A very chilling discussion since I'm planning to spend the month of August alone and on foot in brown bear country. Did I say alone--not quite, I'll have an '86 in 45-70. As for the ongoing discussion, I'm equally comfortable with the double action and the single action. The recoil of a heavy sixgun for me at least tends to negate the advantage of speed I might have in emptying a double action versus a single action. Either should be fast enough, and either is last ditch response, a handgun is something to go to if a bear knocks the rifle out of my hands before I can use it because I didn't see the bear soon enough. Bears can move with remarkable silence. If he gets that close, and I still have enough life left in me to shoot, it will be a matter of emptying the cylinder probing for the spine or the brain pan. It's quite possible to kill the bear and still die, likely even at that range. Even if you break the spine, in his death throes he still has the power to kill you, and most quick head shots at most angles won't immediately finish him. In bear country I don't move without the rifle in hand, and how long you wait between glances behind you says something about how much you value your life. Even then, you have to sleep sometimes. I met a Kodiak Island bear guide who told me that he has woken twice with a bear in his face.
My choice for a handgun will be a 629. The choice is made easy because I don't have a short barreled Ruger 44 magnum. The 7.5 inch Ruger 44 magnum I've owned since the 70's is just too much weight. I'm very concerned about reliability. I've carried Smith & Wessons for extended periods in rough country in open top holsters whose actions filled with so much grit that I didn't want to cock them or fire them until I could completely strip them and clean them, not something I wanted to do in the Alaska wilds. For this reason I will carry the 4 inch barrel 629 in a full flap El Paso crossdraw. It is surprisingly fast, and with the canteen snap holding the flap in place, I can and have taken some pretty bad falls including being over my head in water in a river and the 629 stayed with me and stayed clean. If I do have to disassemble it, my Leatherman tool can do it, but to make sure I don't lose the rebound spring, I'll zip myself up in the sleeping bag first if I have reason to touch the rebound spring. Maybe just to avoid a worst case scenario, I'll carry a spare rebound spring, but even if I do have to take the sideplate off, I shouldn't have to take out the rebound spring.
If I had the personal ability to get 6 accurate shots off in 6 seconds with a caliber more powerful than 44 magnum that's what I would carry, but I can't. I have done that with the 629, keeping the shots in a 10-inch circle from the leather at 7 yards, using full power loads. That's dismal shooting by combat standards, but I don't think practice would help. Too many full power 44 magnums would probably wreck the reliability of the gun, and it would certainly be more than my hand could stand up to. In this one instance, I have a fear that practice might make me worse rather than better. The best way I know to get in some kind of practice for this situation is to shoot a lot of 44 Specials, but I know that's not the same. The idea of being in bear country and relying on a handgun as a sole means of defense is not something I would do willingly. Getting up close to a bear and killing them with one well placed shot in a hunting situation is one thing, stopping one who is already moving on you is quite another.
