Autos vs Revolvers. A different take.

"I also dislike....chasing brass, so there's that."

I was going to try to make a semi funny ha ha about how shooting a revolver is easier on my back than a semi auto. I said that to a young guy at the range one day and he was puzzled. The older fellas got it and chuckled.

I must be doing it wrong. Your revolver brass doesn't end up on the ground when you reload?

The only real advantage I see is, that there are usually 5 or 6 in a sorta group where you stopped with the revolvers, where the autos just leave a trail.

trackskippy said:

I must be doing it wrong. Your revolver brass doesn't end up on the ground when you reload?

The only real advantage I see is, that there are usually 5 or 6 in a sorta group where you stopped with the revolvers, where the autos just leave a trail.

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It is easy to dump them from the cylinder into a tray or box. However, it would behoove us to empty our revolvers at the range just like we might have to in a gunfight. Good time to practice that and make sure our muscle memory does the right thing in a gunfight and not try to catch them because that is how we always did it at the range. Nonetheless, I still tend to try catching them. There is a tray at my range so I can practice the field/gunfight method while not have all of them on the floor, but some miss the tray.

my first handgun experience was in 1972 with a clapped-out, g.i., m1911 45acp pistol in army basic training. it was simply awful, more hazing than instruction. in 1985 i got some excellent government civilian instruction in a s&w k frame 38sp revolver. my only personal firearm for 25+ years was a taurus 85. so i’m a confirmed single and double action wheelgun guy.

that said, my two most go-to handguns are both semiauto pistols: a ruger sr22 plinker and a keltec p32 ccw. go figure...

sgt127 said:

I love revolvers. The simplicity. Reliability. I own a bunch of revolvers from 22 up to 44 mag. The 38 and 357 have always been one of my favorite calibers.

if I shoot three cylinder fulls of 357Magnum in a K frame it hurts. Quite a bit. There’s a magic little spot on the first knuckle of my thumb that takes a ferocious beating. I don’t have very big hands, so to keep the gun centered up in the web of my hand, I need to use fairly small grips. I’m okay with 22, 38 special, and 44 special. 357 magnum, 41, 44 magnum are just miserable.

anytime I try to use wraparound grips that offer some padding on that horn, I have to rotate my hand even further to reach the trigger, putting the recoil right into that thumb joint.

However, I can shoot several hundred rounds of 357 Sig out of my P239, and I’m fine.

The slide eats up a lot of the recoil, the single stack grip I can wrap my hand all the way around and still reach the trigger, and the gun is sitting lower in my hand. Creating a radically different recoil impulse compared to a revolver.

Am I the only one?

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Nope, you're not the only one.

Shooting 50-100rds of hard-recoiling .38SPL +P in a +P rated Airweight or the even lighter M&P 340, or shooting Magnum in the M&P 340, can result in a case of "Magnum Thumb" at the end of the day. Just the way the revolver grip frame aligns in the hand, no matter the grip stocks used (although the smaller the stocks, the quicker it can happen). That used to take shooting hundreds of rounds of heavy .357 or .44MAG handloads in my youth, but all those years of Magnum caliber abuse tends to leave a mark.

The good news is that I have enough accrued trigger time from my years of being an enthusiastic shooter, and then many years of that as a LE firearms trainer, have made it unnecessary to shoot as much as I did while developing those revolver skills. Nowadays I just shoot enough to keep the rust off and to assess the state of my skills. More maintenance, than building. (I suppose much the same could be said regarding my continuing exercise and martial arts endeavors. )

Pistols help mitigate it for me, due to the completely different grip frame and the slide/recoil spring absorbing the "slam the palm and torque the wrist" effect. Sure, the slower (dwell time) and heavier 'push' recoil of the .45 is kind than the 'snap/whip' of the .40, but the 9 is kinder than both. It's unsurprising many longtime .45 shooters eventually find themselves transitioning to 9's, especially when elbow problems and arthritis in the hands may start occurring later in life. Shooting the milder recoiling 9 can extend the number of enjoyable shooting years for some folks.

As much as I enjoyed my Magnum wheelguns, nowadays I either back off on the frequency of the trigger time (meaning I'm no longer shooting multiple times per month like when I was an instructor), and/or I back off on the use of Magnum, and I've found myself even slipping in more standard pressure loads now and then in the lightweight J's. Using +P in my 3" M65 and 4" Service-Six (ported) makes for some pleasurable shooting, compared to the Magnum loads I've always preferred in the medium-size wheelguns. Oh well. Time passes.

Merle1 said:

Have you ever tried a padded shooting glove? I found them to be very useful when shooting heavy loads while competing in IHMSA matches.

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Agreed. I bought a pair of padded cyclists gloves at Wal-Mart and they do the deed perfectly.