Revolvers more accurate than 1911's?

[Jim March]

If you're on a BUDGET and want accuracy, you need a wheelgun. Period. A $350 Ruger GP100 will usually outshoot all but the best autos at any price point under a grand.

There's a caveat - a revolver can "go wrong" any number of ways that affect accuracy, such as a sloppy cylinder, bad timing or more. But it's possible to inspect for these without firing the gun - which is why the "checkout thread" is stickied at the top of the revolver forum .

Single Action revolvers are inherently more accurate than DAs, as there's no crane. On Ruger SAs, very simple mods like a base pin swap to the Belt Mountain goods nets big gains for $25 or less. See also the "Ruger SA parts thread":

http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=80872 (continues here on THR...)

One of the most enjoyable shooting sessions I've done was outdoors, at a small metal garbage can of about torso width at 50 yards with a group of friends. I hit it five for five - with my Charter Arms Undercover 2" barrel snub 38 . Some dude with a full-sized Glock 40 opened up, and batted about .500 . So that was $186 worth of used gun (late 1970s production) with half the barrel length and power up against something worth about $500.

None of this is atypical in terms of price/performance.

As to FA: several independent testers have checked out the new 97 mid-frame in 22, and clocked sub-MOA results . Including those maniacs from Tennessee at Gunblast.com . (I like those dudes, even though they really "hammed it up" when testing some Cor-Bon ammo .)

 

[Mike Irwin]

"Well , when you are on a full shooting line in a large sanctioned match and you are trying to one hand shoot all 10s or Xs to stay competitive I would have to disagree. To merely spray shots is another thing entirely."

I've seen a number of older rapid-fire bullseye shooters using that method, and doing as well, if not better, than the semi-auto shooters.

 

[Monkeyleg]

I'd hoped this thread wouldn't devolve into the decades-old "which is better: revolver vs. semi" argument. But it seems to have.

The question I'm still asking is this: two guns--one revolver, one 1911; same exact handloads; same group size when fired from a solid rest; same everything, yet one does better in my hand than the other. Why?

 

[Watchman]

Perhaps it's because one fits your hand a little better than the other.

The angle of the grips may make for a more natural alignment of the sights to the eye.

 

[Tamara]

One of the most enjoyable shooting sessions I've done was outdoors, at a small metal garbage can of about torso width at 50 yards with a group of friends. I hit it five for five - with my Charter Arms Undercover 2" barrel snub 38 . Some dude with a full-sized Glock 40 opened up, and batted about .500 . So that was $186 worth of used gun (late 1970s production) with half the barrel length and power up against something worth about $500.

That particular incident had squat to do with the guns; there's no reason the Glock shouldn't have gone fifteen for fifteen.

 

[Old Fuff]

Monkeylegs:

I’m going to take a shot at you’re question. ….

Machine or bench-rested accuracy vs. hand-held accuracy are two different things. The former eliminate most or all of the human factors while in the latter this plays a major (and very difficult to define) part.

It may be that when you fired the mostly unfamiliar revolver you mentally concentrated more on what you were doing and that was reflected in you’re scores. Or the revolver’s crisper, no-take-up and no-backlash trigger pull may have played a part. Maybe the revolver’s more forward balance helped steady it in you’re hand. It may be that the grips happened to be especially “friendly†to you’re hand(s). None of these factors would have made much difference when you benched the gun.

Of course if you think about it you may come up with some more answers. Perhaps you should get together with you’re friend at the range more often and continue to experiment with his .45 revolver. You might also try some smaller ones in .38 Special or .357 Magnum and see if they are any different in the accuracy department. While we may debate endlessly about what makes the better weapon (pistols vs. revolvers) I think revolvers make great range & field guns, and if you remove the larger cartridge capacity and rapid fire issues I think many people can outshoot their pistol scores with a good revolver. Plus the revolver generally costs far less then an equally accurate pistol. It would be to you're advantage to try both.

 

[John Ross]

Monkeyleg: Now that you've clarified, this is a different question than the one it looked like you were asking in your original post and Old Fuff, with his twitchy apostrophe key, has nailed it.

Consider: A Ransom Rest doesn't care about the quality of the gun's trigger, and group size won't be affected. A human shooter can't shoot a gun with a bad trigger nearly as well as a gun with a good one. Groups ARE affected, a lot. Ditto recoil level, gun weight and balance, grip shape, grip angle, and a host of other things. Some are personal preference, but most have pretty tight parameters. When was the last time you saw a gun with a grip 90 degrees to the axis of the bore?

There have been many cases of ISU shooters being given a new gun measurably more accurate than the one they were using and being unable to match the scores they were accustomed to getting with the "inferior" gun.

Trying to figure all this stuff out and quantify it keeps gunmakers and custom gunsmiths in business.

JR

P.S. On my earlier post regarding the raw accuracy of centerfire semis, I did not mention the Desert Eagle. It should have potential exceeding revolvers, but I have no personal experience with it.

FYI the DE is built on the patent (which IMI bought) of Jon Powers' Magmatic, and is mechanically similar. Ufortunately, the grip angle is all wrong and the gun is a boat anchor. The Magmatic looked and felt like an enlarged Colt Woodsman, handled wonderfully, and was a tackdriver. When I picked up the first DE I was so disgusted with what IMI had done with Jon's design that I've never looked at another.

 

[bountyhunter]

For the money

Revolvers are more accurate. You can spend about $350 on a Taurus .38 that will shoot sub 2" groups all day long. It costs about 3X that much to get a 1911 that will also do it out of the box.

It ain't brain surgery: in the revolver, the barrel is bolted to the frame. In an auto, the barrel is loose in the slide which is loose on the frame. Which will inherently shoot tighter groups?

 

[Penforhire]

I think the difference, to Monkey, is the trigger motion. I'm better at SA shooting my 4" 686+ than my Series 70. My Series 70 shooting is, however, better than my P99 SA shooting. But my DA 686 shooting, well, stinks. And the entire difference is trigger pull (to me).

I'm surprised we haven't come up with a method to trigger our handguns with a remote in the off-hand.

 

[bountyhunter]

I'm surprised we haven't come up with a method to trigger our handguns with a remote in the off-hand.

Then we'd all have to learn to flinch left handed.