The kind that has bells in it? 
And smells of peppers.
The hand-cannon bullets are, I think, sufficient to the task.
But like you, I’d rather go with a pump-gun, but for a different reason; I’d rather have a platform I can control than one that’s just as apt to bury itself in my forehead the first time I pull the trigger.
But, as I stated upthread, I have, and have shot, .44 magnum (out of a Taurus Raging Bull), including some pretty impressive loads, and while the recoil was stout, it was reasonably manageable. For slow-fire, on a shooting range.
Not sure I’d want to trust it to a real-life, me-vs-bear situation, though.
I think buying this handgun because it is cool makes more sense than literally relying on such a device for bear protection. 
I can’t really see myself carrying such a hand cannon along on a hike for just that one reason … a shotgun makes more sense, because at least, if no angry bears are spotted, you could just use it for hunting if necessary.
When walking through bear infested woods, I prefer to rely on the buddy system. 
I wouldn’t buy anything this big because I couldn’t afford the ammo. But again it is cool because it can use the cheaper .45LC unlike .500. Same reason why I’d rather have a .357 than a .44. The closest I have is a Nagant revolver, which shoots 7.62x38mmR, but can also fit .32 H&R Magnum, .32 S&W Long, or .32 S&W in a pinch (probably this wasn’t intentional).
- Find a buddy who is injured or runs slower than you.
- ???
- Profit!
Well if you’re hunting but only if you see something, you probably don’t have a tag, so those little birds and bunnies will explode with a slug in the center of mass.
Of course. In Canada we can’t take a hand-cannon out on a hike in the woods, anyway.
Depending on the woods and if you have your Non-restricted PAL, you can take one of these, which I believe is a little harder for our American friends to do. Tax stamps, and state regs and so forth…
-DF
I’m sorry I can’t hear you over my giant throbbing erection!
Looks like the handgun equivalent of our old youtube friend, the .577 Tyrannosaur. I really feel for the poor dummies shooting it from off a benchrest.
On the snubbie gigantor wheelguns, I wonder how much velocity they lose with the short barrel? It’s not a caliber ballistics-by-the-inch has played with yet. OTOH, the sectional density on a 350 gr .460S&W load compares favorably with the standby 12 gauge slug. Playing around with this calculator, I get an SD of .245 vs ~.194 for the 666 gr Brenneke slug out of a 3 in. 12 gauge. Still not the .341 SD of a 500 gr out of a .458 Win Mag, but enough that I’d think it could penetrate deep enough in a grizzly if the bullet wasn’t losing too much velocity out of a ~3 inch barrel.
The recoil is pretty astounding, but still manageable. The flame front is mind-blowing. You know those movies where you see someone walking away from an explosion? That’s what it looks like from behind as it blows flame out of the barrel and compensator.
It’s expensive, the ammunition is expensive, you might take it out once a year just to let your friends fire it, and it’s not practical for anything but hunting. It’s a very specialized gun. It’s the kind of gun that you buy just to have, not many people will ever have cause to use it. But hey, in a world where they sell impractical 2-seater sports cars for lots of dough, there is clearly a niche for it.
If they come up with something that will take a .460 Weatherby magnum, put me in for one. Matching caliber pistols and rifles are just cool, broken bones be damned.
Have you tried Cowboy Action Shooting? Lots of that sort of thing there, with rifles and handguns in the same calibre (and historical precedent for the practice, too).
Of course, a lot of the rifles were chambered in handgun cartridges at the time/setting, which helps a bit…
Yup. I dabbled in SASS for a while, and had a Winchester 94 in .45 Colt to match my Vaqueros. They were also offered in .44-40 and .357/.38 (even though that’s not a “historical” cartridge…).
The only thing that makes me wonder is that military rounds, apart from all else, are shrinking. From 45-70 to 30-'03, 30-'06, 7.62 nato, and then 5.56mm nato.
Now the .44 magnum looks like a wimp (and some people are now saying the 9mm para is more powerwul than the .357 mag.) The Cassul, the .475, the .500 mag, etc. came just as I lost interest in reading about guns. Nitro express through of stopping with the 600 NE (the last buyer got a signed assurance that his 600 would be the last.) So they set up to build 650, 700, 720 cartridges next. I wonder how that buyer felt.
The military examples you give are based primarily on the impact of automatic weapons on the battlefield: the machine gun replaced rifle volley fire at range as the preferred method of repelling infantry charges; and the 5.56 round was intended to make full-auto fire manageable in an assault rifle.
The handgun examples are mostly novelties; as far as “working” guns people actually use, the .45 ACP is really the largest you’ll commonly see.
The explanation I got for the .45 GAP is that there are some countriies (in South America? Europe? I don’t remember) where a civilian can’t buy a weapon or a cartridge that is used for a military purpose. That explanation came from a ‘gun guy’ but I couldn’t attest to its accuracy.
The actual reason is that the .45 GAP was designed to fit in a 9mm/.40 size pistol while retaining the ballistics of the .45 ACP.
Here.
Although my purpose was partly in search of yucks (in suggesting an impossibly big pistol) I have tried a little cowboy “three gun” and some of the other games. In .45LC, one of my favorite calibers, not only do the rifle and pistol match but you have a heck of a variety of both available.
That being said, if someone did make a .460WM handgun, I would probably buy one. I’ve had the various automags and some killer single shots including .30-30 and .45-70 as well as the mandatory .454 revolver. Some things, to me at least, are worth interesting x-rays.
Just goes to show you can’t believe everything you hear…
I had a Springfield .45 GAP for a while. Nice little gun.