Well... A .357 carbine, maybe backed up with a good wheelgun in the same, can handle any of those. Although, you mainly want to use your feet and your head with the angry mob- run and hide!

So long as you pick your loads, it can handle anything up to whitetail (and those to, depending on where you are and how good of a shot you are). It would far from my first choice for bear or boar, but if one was charging, I wouldn't consider it too light. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I'd rather take a light pump action, but the there have been very few of them. The Tiberwolf supposedly was kinda spotty in quality and is long gone, and the new guy from Taurus I haven't handled yet.

For range... 100m, against large varmint, 50m for medium game (small deer, etc) due to accuracy, 25m with a heavy nonexpanding slow .38 for smaller stuff. I'd rather have some lighter, round noses at low velocity, but most people don'r roll thier own.

Things to go with- sling, fiber-optic sight inserts if you can find them. If you put glass on it, I'd go nothing higher than 4x, and use a see-through base.

I wouldn't mind the old M1 carbine in this role, it is comperable in power to the .357. There is just a lack of ammo variety, and it has a bad rep becuase for some reason people compaire it to the .30-06. It is like compairing an moped to a Harley.