For black bear, a .357 is not too light. When shooting in self defense, penetration is your primary concern and shooting at the nose is what's going to put the bear down the fastest. If you go in through the nose you send it right into the brain, which will kill it instantly. If you go for between the eyes or for the head, you won't get it into the brain, but you can deflect it off of the rather thick bony part of the skull. To penetrate that, you'll need a bigger, heavier revolver with a far more powerful load, and even then it may go through.
Unfortunately, the Ruger GP-100 and the S&W 686 are too damn heavy due to the underlug barrels, but you can find some good, used Ruger Security-Six/Speed-Six or S&W 66 revolvers. They are superb hunting/outdoor pistols and are perfect for use against black bears. Good hunting knives also have been used against black bears (I also know of a case where a man used a 4-inch
folding knife against a black bear and saved his wife in the process. A park ranger followed the blood trail the following day and found the bear's body some distance from the fight. In this case, however, the bear had attacked the man's wife while she was preparing the meal and he was relieving himself. He came running when he heard her scream.)
Ruger Speed-Six 3-inch is a great hiking companion.
I don't like taking the lives of animals unless absolutely necessary, so if you have some overweight Hillary Clinton supporters, please invite them to accompany you on your deep-woods hiking, camping or fishing expeditions. If you have no such friends (and who would admit it if they had?), simply try the non-lethal approaches. Nautical horns, bells and pepper spray all have been shown to work.
. In that case you for sure need a 44 or a 454 or a 460 or all of the above.
