@Devereaux nailed a key point there — bear defense is no joke, and your choice of caliber really matters depending on the species. A .45 ACP might handle a smaller black bear in a dire pinch, but against a grizzly? That’s rolling the dice hard. Plenty of folks swear by heavy-duty calibers like .44 Magnum, .454 Casull, or even bigger for grizzly country. The guy with the 9mm definitely got lucky, not smart planning.
Do you lean more toward revolvers or semi-autos for bear defense?
Lucky yes I agree also , then again he must have had a real calm to hold on target.
Like you I carry all the time. But unlike you, I just can’t abide by 9’s except for range work.. I just don’t believe a 9 does enough to put an opponent down. So I carry an Sig 220 SAS in .45 ACP, or more commonly an Sig 229 in .357 Sig, which I still believe is the best combo of serious man-stopping, barrier breaking, and limited penetration appropriate to urban settings, which is where I live. Since I’m always cold I always wear a vest, and so shoulder-holster carry either of those. Helps distribute the weight and ammo loads better, doesn’t drag my pants down, etc. And in truth not many people expect you to be carrying in a shoulder holster, so even if you accidentally “print” because of the shoulder holster you will often be assumed to be police or retired police.
A charging bear can focus you real quickly. Just sayin’. 
Thank you finally someone who agrees with me a 9mm is a glorified target pistol. A target weapon a caliber for competition. To me it punches holes and does NOT deliver the shock wave needed to effectively incapacitate big game .
Bears don’t attack with friends, or take cover and shoot back, so capacity is less important.
We saw the same sort of thing during the federal Assault Weapons Ban years. When lawful mag capacity was unavailable, people chose bigger bullets. It made better use of the limited rounds.
Good thought yeah your correct again. 2 for 2
WV460HUNTER Moderator/Big Bore Sixgunner
1
Devereaux
Thank you finally someone who agrees with me a 9mm is a glorified target pistol. A target weapon a caliber for competition. To me it punches holes and does NOT deliver the shock wave needed to effectively incapacitate big game
Bears don’t attack with friends, or take cover and shoot back, so capacity is less important.
We saw the same sort of thing during the federal Assault Weapons Ban years. When lawful mag capacity was unavailable, people chose bigger bullets. It made better use of the limited rounds
To your point, @WV460HUNTER , statistics have demonstrated that in gunfights against human perps .45 ACP stops people with fewer round hits than 9. I just can’t get myself to equate gel to humans; the gel can help definebullet performance, but it will NOT PREDICT actual bullet performance in a fight.
To your point about mag size and bullet size, @musashiaharon, It may not need herds of perps attacking you. The human body can take an incredible amount of punishment - and still live at least long enough to kill you. A 9 is less than 80% the cross section of the .45, no where near the energy of either a .357 Mag (which for a very long time was King of the One Shot Stop cartridges) or a .357 Sig. Those bottleneck cases usually produce some killer (no pun intended) cartridges.
I went through the sig phase, think that bottle neck design alone adds to reliability, a very good choice IMO
but ultimately settled on 10mm 
yep, and a bullet in the head from any target pistol is still, a bullet in the head, 9mm offers a lot of carry in a smaller package, that can be trimmed down more and still do the job, but where it’s at allows a lot of diversity, small 6rd, drum mag, there’s options and those can go a long way, kind of part of my 10mm choice too, vs a 45 in 1911 you loose what, but gain what?
I’ve considered the 10mm. It’s too much gun for an urban environment IMO. Not that it won’t do the job, but kind of like the .44 Mag, it leaves the shooter with too much potential liability vis a vis useless bystanders. Now if you’re talking the woods, then I can see the interest; usually you are facing 4 legged creatures that can do you serious harm, and even in the case of the 2-legged kind, your back stop is trees - or enough open land to take off an SR-71.
Not to be understated, which, despite your taste puts a check in the pro section for 9mm.
Sometimes to much is to much and enough is enough.
45acp is about perfect as you could want really, huge hit, not super penetrative, but, 230gr each round limits rounds and adds weight, 357sig adds rounds but is penetrative, back to your liability, and loud as f*ck, not that 10mm isn’t, it is, but a different loud.
When you weigh everything including weapon size you find why 9mm dominates
However, some of just have to stand out and be different don’t we 
If you try 10mm you’ll be sold, you retain 45 hit, add round count or lower weight depending on weapon size you choose, and more than 9mm you leave no doubt the job will get done.
9mm dominates for one and ONLY one reason - it’s cheap. Its gel performance says it should do OK in a gunfight and it costs a boatlead less than any other serious defensive round. Police chiefs love it because they can say they’ve “armed their officers” with a 
“fine cartridge and weapon” while cheaping out on ammo costs to stay qualified.
.357 Sig is a funny round. It penetrates barriers far better than 9mm (?like wind shields) BUT it doesn’t PEOPLE penetrate so much as deliver deva stating energy dumps. You get hit with one, you KNOW you got hit. 10mm to me is too close to the old .41 Magnum or .44 Magnum; yes it will hit you, but it will (in the city at least) probably pass through a couple other guys behind. IF they also happen to be BG’s, then well-and-good. But if they happen to be civilians, here come the law suits. ?Did you know that a 125 .357 Sig hits and stops about the exact same as a 125gr .357 Magnum.
As for x-section, you win that argument. There is nothing like “almost” being good enough. I always loved the .45 part of a bullseye match because I could hit the target with the exact same POI with a .22 and a .45 and I would probably get a better score with the .45 - just because of hole diameter. Indeed, we took to shooting two targets in slow fire because it was often too hard to tell whether there really were 10 holes in the target or the guy shot 4-5 into the middle, then dumped the rest to the side. But the argument always was there was enough room in the ragged center to accomodate ALL the rounds.
Not sure this kind of debate will ever resolve. It’s the “calibre wars” but with different calibres. The arguments for and against are better (I think the pro-9 arguments are simply weak) but people have what they like, and it ain’t gonna change anytime soon. I have continued to carry a .45 even though (especially on SigTalk) I got blasted as a dinosour and that 9 was the only rational cartridge to carry. Well, kiss my bippy, but I disagree.
And as a parting thought, I don’t think a comparison of 9mm against anything else in the SD arsenal, is a reasonable comparison, except perhaps a .380. Once looked upon as a wimp gun, a 9X17 case firing a 95 gr bullet at 1100 FPS ought to give anyone as much pause as a 9.
Well, T Rex, take it as a compliment you’re not to be f*cked with 
My aim is never
so much as information exchange, ability to adapt and evolve is dependent on it, to me a line in the sand is an invitation to draw in the sand, I take artistic license with others opinions and if need be, cross the line
Now, I would assume the opposite of what you claim about 10mm being more of a penetration risk vs 357 sig as in my mind 357 sig is smaller and faster, this more apt to penetrate vs the heavier slower 10mm less apt to do so
I’ve been working on AI integration, but in so doing neglected the current one lets see if’ it’s responsive and can help with information, AI BTW is just math, it formulates a path to a predictive point and responds, it’s not intelligent any more than that
@ARTMAN explain which round, 357sig vs 10mm, standard loads, is more of a penetration risk to other than the intended party
Well he’s on his way to retirement anyhow, I checked his vitals {“detail”:“bad signature”}
I did a back end search (insert pun) and found you are correct
If the concern is risk to unintended parties:
Neither is “safe,” but 10mm carries more liability in crowded or urban settings simply because it’s built to hit harder and keep going.
Not sure this is any definitive answer, but it supports my experience with 10mm. There will be BIG GUYS who will take a bit more “convincing” to go down but the .357 ought to work there too.
i
There is a very real and BIG difference between SD rounds and hunting rounds. There are clearly animals thaat merit at least a 10mm, and even that might be “lite” - like a grizzly or Artcic bear. Those guys are massive, and real penetration is essential to putting that boy down easily** That is less of a challenge against soft-skinned targets like humans.
If it’s me or a loved one facing life or death situation , I definantly say 45 or above
I wonder if ICE in Minnesota are using 10MM. We should ask Good.
Well, they’re using something that penetrated a windshield with one shot. That ain’t so easy, because of the safety glass and because of the angle. FWIW I know from talking with one a number of years ago that air marshals are carrying .357 Sig frangible rounds, but that probably wouldn’t work so well against a windshield..
It did make a neat clean hole. If more lefties wore Be Good buttons, we’d know who to target easily, but virtue signallers won’t realize that.
IDK I ought ICE was pushing handicap minorities off the side of the earth and we needed to melt the ICE?