Revolvers chambered for semiautomatic cartridges

CraigC said:

I haven't heard the name "Bithlo" in years.

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Yeah, just gave my age away, didn't I? Oh well. At least I don't qualify as an old fart, yet.

mcb said:

You can't hit the two second reloading with a stick and loose cartridges, but with practice you can with a moonclip feed revolver.

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How do I politely say I couldn't care less?

I only shoot in two competitive sports, and moon clips, or revolvers for that matter are not allowed in Trap.

The other one is CAS. I'm pretty sure there are no Single Action revolvers that use moon clips. You unload a Colt by opening the loading gate, setting the hammer at half cock, and emptying each chamber one by one by poking the empties out, but with the built in ejector rod, not with a stick. Then to reload you load one, skip one, load four more then bring the hammer to full cock and lower it on an empty chamber. I can't recall the last time we had a revolver reload on the clock, just way too much hassle. That's one reason we shoot two revolvers, so we don't have to reload in the middle of a 'gunfight'.

Seriously though, if I was shooting 45ACP in a timed sport, I would probably have dozens of clips and all the stuff needed to load them. But I don't, so I don't need all that stuff. When I'm at the range with a 45ACP revolver I actually use a small brass rod to poke out the empties, I'm not crawling around on the ground looking for a stick. I'm with CraigC on this one, I don't need the extra hassle of messing with clips, and I can reload all the 45AR I want, I have plenty of brass.

Which reminds me. Some guys in CAS are always looking for the mythical 'clean burning' powder. They think a little bit of soot or burnt powder grains in the bore is going to somehow slowdown their split second times, or jam their rifles. These guys often show up at the unloading table and rather than use the ejector rod to empty their revolvers, they open the loading gate, rotate the cylinder for each chamber, and bang the butt of the revolver on the table to shake out the empties. These are the guys who get upset about a little bit of unburned Whiz Bang in their chambers preventing the empties from spilling out when the cylinder is rotated to line up each chamber with the unloading gate. If I'm on unloading table duty when one of these guys shows up, I always ask them if they know what that thing under the barrel is for.

GeoDudeFlorida said:

Yeah, just gave my age away, didn't I? Oh well. At least I don't qualify as an old fart, yet.

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Why, did they close it? I was born and raised in central FL but moved to TN in 2007. Went back for a funeral last year and it might as well have been a different planet!

CraigC said:

Why, did they close it? I was born and raised in central FL but moved to TN in 2007. Went back for a funeral last year and it might as well have been a different planet!

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I was born and raised about a half mile from the junction of Hwy50 and US1. Used to walk barefoot through the Indian River scooping trout into a sale skiff with a crabbing net. Last time I went home it a different town. Not better or worse, really, just different. Not sure if Bithlo is still "Bithlo." I think it got renamed "Orlando Raceway" or "Orlando Speedway" - something like that - some time back. I gave up racing when I started college. I had a full scholarship but still had to pay fees and buy books - I couldn't afford classes, food and gas, let alone track fees. That's how I got into cycling. Racing bikes went away when I injured my back. Recumbents can be very fast but it takes work. That makes it less fun.

ATB...

Small world. I was born and raised at the junction of Hwy 50 and the turnpike, halfway between the coasts. Never went to the track. Back then my thing was 4wd trucks, mud holes, sand pits, shooting and fishing.

Driftwood Johnson said:

These guys often show up at the unloading table and rather than use the ejector rod to empty their revolvers, they open the loading gate, rotate the cylinder for each chamber, and bang the butt of the revolver on the table to shake out the empties.

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Seriously? And you don't just "Gibb's Smack" them?

CraigC said:

Small world. I was born and raised at the junction of Hwy 50 and the turnpike, halfway between the coasts. Never went to the track. Back then my thing was 4wd trucks, mud holes, sand pits, shooting and fishing.

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That's a good world to live in. My favorite uncle and th one who got me into reloading lived about two miles from McCoy AFB - when it was still an AFB. We used to hunt in Ocala and down in the Everglades when that was still legal. Deer, pigs, turkey, pheasant, grouse.. he hated grocery store meat. Said it had no flavor. I kind of agreed but now that I have access to small farm meats, I hunt the farmer's markets and Publix, every once in a while. Doctor says I shouldn't be eating meat anyway because of my heart but, life just isn't worth living without a good steak or pulled pork butt sandwich every now and again.

As for the main topic, I think now I know why gun makers don't make more revolvers in rimless chambers: they're too specialized, too small of a market. Kind of like mud trucks and race bikes - The race-gunners want tune-able guns they can customize and the regular shooters don't want the hassle of moon-things. There's no real market for a .25ACP or .32ACP revolver and not much of a market for .380 or 9mm revolvers. Maybe some for .45ACP but it's probably not enough to make special tooling.

I find the accuracy potential with the ACPs is just as good. Reloading ACP cartridges is less fiddling than full size. The benefits for me are the ACP cartridges load in SAs much quicker and easier than the full size. The ACP brass ejects much easier than full size.
In DA revolvers I use the EZ polymer moon clips which are super easy to load and unload by hand. Much easier than using full size cartridges. The only negative is I shoot more bullets per hour.