CraigC,
Up front, I totally recognize your extensive experience in the field hunting large, dangerous game with handguns. I’ve nowhere near your level of experience. So understand I’m not shooting off at you without totally disclosing you absolutely have me in real world hunting knowledge.
I don’t think I’m taking Mr. Smith out of context. I believe the root message and context in Clint Smith’s video was that you cannot rely on or become conditioned that you can or will get away with one round to stop a threat. To test that theory, I’d ask him point blank...”Clint...Sir...if I shot a charging bear and it continued to come at me, what should I do?” I’m thinking his answer would pretty much be identical.
Certainly, his message was in a gunfighter class, but the concept applies to any flesh and blood critter trying to kill me...keep shooting until the threat stops.
I agree to a point regarding the post on platform being driven by context, but respectfully, I think you are way too restricted I you don’t think a flat nosed hard cast, properly loaded bullet won’t penetrate deep enough to stop a bear, regardless if shot from any service round, from 9MM and up. And as long as you are keeping the answer restricted to a single .44 mag versus a single 10MM, you are missing my point. 10 rounds X 180 grains of hard cast lead from a .40S&W is a helluva lot of holes, and when most are decent hits, the shooter will have much better odds of a CNS hit and immediate stop than the single round of .44/.454
One round only, your calibers win. But a 5 second window to execute multiple shots, I’ll take my Glock (properly loaded) every time.
And my argument is documented here in this article below (I could also send you to the Marksmanship Matters website, where Larry Mudgett makes the same case on his BLOG).
The jist of this article below is that the author can cite many examples of folks using service caliber handguns to stop dangerous creatures, and also cites examples where handguns failed. Ultimately, most cases where the handgun “failed”, the failure is clearly attributable to the shooter (misses, poor hits, couldn’t manipulate the gun, etc.). Failures could rarely be attributable to the poor choice of caliber.
Do you know of any other such studies or articles? I’d be happy to check them out...
https://www.ammoland.com/2018/02/de...tols-97-success-rate-37-incidents-by-caliber/
And as far as your point regarding capacity and “can’t miss fast enough to win”...we totally agree on this point. Only hits count! Which is why I am convinced a 3-4 inch DA .44 is a very hard gun to accurately operate for most folks, especially under stress, and ultimately a less than optimal gun for most folks. And a SA revolver? Wow, even slower on follow up shots and forget about reloading...
IIRC, The OP said he’d decided on and bought a snub nose Ruger Redhawk .454 and several boxes of rounds to get used to the gun. I really hope it works for him. Certainly it is a quality handgun...I used to have a RedHawk back when I lived in AK myself, but mine was a 7.5” barrel. Never got very good with that gun. That short barrel will be stout, challenging gun to run fast and accurate.
Anywho, I apologize for the long post. I’m not trying to be a jerk, just hoping to make a counter point that I believe has value based on documented self defense cases.
I’m out.