Any revolvers not 100% reliable?

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During the Vietnam War, the Army issued S&W .38s to helicopter pilots and crew -- they rapidly became junk in the field.

Revolvers use tiny parts (the hand) to move massive parts (the cylinder). They depend on a delicate mechanism (the cylinder stop) to align the chamber with the barrel. Ejection can be a problem with revolvers -- particularly with crud getting under the ejector star. Cases can also fall back and jam the ejector star if poor gun-handling techniques are used. There has been a rash of postings on this board of transer bars and other parts breaking.

I had a Charter Arms .38 Special that would allow the cylinder to be pushed back too far -- there was clearance between the flange on the right lower rear of the cylinder window and the cylinder.

I had a Colt SAA that would rotate past the cylinder stop (Colt fixed it.)

I have had several problems with revolvers -- probably as many as I have had with autopistols. But under the most severe conditions, the M1911 shines. Having carried both a revolver (Colt M357) and an M1911 in combat, I'll go with the M1911.
 
Of the good quality American made revolvers that were NOT defective for some reason, I've never seen one that didn't work.
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Unless there's something WRONG with a good quality American gun or ammo, they always fire.
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Er ... isn't that sort of by definition? And I'm not sure the country of origin has as much to do with it as the fact that the gun has nothing wrong iwth it, is good quality, has good ammo, is not defective, etc.
 
Hmmmmm.......

Worst one I ever had was an RG brand of DA .22LR revolver. It always went bang!, but you couldn't hit the ground with it beyond muzzle contact distance.
 
As one or two others have mentioned, unburnt powder granules will lock up a tight revolver. For example, I have a S&W Performance Center M66 that frequently does does. A couple of granules can get in under the extractor and you have to open up the cylinder and get the powder out.

I also have had the extractor rod back out of my older M29.
 
the Army issued S&W .38s to helicopter pilots and crew -- they rapidly became junk in the field.
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I've never heard that they "rapidly became junk" before. Where are you getting that information? Maybe it's a Smith thing. My Colts and Rugers have never shown the sort of star sensitivity you describe.

In fact I've had extremely good reliability from the Ruger .357's I've owned over the years--mostly beat up old Security Sixes--in spite of really horrible abuse. They've taken abuse ranging from being dropped in boiling water, dropped in salmon streams, dropped in snow banks, lost in snow banks, run over by my pickup and left out in the rain (yes, I know, I'm terrible). I've never had to do anything more than rub them with a rag and they fire perfectly. Zero failures to fire.
 
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I've never heard that they "rapidly became junk" before. Where are you getting that information? Maybe it's a Smith thing. My Colts and Rugers have never shown the sort of star sensitivity you describe.
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I was there (two tours, with the last one extended about a month and a half.) I saw it.

I saw plenty of S&Ws (which was what the Army bought) that had all sorts of problems -- from sprung cranes to broken hands, bolt stops, and so on.
 
Well that must be a Smith & Wesson issue. Those parts should not break so easily. Were those alloy frame airweights?

Too bad the SP-101 hadn't been invented by then.
 
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Well that must be a Smith & Wesson issue. Those parts should not break so easily. Were those alloy frame airweights?
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Steel frames -- mostly K-38s. Revolvers just couldn't stand up to the rough handling in combat.

Now, I carried a Colt M357 on my first tour, and it was just fine -- but it was MY gun, and I babied it. In the hands of the troops, however, an issue revolver doesn't get that kind of babying.
 
revolver vs. auto

Dienekes,

Thank you that you took the time to write such a detailed post about your experience. It is very interesting.

For me the 'moral of the story' is that a wheelgun is more reliable than an auto. What about wheelgun vs. 1911? You said you had no issues with your 1911s. Is it as reliable?

Thanks in advance.

Svetlio
 
Reliability, Revolver vs self loader

I think the comparision between the two type varies depending on conditions. Where a handgun is well maintained and carried under clean conditions with light use, say a bank guard, the Revolver will be more reliable. In a lot of fast competition shooting the self loader might win out.

Where the gun is abused or suffers bad conditions, it might depend on exactly what those conditions are.
 
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I think the comparision between the two type varies depending on conditions. Where a handgun is well maintained and carried under clean conditions with light use, say a bank guard, the Revolver will be more reliable. In a lot of fast competition shooting the self loader might win out.

Where the gun is abused or suffers bad conditions, it might depend on exactly what those conditions are.
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There you have it. My experience is, in the worst conditions, the M1911 is a winner.

And I have no qualms about carrying a revolver (as I noted, I carried a Colt M357 my first tour.) But it takes care and maintenance to keep a revolver reliable under adverse conditions -- more than needed to keep an M1911 perking.
 
Reliability, Revolver vs self loader

I think the comparision between the two type varies depending on conditions. Where a handgun is well maintained and carried under clean conditions with light use, say a bank guard, the Revolver will be more reliable. In a lot of fast competition shooting the self loader might win out.
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Unspellable,

that's exactly what I wanted to know. Thanks.


I am trying to find a handgun for home defence and CCW. I need a gun to bet my life on. No bad mud, war...etc conditions.

From what I see and hear in this thread I should pick a wheelgun and control it often if all screws are tight. Also keep it clean.

Svetlio
 
I think that a 1911 with rounds it likes is awfully close to completely reliable--as much as any mechanism operated by people and subject to Murphy's Law can be (which can be very good indeed).

*However* everybody and his dog makes a 1911 clone, and from what I hear lots of them have "quality issues". I started out with DCM (GI issue) guns and hardball, and everything in them and connected with them was of known quality. I just don't remember any problems from those long-ago days. I still trust those guns. My new SA Mil-Spec seems to be okay, but it is *not* the same gun. If it doesn't keep running right, it will be gone. I currently have a Ruger P97 that is not making the cut, and will be gone shortly.

As to revolvers in the US military, I presume they were mostly M15 Smiths. We had them in the Air Force. They were good guns, but somewhat vulnerable to abuse or mishandling. Blued guns in RVN were not exactly rustproof, either. Of course one partial remedy for this is to take care of your weapon! I might do just fine with one--but I take care of my stuff.

From what I can tell, the DA revolver is a bit less tolerant of user abuse and neglect in maintenance, whereas even good semiautos are more reliant on everything working properly. With a good DA revolver, if your finger still works the gun is probably going to go bang. With the semiauto, one glitch in the sequence leaves you high and dry.

Here's how it breaks down in this outfit: I use a Security Six and 442; my wife has a M37 airweight; my son has the beater Service Six; my daughter has a G19 (and recently found a M10 3"). My new daughter in law wants an SP-101. So while we differ, we are all getting just about 100% reliability where the rubber meets the road.

If it isn't reliable, do yourself a favor and drop it off a bridge.
 
I have a S&W 686 had this weird problem, If I squeeze the trigger slowly, the cylinder would rotate to the next chamber but the hammer won't cock and fall. Had to sent it back to the factory. I haven't had a lot luck with w&w :mad:
 
In my (very limited) experience, the wheelgun was really nice. Today I fired a S&W 686 in the 6" and it was very contorllable for me. Also, no problems (except for one tight cylinder that had a problem extracting).

I also shot a Colt 1911. I had a stovepipe the first time I fired it.

Now, yes. That was probably user error. I probably limp wristed it. BUT... I had never ever fired a revolver before, and it worked the whole time. Reloading was kind of a bitch with that one tight cylinder, but no biggie.


Now, I am planning on carrying a semi. Why? More rounds, Easier to reload, If you learn to shoot it and have good ammo, some of them can work flawlessly. Same with revolvers. It all depends on personal preferance.
 
I had the firing pin of a model 19 break off once (after thousands and thousands of rounds), and I have a colt DSII that had a brittle mainspring (broke after about 30 rounds) from the factory, which, once replaced has been fine.
 
Any revolvers not 100% reliable?
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All of them. The question belies a certain acceptance of the old "six for sure" mentality which isn't entirely correct.

My 6" 686-4 has somewhere in the 9k mark through it, with a goodly amount of my perhaps-too-adverturerous handloads and Keith loads. Not a lot by a real shooter's standards, but certainly broken in. It's got at least twice that in dry-fire cycles, probably more since it was my first centerfire revolver. Somewhere between 75-80% of the total cycles were (fast) DA as I used it for informal steel shooting. The cylinder stop and stop notches are fine; the wear on both started and stopped long ago. It's seen more of the woods in northeast Alabama that some people that've lived here their entire lives. The only modification is an ivory front sight insert. No worries.

My 681-2 is a police trade-in that had seen it's fair share of abuse before I got it. I've thrown it on the ground (port side up) several times to test the old chestnut that that's where the real fragility of the system is. Didn't hurt it. The center pin is very wide relative to its protruding height; in order for this to be a problem the center pin would have to be defective in terms of materials. This one only has about 2k through it. No worries.

Etc, etc, etc.

OTOH, I've dropped my Glock 21 on a carpeted floor and the front sight popped off. I understand the night sight models are steel and have a hex nut as a fastener. Probably a good idea.

Hang around long enougn and you'll break one of everything. This goes double for GI recruits, who are capable of breaking anything in an accellerated time frame.
 
Anything is 100% reliable, until it isn't. I've never experienced a failure to fire with any of my revolvers, so far they're 100% reliable.

I qualified for my CPL with about 30-40 others, a large number for a rural area, and about 25% of us used revolvers. While none of the revolvers failed, several of the semi-autos experienced failures to fire, probably 6 or 7 of them. I don't remember any greenhorns in the group, all present had at least some handgun experience.
 
I've had a Smith M18 (bought LNIB) break it's cylinder lock during its first trip to the range. That's the only revolver parts breakage in my 35 years experience with handguns. I have a GP100 that will start hanging-up on one chamber after it's good and dirty with my cast bullet reloads, doesn't do it with factory loads. Same with a Smith 19. All my other revovers will shoot at least 200-250 rounds of my cast bullet handloads without a problem. Obviosly it's an individual revolver problem. I'd like a ten dollar bill for every hangup I've had with semi-autos including Sigs, Glocks and Berettas. Never had a malfunction with my Ruger 95, Smith 5906 and BHP.

Interesting comments about the revolver in Vietnam by Vern. Maybe they aren't the best for the tough tropical conditions of a place like Viet Nam, although it would have been interesting to know how a stainless steel gun like a Smith 64 or Ruger Security series would have done.

My experience leads me to believe that you need to know how an individual weapon (revolver/auto) and ammunition combination works. Most clean revolvers with factory ammo will go bang for a whole cylinder in my experience. My Ruger 95, Smith 5906 and BHP will do the same with the magazine in the gun.
 
Not matter how reliable a revolver is, it alwasy "jams" on 6th/7th round. :) It probably takes longer to clear the "jam" (reload) than to clear a jam in auto, in most case.
 
I have had trouble with Sellier & Bellot ammo in my SP101.

Some people disagree with this assessment, but I find it to be dirty ammo that builds up crud in a cylinder to the point where a round will back out and bind the cylinder.

This happens usually after 200-250 rounds of .357 at a range session.

As for the gun's mechanism, the only problems have been ones I have caused by putting in a Wolf spring that would give light strikes & other problems. Quickly fixed with a slightly heavier spring.
 
I had a brand new Colt Python. When I cocked the hammer and pulled the trigger the hammer stoped about half way down. Took it to Colts warranty repair. When I got it back it worked fine.

As to which is better a revolver or a semi-auto the best answer I heard was a revolver is better for the first 6 shots semi-auto is better after that.
 
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