Why aren't 9mm revolvers more popular?

If a 9mm auto is your Duty weapon, then a 9mm revolver may be useful on the ankle/backup? (Post #34)

Otherwise, not liked-

1. Because not enough people like moon clips
   
   
2. Because 9 mm is not as versatile as 38 Spl / 357 Mag

Smaug said:

Looking at the cheap range ammo, CCI Blazer for 38 Spl costs about $0.58/round. The CCI Blazer for 9mm Luger costs $0.36/round.
If a fellow shoots an average of 50 rounds a week:

9 mm will have cost him $936 to shoot for the year, while 38 Special will have cost him $1508 per year. Maybe you're pretty well-off, but $572 a year saved in shooting is significant to me; it is enough to buy a whole new gun, all while shooting harder out of shorter barrels.

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I'm old, retired and on fixed income. But $572.00 a year as the cost for my entertainment seems very reasonable.

Smaug said:

An interesting side question:

Would you rather have a longer cylinder and frame, but with a longer jump for the bullet inside the cylinder

…or a shorter cylinder, same long frame and the barrel extending back to meet the short cylinder, thus creating an unsightly gap between the cylinder and frame?

Pick your poison.

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For a competition revolver (USPSA, ICORE etc) I would want to the short cylinder and barrel set-back to match. A short cylinder has less mass moment of inertia and when shooting fast double action this lower inertia results in noticeable lower force required for fast double action shooting since there is less mass to accelerate. Likewise the short cylinder will be easier on the pawl, star, cylinder stop and will peen cylinder stop notches slower over time again due to having less mass to start/stop at the beginning and end of each double action pull. This really only makes a big difference if you're shooting fast double action.

I don't see it that way. We will agree to disagree.

Smaug said:

The fact that it has foreign origin is irrelevant here. The other part is false without a lot of qualification.

Read Old Hobo’s post a few down from yours.

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Tall said:

I don't see it that way. We will agree to disagree.

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In USPSA Revolver division the S&W 929 9mm revolver dominates that sport by a larger margin over any rimmed cartridges. 38 Short Colt being a distant second. Context matters...

I wonder if there was some connivance between S&W and USPSA on that. Smith brought out the 8 shooters when the limit was still 6. But USPSA soon made the 6 Major = 8 Minor to get them in. Which puts Revolver in line with other divisions because 8 shots from one position is the maximum.

Tall said:

9 mm is a foreign cartridge that is incompetent to compete with a rimmed cartridge.

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I'd bet 9mm outsells .38 Special by at least a 10 to 1 margin. The fact that it was designed by an Austrian 120 years ago is irrelevant . What % of US based police departments use 9mm? What % of US military handguns are chambered in 9mm? What % of US federal agencies use 9mm?

How is it incompetent to compete with a rimmed cartridge? I can't even fathom what that means.

9mm revolvers are great if you looking cheaper ammo, faster reloads, and light recoil. However, the whole semi-auto in a revolver and using a moonclip throws most people for a loop. 90% of gun owners aren't regular shooters and for someone who shoots a box of ammo through their revolver once a year, using 9mm just isn't worth the little bit of extra hassle.

I have thousands of rounds through my 929 and it's a gun I like to use when show new shooters how easy it is to shoot a revolver accurately. With light reloads it shoots like a laser and is basically cheating.

Just a fun fact, but the 9mm Luger cartridge was introduced officially to the US Army in 1903 - just a year after it's development and one year earlier than it's adoption by the German Navy (1904).

Jim Watson said:

I wonder if there was some connivance between S&W and USPSA on that. Smith brought out the 8 shooters when the limit was still 6. But USPSA soon made the 6 Major = 8 Minor to get them in. Which puts Revolver in line with other divisions because 8 shots from one position is the maximum.

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I think that is a chicken/egg dilemma. I heard rumors of the rule change at least a year before the actual rule change happened Feb 2014. A you know the 929 was not the first 8-shooter the 627 had existed for several years and the 929 is built on that same modified N-frame. I was a shooting a 627 in Production for all of 2013 in anticipation of the rule change. S&W released two revolvers in 9mm late in 2013 including the 986 and 929, only the 929 is competitive in USPSA. I had always heard Jerry Miculek was a huge proponent of letting the 7 and 8 shooters play in Revolver division and yet 2014 Revolver National, the first to allow the 7&8 shooters, Jerry did not attend and I don't believe he had been back since. Despite S&W releasing the 929 in late 2013 I believe there was only one or two of them at the 2014 Revolver National Match. It was roughly 50/50 that year with 38 Short Colt and 45 ACP with the top 25 finishers all running 38 Short Colt or 38 Super. (Rob Leatham won it with a hybrid 627/27 in 38 Super). I think both the sport and S&W were working that direction no doubt for mutual beneficial reasons mostly for S&W.

RE: 38 Super revolvers

fxvr5 said:

S&W made them.

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Believe it or not, Webley did too, sort of. The least popular of the relatively unpopular-but-cool Webley-Fosbery automatic revolver was the 8-shot .38 ACP version, which used a spiral form of moon clip that considerably predates the S&W invention.



It was featured in the Dashiell Hammett novel The Maltese Falcon.



The later .38 Super was a +P (or +P+, depending) version of the .38 ACP -- the two cartridges are dimensionally identical but loaded to different pressures.

i shot 9mm almost exclusively from a ruger blackhawk convertible 357/38/9 single action revolver because of this caliber’s lower cost. i greatly enjoy this platform. same with 45acp out of a blackhawk convertible 45lc/acp.

i answered “other” because of the dearth of decently built, reasonably priced, 9mm double action revolver platforms. i briefly owned a charter arms 9mm pitbull revolver. it literally chewed and bloodied my hand with its unpleasant recoil, sharp edges and shoddy build.

Smaug said:

Looking at the cheap range ammo, CCI Blazer for 38 Spl costs about $0.58/round. The CCI Blazer for 9mm Luger costs $0.36/round.
If a fellow shoots an average of 50 rounds a week:

9 mm will have cost him $936 to shoot for the year, while 38 Special will have cost him $1508 per year. Maybe you're pretty well-off, but $572 a year saved in shooting is significant to me; it is enough to buy a whole new gun, all while shooting harder out of shorter barrels.

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On the other hand, if you go with .38 Special or .357, $572 is enough to set you up nicely for reloading and buy a set of Moulds and a melting pot on top of it.

9x19 is weaker out of short-barrels on little revolvers like the LCR and it still recoils painfully for most people. It compares to 38 Special, but can't even come close to 357 Magnum unless the Magnum is loaded down or with fast powders. A 2" 357 can send a 125 gr. bullet over 1400 fps, but it better be out of an N frame snubby or there will be pain.
The more it is pumped-up in a lightweight gun, the more it needs a crimp and bullets with a crimp groove and 9x19 doesn't.
In big revolvers like the 929 and Super GP-100, 9x19 can and does do very well, but those guns are primarily popular with competition shooters who pay a lot for an edge that casual range shooters don't need and that are impractical for people to use for carry.

The 9's short case is well-suited to fitting inside a pistol grip, but this feature is irrelevant on a revolver. The short case length is an advantage in ejection and reloading, but this has low relevance outside competitions involving reloads, or law-enforcement duty-guns where revolvers have been thoroughly retired.

The reason 9mm has greater availability and lower price is not because it has greater availability and lower price. The reason is that people are buying far more guns in 9x19 and shooting far more ammo in 9x19 than anything else. This is a demand-driven characteristic of the market. It is not driven by the supply side. If people started buying more guns in a different cartridge and buying more of those cartridges and creating more demand for those cartridges, the supply will increase and prices come down. It seems unlikely that will happen for 357 or 38 or that it will happen for anything specific to revolvers. The best chance revolvers have for a revolver-cartridge renaissance would be some kind of cartridge that fits in an outside-the-grip magazine. Take 300 BLK for example. I'm not saying it's good for revolvers, but it came on the market relatively recently and it really stormed the market with its price-per-round simultaneously plummeting. 30 Super Carry was a recent challenger to 9x19, but it looks to be fizzling. It wouldn't be better in a revolver, though cylinders could be made with one or two more chambers. 327 Federal didn't really take off either.

The 357 Maximum was once a popular revolver cartridge for metallic handgun silhouette shooting, and it is very, very close to the same dimensions as 350 Legend (also now a revolver cartridge). It could be that the "next big thing" for DBM's will also be a great revolver cartridge.

"Why convert to 357 first then ream to 9mm?"

Because I can buy inexpensive titanium .357 mag J-frame cylinders to get the weight down by two ounces, then ream them for 9mm without screwing up my original Stainless .38Sp cylinders.

I have 3 Airweight 9mm J-frames and 3 9mm semi-automatics.
I prefer the J-frames. Only downside is that 9mm recoil in the lightened Airweights is quite painful while .38 Sp recoil isn't.

"Because 9 mm is not as versatile as 38 Spl / 357 Mag"

I have a hard time getting .38 Spl and .357 Mag to fit in my Browning Hi-Power.

"I can see somebody who has standardized on the 9mm maybe wanting a revolver in that caliber. Maybe a guy might want it for his wife who doesn't want to shoot an automatic (?)."

My wife and daughter both find 9×19 in an Airweight J-frame far too painful to shoot.
The recoil is indeed fierce (somewhat like repeatedly hitting your thumb with a hammer), but they are a delight to carry. It takes an average of 3 seconds to eject and reload, and I like that too. I can't match it with speed strips.

Smaug said:

Maybe S&W got wind of it as a possibility and they just made their 9 mm revolvers to be ready just in case it went through?

If it DIDN'T go through and they didn't sell well, they just would not make another production run.

It doesn't seem like high risk to me; they only really needed a 9 mm barrel, cylinder and maybe slight frame modification.

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Yeah I agree I don't think this was a big risk for S&W. It was not the first 9mm revolver they have made. The 8-shot N-frame already existed for the 627. To do the 8-shot 357 magnum they had to move the barrel and firing pin up ~.035 inches in the frame. Having the barrel machine make a 357 or 9mm barrel is simply changing what reamers and button/cutter you're pulling. The 968 and 929 were fairly low risk for S&W. The 929 was going to have a home in ICORE for sure even if USPSA did not change the rules.

"I'm surprised that 9 mm recoil from a light revolver is notably worse than 38 Spl,"

Could it have anything to do with SAAMI pressure of a .38 being 17,500 psi, while 9mm pressure is 35,000 psi same as a .357 Mag?
1 shoot 147 gr 9mm, not all that much lighter than the 158 gr .38.
9mm recoil hurts.

The recoil with the old Herrett grips is sustainable.
The Altamont grip recoil is not. Five shots will bruise your thumb.

I still want to see S&W bring back the I-frame (Similar to the J-frame but shorter for the original Terrier in 38 S&W and 32 S&W Long). Make it with modern materials and chamber it as a 5-shot in 9mm and a 6-shot in 30 Super Carry. Both cut for moonclips. Give me a 3-inch heavy barrel like you see on some Model 13 (heavy but no underlug). Would make a wonderful little utility revolver.

reddog81 said:

I'd bet 9mm outsells .38 Special by at least a 10 to 1 margin. The fact that it was designed by an Austrian 120 years ago is irrelevant . What % of US based police departments use 9mm? What % of US military handguns are chambered in 9mm? What % of US federal agencies use 9mm?

How is it incompetent to compete with a rimmed cartridge? I can't even fathom what that means.

9mm revolvers are great if you looking cheaper ammo, faster reloads, and light recoil. However, the whole semi-auto in a revolver and using a moonclip throws most people for a loop. 90% of gun owners aren't regular shooters and for someone who shoots a box of ammo through their revolver once a year, using 9mm just isn't worth the little bit of extra hassle.

I have thousands of rounds through my 929 and it's a gun I like to use when show new shooters how easy it is to shoot a revolver accurately. With light reloads it shoots like a laser and is basically cheating.

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What does any of that have to do with the question of using a 9mm cartridge in a revolver? I reload so normally I shoot ammo that is either 44 caliber or 45 caliber. There are not any foreign equivalents - none - and my ammo is more accurate, cheaper, and more reliable than any you can buy. Certainly, I have 45 ACP guns but in a revolver, I don't like or use moon clips. That's why the 45 Auto Rim was designed.

Tall said:

What does any of that have to do with the question of using a 9mm cartridge in a revolver? I reload so normally I shoot ammo that is either 44 caliber or 45 caliber. There are not any foreign equivalents - none - and my ammo is more accurate, cheaper, and more reliable than any you can buy. Certainly, I have 45 ACP guns but in a revolver, I don't like or use moon clips. That's why the 45 Auto Rim was designed.

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I replied to your post... Everything you said didn't apply to the question at hand... 9mm is foreign... So what? How many US manufacturers make the round?

9mm is incompetent? What does that even mean?

44 caliber and 45 caliber also have nothing to do with 9mm revolvers.

Why am I replying to a troll? Sorry Moderators, feel free to delete...