A few years ago a friend of mine flew his family up to Alaska to visit his brother who was a USFW biologist. He is not really a "gun guy" so he asked to borrow a revolver for a float plane trip to a cabin in the bush for a week of fishing without the brother.

He decided a .44 was too much so I sent a .357 with hard cast 158s. Long story short, they were terrorized the whole time by a black bear that hung around. He even broke out a small window that he could get his head in but nothing else.

The guys at the float plane base had made fun of the .357 to the extent that he was afraid to use it. As he described it he could have just walked up to the the bear numerous times when the head was in the window and shot it point blank but he didn't.

Moral of the story is you never know and a .357 is better than nothing.

They were mighty happy when the float plane returned.

"Be sure you're right. Then go ahead." Fess Parker as Davy Crockett