Been a few years since I posted this. Nothing's really changed. Saves retyping it!
I started out shooting revolvers many years ago. Revolvers were quite reliable to work with and then along came the autos with new improved designs, better ammunition performance and greater capacity. In truth, I felt that the reliability of the auto finally came up to a level of what I felt was the tactical equivalency of well maintained revolvers and so I began to carry an auto.
Here are some random observations I have discovered about the two weapon systems. Revolvers will occasionally malfunction and so will autos. I accept the fact that a high quality auto is just as likely, or unlikely, to break a part that stops the gun from functioning, just as any high quality revolver would should it experience catastrophic failure of a particular part. I have actually broken more parts in autos than revolvers, but I can attribute that to sheer luck. Slide stops have broken, firing pins have broken, but statistically, I would argue that neither one is likely to just "break" when you need it.
On the few occasions that I have had a revolver stop working, it was a cumulative effect of shooting. It started to get dirty, crap under the extractor star, the barrel cylinder gap got lead and powder residue, the chambers got sticky from lots of .38's and then having to force a .357 into the chamber. In other words, most of the problems came on slowly. I knew eventually the gun was going to stop working because of the indicators it gave; such as the trigger pull beginning to feel heavy or the bind I felt when attempting to close the cylinder.
However, there were times that for no apparent reason, a clean, well-lubed auto, would sometimes just not feed, fire, or eject a round. The bullet nose would catch on the feed-ramp, an empty round would fail to get out of the way of the next round, or there would be some other type of failure that seemed to occur randomly, and without warning.
Standing on the line, at the range, neither gun failed very often. Nice firm grip, dry hands, locked wrists, all is well in the world of hand-gunning. But, in the neat world of tactical hand-gunning when a deadly force confrontation erupts, we know that it is anything but a static situation or under perfect conditions!
Recently, I have watched a few episodes of "Under Fire" on Court TV. Autos, good quality (and, hopefully) well maintained autos, sometimes crap out in the middle of a gunfight. These incidents can be attributed to such things as: a weak one-handed grip, or perhaps coming out of battery when rolling around on the ground, or when the weapon is shoved against the bad guy, or whatever else that can impact a weapon system in a serious close quarter fight. The auto needs a solid platform to work off of. In the real world of close quarter fighting you must remember this should your weapon malfunction!
At distances where the Officer could maneuver, even though it was still in close proximity to the suspect, the auto rarely seemed to jam. But, if the fight closed all the way down to contact distance, then there is the chance that the auto could turn into a single shot weapon.
As an example of this, there is one particular episode that comes to mind involving an Officer fighting with an experienced, no-nonsense boxer, that was about to beat the Officer to death. Finally, the Officer drew his pistol and got off one shot into the BG's midsection with little effect, and, the gun jammed on the first shot! The BG then grabbed the gun and beat the Officer with it and tossed it. The Officer was able to pick it back up later in the fight. (Interesting video if you ever get a chance to see it.)
On duty, I have to carry a Glock 35. And, I'm not sure I am ready to give up the general reliability, magazine capacity, and ease of shooting of a good auto for the vast majority of shooting situations. But, as a backup, I carry a 642. And, it seems a lot of others are big fans of the little revolvers as backup guns as well.
Off duty, I find myself carrying a 3" S&W M65 more and more. I envision an off duty encounter being a very fast fight that turns into a gunfight. Bad guy rushing you with a knife, BG jumping you, knocking you down and attacking you, two guys pinning you into a corner and the fight is on. Capacity becomes secondary to utter reliability for me at that point. I can still get good hits with a revolver out to 25 yards or so, if I have to, but it's not really something I see happening. Truth be known, the odds of needing a gun at all are pretty remote, but if we are the kind of individual with the right tactical mindset, then we should plan for those unexpected events and be ready for it.
So, what are some other's thoughts? Have you taken your favorite defense auto out to the range, held it with your left hand, bent your wrist and elbow and tried getting off as many shots as you could? Have you held it upside down, or covered your hands in soapy water and then tried to shoot through an entire magazine? Have you tried shoving it into the target to see if it gets pushed out of battery? The question then is - did it jam after the first shot? I have personally done all those things and found that the reliability of a quality auto weapon went downhill.
It seems that most autos jam during the feeding and ejecting cycle. That's the one part that you do manually before and after the festivities with a revolver. During a gunfight, a revolver cannot have a feeding malfunction or an ejection malfunction. I realize that clearing an auto jam is a lot faster than clearing a revolver jam. But, that really cool "Tap-rack-bang" that you practice on the range really needs that off hand to work. If that off hand is keeping a box cutter off your throat, things go downhill in a hurry.
This is not to say if you are carrying a revolver that you couldn't experience a malfunction with it as well. As an example, I am talking about something like a high primer, making it difficult to pull through on the trigger. To combat this effect - pull the trigger REALLY hard, it just may go bang again! There are pros and cons to both of these weapon systems.
If these thoughts get a few people to thinking, and helps you to become more aware of your own abilities as well as your weapon's capabilities and limitations, then great. If it just makes you train harder, for what YOU consider a real world gunfight, even better. Remember: practice hard, practice often and be safe. Best regard to you all.
