Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Do you carry a sidearm while hunting with your rifle?

I will admit that I do during moose season, and at times have had to use the revolver to finish a moose that had been shot, but still alive and bedded down or just not able to get up. I wanted to start a poll on this subject, but could not figure how to do it.

By the way, I hunt in the interior of Alaska, usually around the Elliott or Steese highways. Most of the hunters I know and see during moose season carry sidearms.

Anyway, I appreciate your views or comments.

Nope. If I can't kill it with the rifle I'm carrying, the pistol aint gonna be able to do it.

On the few occasions when Ive had to finish off a critter, a shot behind the ear with the rifle wastes no meat, and that cartridge is a tiny fraction of the weight of a sidearm to carry up the hill....

I mostly have one on my person, and a couple in the pickup..
Handguns are invaluable if you have to pack game, and I prefer to finish wounded game with a sixgun..

Perhaps I was not very clear on this thread. I should have asked if you carry a sidearm as backup. For example, in a life and death situation while hunting and not being able to use your rifle at the moment.

I never carried one (I guess I should say never, but I can count on 1 hand how many times I did).

I've been on two Alaska bear hunts, which makes me an internet expert on the subject. On the first hunt I carried a rifle and a S&W M-629 .44 revolver...once. The revolver got heavy after a few miles of hiking and always seemed to be in the way. The second day I decided to leave it in camp. The rifle would be able to do any job that needed doing while I carried it.

The handgun was nice to have next to my sleeping bag in the tent, in case shaggy neighbors came to call in the middle of the night.

I took the .44 on the second hunt but it stayed in the tent most of the time also.

However, after my tags were filled, the rifle stayed in the tent and I carried the .44 while exploring and goofing around. It was much handier than a rifle for that purpose and was nice to be armed in bear country.

Here in Michigan I always carry a handgun while rifle hunting, but it is the Glock 19 that I always carry with my CPL. I don't consider it a hunting gun, although it certainly could be used in some hunting circumstances.

Dude I have hunted in bunches of places including Alaska and Africa, and hunted dangerous game...my rifle was always the first line of defense with no thought given to a sidearm. If I was unable to use my rifle in such a situation...I'll just perish I guess. That situation has obviously never cropped up and frankly I never expected that it would...







Though I did finish pissed off wounded leopard once by sticking a rusty-azzed Taurus .38 special in his ear......

The gun was borrowed from somebody else and the quarters were too tight even to get me and my sawed off shotgun in there...


" If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with!"

Nope.

Always left in camp in the tent meant for if boo boo decided to come into camp.. Which never happened even with a meat pole full of hanging meat.

We had some bear problems at the campsite back on the early '90s. Ever since we have left a radio tuned to one of the local talk-show stations, and haven't had bears raiding the campsite, but no idea if the radios have done the job or not. Maybe the snores of my hunting friends nearby keep the bears away

Anyway, we have had fresh moose meat hanging from trees at night, right in the middle of the campsite, and so far no more bear problems.
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Most hunters in the areas I hunt carry sidearms of various calibers. But then we don't pack meat out since we have ATV's and meat trailers. We usually hunt the ridge where there are wide open areas and cat. trails, while other hunters go down toward the water through thickets of black spruce and birch.

Some of these areas in the interior are on fire at the moment, so who knows if we will be able to hunt there this year.

never have, I try and cut down on stuff I'm carrying and the resultant weight of stuff.


know lots of folks that do, and it gives me no heartburn if they do so.

I've always just felt better armed with a rifle than a pistol.


back at camp, once in a blue moon maybe a pistol is there, if a pard brings one.


but most times it's just my .45/70

tis what I use for packing out meat and it serves as a backup rifle in case Murphy does some gunsmithing while we're in the field.

Not from AK, but not a complete stranger to it either, listen to the good folks from there that give you advice. My bottom line is carry what you are comfortable with. If you are used to the feel, weight,& use of a side arm, then wear it. If not, it's one more thing you might have to think about when maybe you ought to have your rifle in hand.

Mostly not, but sometimes, yes. It all depends on what’s happening and where. When we’re traveling - via ATV- across miles of trackless tundra and might perhaps be spending a night or more in tents, then yes, often a handgun goes along. Generally it rides in a pack of some sort to be made available for wear, or handy anyway, for night-time pillow use or if/when working on something that might fall inside an alder wallow.

In many ways, carrying a handgun is kind of like using something other than a 30-06. It really isn’t necessary, it may be less than ideal, but it brings a pleasure of some sort. There are certainly plenty of other things I don’t bring that make less sense to have along than a handgun. (Bipods, hubble scopes, turrets/knobs, cell phones, Samurai Bowie knives, .....rangefinders.. ... etc.) But everyone has to be the judge of their own needs and wants. Obviously one guy’s useless, in-the-way stuff can be another man’s ideal pack of tricks.

Always. Usually it's my Glock 20, or a Ruger Blackhawk in .45. Colt.

I almost always do, but for a different reason.

I'm usually straddling a nag and wish to not be left unarmed if I were to part company unceremoniously with said nag, as my rifle is in a saddle scabbard.

That said, I just don't get bucked off.





(now watch)

That's a pretty good reason.

That.

Have packed one and wished I'd left it at home, and have left it at home and wished I packed it.

Absolutely not.

Yes.

Don't you put your 6 gun on like your pants each morning???
CCW holders from what I hear should always carry..