I honestly could care less about what people think is embarrassing as long as I am alive. Neither gun would be my first option as I feel my options ranked from best to worst:
1: Make noise and hope the bears here me and stay away
2: Pepper Spray
3: A gun (If I am hunting it will be a rifle anywhere from .243 to a .280, if I am just hiking for now it will be a 9mm or 45 lc. Neither of which are the best but both have gotten the job done).
The other point to bring up is it is all about shot placement. Now I would really like to think I will keep my nerve if I run into a pissed off bear, but I will never know until it happens (hopefully never unless I'm hunting one). But even if I bought a .45-70 or a light 12ga it won't do me any better than a .22lr if I can't hit it. At that point it is just sound and might as well carry an air horn and hope that scares it off.
I do want to thank everyone for giving me an answer of the two, I was afraid to post this as I figured all I would get was "Sell those weak guns and get nothing smaller than a 44 mag".
I honestly felt that the 45lc was originally the best option, but even with the majority of posts saying 45lc the new deep penetrating ammo that's making people in Alaska leave their .454's and .44's at home for 9mm, 40s&w and 45acp has me still questioning. So is one or two rounds at the most of 45lc better than 5 9mm? Again, it all depends on where those shots go and that's on me, but for fun let's say the shots are all in the same place and let's assume I made good shots.
1: Make noise and hope the bears here me and stay away
2: Pepper Spray
3: A gun (If I am hunting it will be a rifle anywhere from .243 to a .280, if I am just hiking for now it will be a 9mm or 45 lc. Neither of which are the best but both have gotten the job done).
The other point to bring up is it is all about shot placement. Now I would really like to think I will keep my nerve if I run into a pissed off bear, but I will never know until it happens (hopefully never unless I'm hunting one). But even if I bought a .45-70 or a light 12ga it won't do me any better than a .22lr if I can't hit it. At that point it is just sound and might as well carry an air horn and hope that scares it off.
I do want to thank everyone for giving me an answer of the two, I was afraid to post this as I figured all I would get was "Sell those weak guns and get nothing smaller than a 44 mag".
I honestly felt that the 45lc was originally the best option, but even with the majority of posts saying 45lc the new deep penetrating ammo that's making people in Alaska leave their .454's and .44's at home for 9mm, 40s&w and 45acp has me still questioning. So is one or two rounds at the most of 45lc better than 5 9mm? Again, it all depends on where those shots go and that's on me, but for fun let's say the shots are all in the same place and let's assume I made good shots.