[kalibear45]

Or have they always been as prominent as the semi-autos?

I'm seeing a lot of great new products from the top revolver makers and have been seeing a lot more wheelguns on sale at local dealers. I think with the introduction of the S&W 500 along with the new cartridge, the "fad" for revolvers has sure gained a bit these days. Besides, this section is hopping! :D

[caz223]

They never left.
The people who buy autos exclusively are really missing out.
I have plenty of both, but I have been shooting autos more lately.
I reload, and the summer is a great time to shoot shell-shuckers.
Wintertime is when I shoot wheelguns waaay more than autos, no picking brass up out of the snow.
My revolvers still outumber my autos, so I'm not concerned...

[Ala Dan]

Like caz223 said, "they never have left".

Often times people enjoy shooting a revolver more,
but carry a self-loader as their CCW choice.

Best Wishes,
Ala Dan, N.R.A. Life Member

[P95Carry]

Sign me up too for ''never left'' .... i think it is a matter of apparent relative popularities ....... much of that influenced my choice of carry piece but .. having said that we do here have many revo carriers also.

Perhaps - on balnce - semi's just win the day for CCW .... but go to a range and observe and I'll bet there are plenty of revo's to be seen. Guess my collection is approx 50/50 but grew up a revo man first.

[SnWnMe]

There are far more of us here who pick revos over an auto when utmost reliability is an issue. Tap, rack, bang vs pull the trigger again. You pick.

It's the rags who always say it was dead. It's the match course designers who turn stages into hosefests who propagate the same.

For Joe Average like myself, there is little out there that cannot be taken on with a good 4 to 6 in K/L 357 revolver. (Here it comes) Besides, hi cap autos are for people who plan on missing alot.

[P95Carry]

Besides, hi cap autos are for people who plan on missing alot. Bwhahaha ... bet that hits a few nerves .... wait for the fallout!! http://www.bedford.net/design/images/smilies/lol.gif

[Standing Wolf]

Revolvers have never gone out of style, and doubtless never will.

[7.62FullMetalJacket]

I was an auto-maniac. I always laughed at the revolver crowd as being trapped in time. Then I got a Redhawk for the mountains. Then I learned how to shoot the wheel gun. I have to admit that I feel more confident with the revolver. It never fails, fails to feed, and you can always tell when a round is chambered! Not only that, but it is more "pointable" naturally and the sights just fall onto the target. I also get better grouping, even with the .44 mag.

Now I CCW a .357 Tracker. I feel much more condifent not just because it is super reliable, but it is not an anemic auto.

[C.R.Sam]

Have shot both in seven decades.
Often carried an autoloader for work.
Always carried a revolver.

Autoloaders for offence, wheels for defence.

Sam

[7.62FullMetalJacket]

Amen C.R.Sam. My thought exactly. On offense, I still prefer the high cap .45 auto. But the wheel gun is for the home team.

[Preacherman]

I prefer semi-auto's for carry, for a number of reasons (ammo capacity, ease of reloading, compactness for concealability, etc.). However, to my astonishment, I've always ended up owning more revolvers than pistols! :D

I've most recently become greatly attached to the utility of the .45 ACP round in revolvers (specifically the S&W 625). I now have three of these beasts, and hugely enjoy them. I'm having one re-chambered to .460 Rowland, and I strongly suspect this might give my .44 Magnums a run for their money.

Long live the cylinder! :D

[P95Carry]

Long live the cylinder! A big AMEN to that!! :)

[James Bondrock]

Or have they always been as prominent as the semi-autos? Their niche has shifted. The full-size "service revolver" is pretty much a thing of the past, IMO; you seldom see them in police holsters any more, and the major makers are paring their selections. However, on the ends of the spectrum (smallest and largest), revolvers are proliferating. On the small end, the snubby revolvers (mostly in .38 S&W Special and .357 Magnum) are very popular for citizen concealed carry (either as primary or backup weapons) and as police backup weapons. Take a look at, for example, Smith & Wesson's lineup of snubbies. You can get them with steel frames, aluminum frames (with steel or titanium cylinders) or aluminum/scandium frames with titanium cylinders. And all of these are available with exposed, shrouded or concealed hammers. On the large end (primarily used for handgun hunting), revolvers rule. To my knowledge, only one autoloader is commonly available in large caliber powerful cartridges such as the .41 and .44 Magnums: the Desert Eagle. It is considerably bulkier and more expensive than, for example, a Smith & Wesson N-frame, and is only designed to function with full-power jacketed bullets, whereas you can load a revolver to any power level or any type of bullet (within reason) you want. You will not find

any autos in .454 Casull, .480 Ruger or .475 Linebaugh, to say nothing of the .500 S&W.

[Mike Irwin]

No, they never left, but they certainly did take a beating, especially "service-size" revolvers, in the early 1980s to the mid-1990s through the Wonder9 craze.

It was hard for companies to give away their K-frame and larger sized guns at the height of the craze.

The line that never really faltered were the small-frame guns, the J-frame sizes.

I did an article on the rebirth of the small revolver for American Rifleman in 1994, and much to my surprise found out that it wasn't really that much of a rebirth -- it was just that the makers had finally gotten off their collective keisters and started catering to that side of the market again.

I saw sales figures for a number of the companies that showed that through the worst of the Wonder9 phase the market for the small revolver wasn't hit all that bad.

[Nightcrawler]

Fortunately, I like big-bore revolvers that can be used for service or hunting. :D

[Shane]

Ditto to what many have posted. I too use to be mostly a semi-auto shooter. Then I saw the error of my ways. Revolvers to me feel better in the hand, point better, have a less offensive recoil given a similar load to a semi-auto (probably due to the rubber grips and rounded ergonomics), are more reliable when limp wristed or using crappy ammo, a little more accurate at long distances, and finally are more aestetically pleasing, IMO. I'm at the point now where I would be perfectly happy if I were to trade off all but one semi-auto and go almost exclusively with revolvers.

[Guy B. Meredith]

I have the obligatory Ruger MKII, but otherwise have never been intrigued by autos. Strictly revovlers here; 6-, 7-, and 8-shot.

[sm]

Agree, wheelies never left, never will...shooters leave/go astray or rediscover.
Mike interesting sales tidbit, had wondered about that.
I think we need another "craze"...get people to leave the oldies alone or clear out some sock drawers...them old timey blue ones show fingerprints you know ;)

[Nightcrawler]

True enough. People need to stop buying up those .41 Magnum so I can snatch another minty one in the sub-$400 range!

[bayerta]

I agree with "they never left".

If Smith & Wesson had come out with an 8 shot .357 magnum back in the 80's, there never would have been a reason for the "wonder-nine"

[Nobody]

I'll tell you a little story. When I went for my CCW class, I took a Ruger SP101 over my autos. I took what I'd likely end up carrying and what I knew would be 100% absolutely reliable. I was the only person in a class of about 15 people that had a wheel gun, much less a 5 shot wheel gun. The instructor good naturedly gave me a little grief and said "that gentleman with the 5 shot snubby either knows what he's doing or we'll end up waiting on him to shoot through the strings". We had several strings of a certain number of rounds that had to be shot with a certain degree of accuracy within a certain amount of time. We went into the indoor range in groups of six. When my time came, I point shot as instructed, versus target style aiming and was the first one to finish my strings. How? Three of the five auto shooters in my group jammed up in their first mag and all five were not too familiar with their pistols and had to fumble around with their controls which cost them time. Granted, one of the auto shooters that didn't jam up had a really, really good group, but I watched him and he was shooting target style and not point shooting like you would in a self defense situation. Anyway, when I finished shooting my strings I leaned back out of my lane with a big smile on face and said, "the slow revolver shooter down here is done when you want to come check my target out". It was great fun. I enjoy revolvers and autos but what's most important is that no matter what you like, you should know your tool. :D

[DennisE]

I shot autos for years, I can't remember why. I gradually sold 'em of or traded 'em for revolvers. Perhaps youth favors high capacity while experience and maturity favor reliability and accuracy along with grace and style. Dennis

[Litlman]

Come back??? From where?? 90% of my pistolas are wheel guns.. I love them as many others here do.. Don't get me wrong I'll take a good semiauto anytime but, I am primarily a revolver guy!!! My 442 and I go everywhere...

[Daryl]

My S&W Model 10 has been next to my bed for years. I dont plan on replacing it anytime soon. We trust each other, just like old friends.

[PJR]

I will buy an auto when I find one that:

*Is as reliable as my wheel guns,

*Has a DA/SA trigger pull as nice;

*Is as accurate;

*Fits my hand as well; (with aftermarket grips)

*Doesn't cost an arm and a leg in comparison;

*Doesn't force me to stoop down to pick up brass (okay so maybe that's asking too much:D);

*Inspires as much confidence as my revolvers;

*Has a manual of arms that is as user friendly;

*Is as flat out good looking as my early 60's vintage S&W Model 15-2.

So far I haven't found it yet and am happy with my wheelguns.

[WT]

Revolvers never left and I agree that hi cap autos are for people who miss a lot.

[Hal]

Are wheelguns making a come back? No.
Semi autos and/or single shots dominate all meaningful catagories.
Wheel guns are far from a dead issue though.

[Cosmoline]

There's no doubt that revolvers have been making a comeback. It's not so much that they were in the grave, but that most everyone figured they WOULD BE in the grave by now. Instead, we've got titanium snubbies on one end and the massive super revolvers on the other. I think the high-cap magazine ban had something to do with this, since it took away one major advantage of new production semis. But even without the ban's impact, there would still be interest in them.

Frankly I don't know why LEO's stopped carrying them. I've had several old police revolvers, from a service six to a police positive special. They've all been reliable and potent in spite of their age and milage.

[Black Snowman]

I know why LEO stopped carrying them. Because at some point they felt they needed to be "ahead of the game" compared to bad guys.

So, the siutuation has flipped. To curtail costs and easier availability of mags the BG have gone to lower capacity and higher power guns and started practicing with them.

As a general rule, LEO agencies have cut training budget and are hoping high-capactiy guns will make up for the deficiencies.

So now we see more instances of cops spraying a target and hitting nothing and BG killing more where as before they were missing or wounding.

Isn't the capacty ban wonderful?

PS: I have absolutely no facts to back this statement up whatsover. It's entirely hot air and speculation. YMMV, don't try this at home, batteries not included, etc, etc, etc . . .

From what I've seen wheel guns have moved markets more to handgun hunting and CCW which seems to be gaining popularity and move away from "standard" size guns to little defensive guns (like an SP101 or AirWeight) and huge guns (like the BFRs, Raging Bull, .500 S&W).

My next wheelgun purchas I'd like to be a Super Redhawk in .454 Casaul. But it's in line behind a CZ-97B and a CZ-75B Compact.

[Thirties]

I can imagine droving down a road in a rural state, with two large trucks: one for semi-autos; one for revolvers. Now these trucks would be equipped with super strong handgun magnets that would draw out all handguns from all houses whether the people were home or not, and whether they wanted to give them up or not.

I predict the revolver truck would fill up twice as fast as the semi-auto truck.

And the older the residents, the higher percentage of wheel guns.

Now, let's all forget about such bad dreams!

[Mike Irwin]

Actually, a lot of the reason why so many police forces went with semi-autos, including the ones that simply had no particular reason to do so, was marketing and perception...

Marketers from companies, particularly Glock, were offering killer deals on new guns, and perception was, fueled largely by the media, that every petty crook had an AK-47 and a 50 trillion round magazine that they would use to chop good cops into hamburgery bits after said cop shot his six...

Here's a little rant I wrote on the subject some months ago...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ah, the joy of conventional wisdom and urban legend...

In the 1980s, revolvers and semi-autos were actually selling fairly close to parity in the United States.

Americans had access to a lot of good semi-autos in SA, DA, and high capacity.

They had access to a lot of good revolvers in blue and stainless steel.

Most police forces still carried revolvers for a number of reasons, including they were cheap, the training regimes were well established, officers were familiar with them, they were reliable, and no doubt that there was a bit of tradition involved.

Then, starting about 1984 as far as I can tell, things started to change.

Drugs became an increasing problem in the cities, only this time the level of violence began to escalate alarmingly.

There were a few, and I mean a FEW, highly publicized police-criminal shootouts where the criminals either used semi-auto rifles or high-capacity semi-auto handguns.

The newspapers and the gun magazines found a hook, an original one, and a VERY effective one -- "OUR POLICE ARE BEING OUT GUNNED!" -- with the unsaid implication being that the streets of America, even the small towns, were littered with the rotting corpses of cops who had shot their antiquated 6-shooters dry and were subsequently hacked into small hamburgery bits by these thugs with another catch phrase that caught on at the time, ASSAULT WEAPONS!

In short order, the gobbling heards emerged...

Gunshops started reporting sales of revolvers and single-action, single stack semi-autos coming to a virtual stand still. GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE!

Gobbling police commissions across the United States met to address the horrible plight of the underarmed police officer, with heavy emphasis being put on arguments that boiled down to essentially "if you're armed with a revolver, you're unarmed." GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE!

As all these police commissions go, so goes the gobbling public, lead by the popular newstand magazines of the day, which fanned the flames of public panic with article after article, month after month, on dead cops (Miami shootout, anyone?), underarmed cops, hyperarmed criminals, and the latest WONDERBLASTDEMONDERAZZES TRILLION SHOT HICAP SCUM SLAYER! GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE!

The situation got so bad that American Traitor Smith & Wesson (new reality show, Fox, are you listening?) had a circular "slide rule" to decipher the bewildering array of features, calibers, sizes, capacities, and finishes. GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE!

Then, enter the Black Dragon... Glock started hitting the American market in serious numbers, and made a HUGE coup... They started offering their guns to police forces across the nation at freaking bargain basement prices. Some companies complained that Glock was essentially dumping guns at below cost to police to get the public on board. Well, it worked. Glock grabbed market share at a pace that no other company could even hope to match, and the gobbling got even louder as the public HAD to have THE gun that the police were carrying to kill the bad guys! GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE!

If you were to read a gun magazine between 1986 and about 1992, you'd get the impression that revolvers had ceased to exist, that they had been run out to pasture as the gobbling police and public.

Police forces across the nation rearmed with high-capacity semi-autos, even small towns where the only use for a police handgun is normally to kill a cow or deer that wonders out onto the highway and gets hit.

The public, fanned into a frenzy, bought all of the high-capacity semi-autos it could lay its hands on, even in places where CCW was a fantasy.

Gun companies couldn't roll out new high-cap models fast enough to meet the public demand. The public scooped them up, even crappy ones, apparently on the theory that if it's high capacity, it must be good! GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE!

As can be expected through all of this, prices dramatically inflated to the public, and most of the gobbling herd got a decent gun at a high price, or a crappy gun at an outrageous price. GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE!

The real effect of all of this, though?

The gun companies made a LOT of money making the guns to feed the frenzy.

The gun magazines made a LOT of money FUELING the frenzy.

The police got new guns, which in many cases were really unneeded.

In some cases in the large cities, though, the results were closer to disasterous. Many cities that rushed to rearm their undergunned, vulnerable, and dying police forces neglected to train their officers properly, with the result being a dramatic rise in unintentional shootings. The situation was FAR worse in those cities where Glock had convinced the gobbling police commissions to take their product. Washington, DC, is a prime example. Training times were being slashed while a new weapon was hitting the streets, with the direct result being that the number of shots, and misses, per incident went SKY high, the number of unintentional shootings (not only of suspects, but of COWORKERS) rose dramatically, and the city began paying out HUGE settlements to those who were shot, or their families.

Other cities that rearmed with semi-autos saw similar jumps in those figures.

And the reason all of this started?

That drug dealers were gunning down police armed with revolvers in the thousands?

Just like most hotly hyped "media trends," it was a flash in the pan that never really existed. It made for GREAT print, though, and sold copies.

Through it all, though, there was a small, silent, voice crying out of the wilderness...

The revolver.

To hear the gun magazines talk about it, revolvers were dead, never to be seen again.

But sales of small-frame revolvers not only remained strong during this time, they actually began to rise in the early 1990s, and began to surge with the passage of the high capacity magazine ban.

Gun companies started bringing out new small frame models at a rapid pace, to the point that now there are likely more small frame revolvers being sold every year than small-frame high capacity semi-autos.

All in all, the Wonder9 or High Capacity craze was one of the most interesting marketing trends of all time, fueled largely by an incidental collusion among the general news media, firearms publications, and a gobbling, gobbling, public.

[Nightcrawler]

GREAT rant, Mike! :)

[JohnGill]

Started w/auto's,left auto's after buying an M10.Now auto's 0,revolvers 4
and counting.Works for me 100% of the time.


John

[jdmb03]

My last three purchases have been semi-autos. I had fun with them, and now two have been sold so I can go revolver shopping.

I have always been a revolver guy. There is something about a revolver that is beautiful. It's just like a woman, they both have curves.

Semi-autos come and go, but revolvers always stay.

[coop57]

Unintended consequenses! Bill Klinton's 1994 neutering of semi auto magazine capacities has made the relvolver that much more attractive. Although I've always loved the revolver for its simplicity and style.