better, but you might as well be carrying a long arm in a more effective caliber. A friend let me try his 3″ barreled .44 and I didn’t even finish firing through the entire cylinder. If you stoke them with downloaded .44 Specials it’s nowhere near as bad, but then that’s kind of missing the point, isn’t it.
I carry a .45 everywhere I go that it’s legal to do so (in WY that’s just about everywhere but the courthouse where I pay my taxes for property and vehicles). Even in the wilderness I’m far more worried about 2-legged varmints than I am about bears or mountain lions.
The twelve gauge shotgun and the .44 magnum are the two most versatile guns you can buy. There are loads for each that allow them to effectively dispatch anything I will ever encounter in my travels. I have been using both since I was 14 and was the only one in my sheriff’s department that carried a .44 mag as a duty weapon. My S&W M29 is one gun I will never part with, in this life or the next.
There have been a few invasions of New England over the years, if not by elephants, then by some with elephantine egos (cf recent political candidate in Maine).