“Every time a hunter pulls the trigger, he makes a game management decision,” famed hunting author John Wootters wrote. Wooters’ statement particularly applies to handgun hunting, a pastime he took up in his later years and promoted for its challenge, excitement, and requisite for exceptional marksmanship, stalking, and positioning skills.

As with bow and muzzleloader hunting, taking game with hunting pistols requires practice and patience. Despite the learning curve, the committed handgun hunter is rewarded with an added dimension to the pursuit that many sportsmen find immensely gratifying, the potential for thrilling up close and personal encounters, and the ability to field and travel with a more portable hunting arm.

Early Hunting Pistols

While most antique flintlock and wheelock pistols were designed for self-defense or martial purposes, some rare examples are decorated with a hunting motif that suggests use in the field. By the 19th century, hunting pistols were designed for specialized tasks like the big bore Howdah pistols deployed against dangerous game in India and the long-barreled bear pistols of the American South.

In ‘Sixguns’ by Elmer Keith, the author details how the rifled revolver became a more prominently used tool of the hunt, offering more accuracy and firepower than its single shot, smoothbored predecessors. The photo below is an illustration by George Catlin, an artist paid by Samuel Colt to produce paintings of Colt revolvers used to take game out West. Today, taking on big game with such low-velocity rounds would be considered highly unethical.

The Spanish Edition Colt advertisement below, from 1921, depicts another unusual example of early handgun hunting. In this case, a woman in western clothing armed with a Colt double action revolver fires her pistol at a jaguar which she has roped from horseback. While this strategy might be effective in video games like 'Red Dead Redemption', firing from horseback would be a far safer technique.

Handgun Hunting and the .357 Magnum

Hunting pistols continued to serve in more niche roles until the 1930s, when Elmer Keith, “the father of big bore handgunning,” helped drive a series of innovations in ammunition and revolver technology. The heavy-framed .S&W .38/44 Outdoorsman was built to chamber the higher pressured .38 Special wildcat rounds Keith had popularized.

The .38/44 Outdoorsman saw use as a hunting pistol by numerous sportsmen of the era, including Douglas B. Wesson, the grandson of Smith & Wesson co-founder Daniel Wesson, but it was the revolver’s .357 Magnum successor that truly launched a wider interest in handgun hunting. Wesson generated publicity for his new gun and cartridge on numerous hunting trips, using long barreled revolvers to take everything from small game to moose, elk, and grizzly bears.

Douglas Wesson’s highly publicized hunts helped establish the .357 Magnum as a big game hunting pistol. After WW2, the .357 Magnum revolver became a standard catalog item and more affordable to the general public. The Smith & Wesson Model 27 revolver served in a variety of roles, with handgun hunters preferring the 6 inch, 6 1/2 inch, and 8 3/8 inch barrel variants.

The .44 Magnum

The .357 cartridge established “The Magnum Era”, where larger caliber revolvers dominated the firearms market for decades. In the hands of an expert, the .357 Magnum is a fine hunting pistol, but an even more powerful cartridge was needed to open the revolver hunting pursuit to the masses.

In the mid-1950s, Elmer Keith pushed Smith & Wesson and Remington Arms to produce a stronger factory variant of the .44 Special cartridge and a revolver frame sturdy enough to handle it. In January 1956, Remington's .44 Magnum ammunition and Smith & Wesson’s new revolver were unveiled to the general public. Bill Ruger stepped into the market shortly after with a Blackhawk model chambered in Remington's powerful new cartridge, offering his revolver at a slightly lower price point than Smith & Wesson.

The .44 Magnum revolver met with swift success and dealers struggled to keep the guns in stock. The hefty cartridge performed well on deer and larger game, offering the accuracy, power, and down-range performance that handgun hunters were looking for. Numerous revolvers have been chambered in .44 Magnum over the years, with the successors of the S&W Model 29 and Ruger .44 Blackhawk still popular hunting pistols today.

Elmer Keith lobbied Remington and Smith & Wesson again in 1963, this time advocating for a cartridge that could fall somewhere in between .357 and .44 Magnum. The .41 Magnum was born, along with the S&W Model 57 revolver and its Ruger .41 Blackhawk competitor. For handgun hunting enthusiasts, the .41 Magnum offered more power than the .357 cartridge and a more manageable recoil compared to its larger .44 Magnum sibling.

Though the .41 Magnum revolver never reached the popularity of its .44 caliber counterpart thanks to the cultural influence of 1971's “Dirty Harry” film and the .44 Magnum craze that swept America, the .41 Magnum is viewed as an effective cartridge today, with revolvers like the .41 New Model Blackhawk continuing to meet the demand for the underrated round.

Choosing the Right Hunting Pistols

Handgun hunting has been popularized over the decades by writers such as Al Georg, Bob Milek, J.D. Jones, and Hal Swiggett, and today the sport is enjoyed by millions of hunters each year. Hunting pistols can serve in nearly any niche, taking everything from rabbits to hogs to big game such as elk, moose, and bear when utilizing the right combination of gun model, ammunition, knowledge, and accurate shooting.

While iron sights can serve a skilled handgun hunter in close-range encounters, optics like the red dot or reflex sights can greatly extend a hunting pistol’s distance potential. Handgun scopes are another popular option and can be mounted on many revolver and pistol models.

The most important factor in selecting the right hunting pistol is choosing a weapon capable of reliably hitting the prey inside the effective range with enough power to take the animal in a single shot. Weaker rounds can leave less margin for error and require more precise bullet placement, reducing the odds of an ethical kill. As John Wooters noted, each trigger pull in the field is a game management decision, and a serious sportsman owes their prey a clean, quick demise.

Single Shot Hunting Pistols

In 1967, Thompson Center Arms released the Contender pistol, a break-action, single shot design. Initially only offered in .22 LR and .38 Special, the rugged pistol proved more than capable of handling a range of powerful cartridges and quickly became one of the most popular handgun hunting pistols on the market.

With a simple barrel swap, the Thompson Center Contender can be adapted to almost any hunting need. The example below includes seven extra barrels and illustrates the utility the platform offers in terms of chambering, barrel lengths, and the pistol's ability to be equipped with many types of scopes.

Other companies have since introduced some impressive single shot hunting pistols, including Freedom Arms. Chambered in a wide range of rifle cartridges as well as more traditional pistol offerings, the Freedom Arms Model 2008 provides exceptional power and precision for shooters seeking a robust, multi-purpose handgun.

Bolt Action Hunting Pistols

In 1963, Remington released the XP-100 pistol. The handgun utilized the now-famous Remington 700 action and was initially chambered specifically for the .221 Fireball, a shorted version of the .222 Remington rifle cartridge. Like the Thompson Contender, the Remington XP-100 was well-suited to scopes and quickly caught the attention of the handgun hunting community. The pistol was soon chambered in a variety of full-sized rifle rounds.

The Remington XP-100 lives on in the XR-100 model, and today's sportsmen enjoy numerous options for bolt action hunting pistols offered in a variety of rifle chamberings. The popular Savage Arms 110 series and its 10 round box magazine design demonstrates the desire for a high-capacity big game hunting pistol, while models like the Keystone Sporting Arms Cricket single shot bolt action pistol family present reliable options targeted toward the entry-level handgun hunter. Firearms fans are well familiar with both of these actions from their rifle counterparts.

Semi Automatic Hunting Pistols

Though revolvers and single shot hunting pistols dominate the handgun hunting pursuit, semi automatic pistols are also a viable platform in some jurisdictions. During Arizona's Handgun, Archery, and Muzzleloader season every spring, for example, semi automatic hunting pistols have become an increasingly popular option for taking Javelinas.

Cartridges like the tried-and-true .45 ACP, the potent 10mm, and the less appreciated .40 Smith & Wesson are all effective options for semi automatic hunting pistols in the right hands and used on appropriately-sized game, with calibers like .22LR serving as a more appropriate small game hunting and pest control round.

Big Calibers for Hunting Pistols

Big game falls best to the biggest rounds, and today’s handgun hunting fans have no shortage of options to consider. Ammunition and firearms designer John Linebaugh, following in Elmer Keith's footsteps, introduced several hefty cartridges in the 1980s more than capable of felling big game. The early ‘80s also saw the commercial introduction of the .454 Casull, a cartridge that famous wildcatter Dick Casull had been offering since the 1950s.

The .460 S&W and .500 S&W hit the market in the early 2000s, as did .480 Ruger, a slightly lighter version of the .475 Linebaugh. Though all these rounds produce tremendous recoil, they carry more than enough energy to humanely cull any North American game animal as well as many of Africa's most dangerous game.

On which gun to use for handgun hunting, Freedom Arms President Bob Baker says, "Whatever product you're using you have to have absolute faith in it. Along with that you have to practice, practice, practice, because it can't do it on its own. If you don't hit the right spot or can't hit anything, it don't matter what gun you got."

Hunting Pistols for Sale

Handgun hunting can be enjoyed using a wide variety of pistols that each offer a unique experience. Whether you're interested in owning one of the vintage classics like the .44 Registered Magnum and its Model 29 successors, a single shot Thompson Center Arms Contender, or a modern powerhouse big bore Ruger Super Redhawk, you'll find dozens of hunting pistols for sale in RIAC's upcoming auctions

History is filled with unique and unusual sporting arm variants, so subscribe to the Rock Island Auction newsletter for more gun blogs and gun videos on curiosities like the Punt gun, the Paradox gun, the .950 JDJ Fat Mac, the SPAS-12, the M30 Drilling, and more.