Even though speed loaders are available and work well, they are rather bulky and take a bit of practice to operate effectively.
In the hands of all but the best-trained experts, the use of speed-loaders has always looked awkward and clumsy to me, and not always so speedy. You have to twist the release knob without pulling the cartridges out, then some cartridges might refuse to come out, and then you have to properly seat all of them afterward. Perhaps worst of all, it demands from most people their full attention and for them to stare downward at the process for proper hand-eye coordination the whole time. I might be making it sound worse than it really is, but seldom have I seen truly smooth uses of a speed-loader.
It occurred to me that revolvers that accept moon clips would be more commonplace. They are cheap, easy to use, and no bulkier than speed loaders.
I've been looking into adding some revolvers to my home-defense arsenal of late, and I've been wondering the very same thing. Not that I expect to need that many rounds to be available for each weapon for home-defense use, but since revolvers do have lower capacity, the odds of needing to reload at least once are somewhat greater, and moon clips seem to be an ideal solution.
So my question is… what are some of the reasons that revolvers utilizing moon clips are not a common home defense weapon?
That's a good question. If I had to guess at an answer, it would be that those who favor capacity and fast reloads would naturally gravitate toward autoloaders because they have a sizable advantage in capacity in most states; you brought up single-stack 1911s as a counterexample regarding capacity, but many of those who favor this platform do so for other reasons, some tangible (e.g. its trigger is quite different from those of double-action revolvers) and some intangible. And those for whom capacity is not as critical an issue would naturally tend to use traditional revolver-specific calibers in revolvers because, well, they're traditional. Strongly reinforcing the latter tendency is the appeal of the flexible, versatile .357 Magnum/.38 Special combination (even if a majority of people will never really have a use for .357 Magnum ammunition).
Aside from the main reasons, moon clips are really more practical with calibers designed for autoloaders because the rounds are generally shorter and easier to insert, and the clips themselves can be thicker and more robust, while moon clips designed for rimmed ammunition are thinner and more prone to warping and failure. Most would opine, rightly or wrongly, that it's not worth giving up the advantages of the .357 Magnum chambering for the convenience of moon clips, and that speed-loaders will serve the same purpose.
As you can see, much of the reason for this and just about anything else consists of happenstance and history rather than raw pragmatism. Then again, autoloaders can be quite reliable these days, too, so even pragmatism is more arguable than ever. In my opinion, if one has compelling reasons for using a revolver specifically and are concerned about capacity and reloading, then they should seriously consider revolvers chambered in rimless calibers and fed by moon clips. While I think that more people should go for this type of configuration, it will probably always be more of a niche than mainstream.
Most shooters just don't want to troubled by the fuss or bother involved using these clips when there equvalent rimmed relvolver cartridges. Just on man's opinion.
That may be true, but I think moon clips would be very useful for combat or even home-defense. The problem is that you generally can't have both in a single revolver, as thin moon clips and long cartridges aren't an ideal combination, and to use thick moon clips you can't have rimmed cartridges.
Finally, even though moonclipped revolvers stood the abuse of WWI combat, the moonclips can bend, in which case, you have a feed and/or reliability issue.
The problem is that you have to choose between strong, reliable moon clips like those used with .45 ACP cartridges, and rimmed cartridges--you can't have them both at once, as far as I'm aware.
OT, but this is debatable. Ever open a DA revolver up and peek inside? Not sure one can categorically say they're less complicated and have less parts. And they're not categorically more reliable, either. They're plenty sensitive to their own gremlins.
From what I've seen, at least, while autoloaders may be more subject to transient malfunctions that can be quickly cleared, revolvers are perhaps more subject to mechanical failures, and are generally more sensitive to physical abuse (they may be strong when firing, but probably can't take as much stress or shock from other sources).
S&W has made the 610 10mm revolver quite recently. Might still be in production even.
It's still listed in their catalog, so they probably do a production run every so often to meet the limited demand. It can shoot .40 S&W, too, making it useful for multiple purposes, sort of like .357 Magnum. However, as revered as 10mm Auto is in some circles, it's hard to challenge a legend in the world of revolvers.
