On Bud's Gun Shop Forums the question came up: What is the smallest caliber you trust to protect yourself ? /QUOTE]
It must be just me, but I think there's something of a death wish trying to figure out the smallest caliber I'd trust to protect myself. My motto in weapons training in the service was (borrowed from Bell Telephone) "Reach out and touch someone." If any animal wanted some of my blood, I wanted to engage it as far out as I could. To that end, here's my list. My experience is with military hardware. There's probably better stuff out there now. But this stuff I know how to use.
FWIW I have engaged a black bear with a tear gas pen. The bear ran off none too happy with the experience.
- M2 with Unertl scope. Yes it's a heavy ***** and I don't want to go for a max range kill in auto. The scope and single shot lets me use the effective range of the .50 to best advantage. Call the bear dead at one mile. (I've put rounds through jeep headlight at a mile. The record confirmed kill for this combination is 1.3 miles.)
- M16A2. Keep it clean to keep it mean. I can piss a bear off at 300 meters with this one using open sights. If I keep track of how much ammo I have, he'll probably drop around 100 meters.
- M1911. I'll have to let the bear get close with this one. I can probably hit the head at 30 yards. If it drops, I'll feel the breeze and the warmth of the corpse.