Couger, forgive me, I would've preferred to keep our PMs private but you blocked my ability to reply so I have no means to try and rectify the situation, and I would like to do so. I would gladly resolve it that way if you're amenable.
By way of explanation, I have been in many of the woods and mountains west of the Rockies at some point in the last 40 something years, to include HI, but not AK. In winter of 2004, I took my family - petite wife, 2 small kids, and a dog - hiking in black bear country in north Georgia. I had a .44 magnum holstered on my belt with heavy loads. At the point in our 8 mile loop furthest from the car (of course), my dog blocked our path, bristled, pointed, and growled very low. I drew, my wife hushed our kids, and we listened and waited. Within 100 yards of the trail, a black bear passed through the brush along a ridgeline, and kept on going. We continued on. Not long after, I rolled my ankle, fell off the trail ,off balance from a really bad daypack, and slid down a slope off the trail. Had that happened at another place on the trail, it would've been a ravine and I would've been seriously injured or dead. It occurred to me at that moment, that had I been taken out of the equation, my wife and children still needed to get out of bear country to the car. They were still at risk, and there was a bear nearby.
The problem was not my choice of pistol (44 magnum, heavy loads); the problem was my wife can't handle a 44, never mind my 9 and 11 year old kids at the time. I believe that survival is not just personal, its for all for whom you're responsible. So that is why I mentioned sprawled at the bottom of a ravine where the rest of your party is divvy'ing up your pack ... for me that would've been my family as I had the pack and the gun. And we've since hiked trails that were even more steep, slick and dangerous, so we factor in the risk of falling on uneven terrain when we pack now. And many of those terrains are frequented by bear or other dangerous animals.
That's a real scenario in which a survival or bear pistol was required in my own experience, and my selection of pistol failed to include all factors. Today, we carry (when permitted) heavy loaded 357s, as that is something my wife can manage. She can place all 6 (or
in a bear sized target. A 10mm would be a superior choice for bear defense, IMO. But its useless if my wife can't use it to defend herself, so we went with the best we could manage.
