To clarify my OP, the malfunctions in my Mark II basically got me to think about reliability of semis vs. autos, I know any firearm can fail, and probably at the most inopportune time, Murphy's Law and all that, and yes I know that both revolvers and semis can have major jams that take them out of the fight, a revolver with a squib load between the cylinder and forcing cone will turn it into a short-range club, a FTE, stovepipe, or double-feed in a semi can take the semi down
Up until I got back into revolvers a month or so ago, all my recent handguns had been semis, I've had stovepipes, double-feeds, failure to feed, failure to fire, and FTE jams with them, they were infrequent, but they happened**, and any of them took the gun out of service for at least 10 seconds or more (FTE or double-feed), I looked on them as par-for-the-course, a freak occurance, but something that can and will happen thanks to the design of the recoil-operated semiauto
I've had *NO* jams, stoppages or failures with any of my revolvers, from my old Taurus 689, and Ruger GP-100 (both sold off), to my current revolvers, a H&R 949 .22 and Ruger New Blackhawk .45 Convertible, they all just plain worked, pull the trigger, they go bang every time, *could* they fail, sure, and I expect them to at some point, no man-made device is truly infallible, but the fact remains, they have run flawlessly so far, yes, they could go out of time and spit lead, yes they could encounter a squib load that sticks between the forcing cone and cylinder, yes the internal lockwork could get buggered up, nothing's perfect
Maybe I'm wrong here, but my mindset is that a revolver has less potential to go wrong than a semi, but it'd be illogical to put total trust in either, assume the weapon will fail and plan accordingly, plan for the worst, hope for the best is a great philosophy to have
I randomly alternate between my Kimber Custom II and my Ruger New Blackhawk as nightstand gun, right now, the Ruger has the nod, but that could change any time
**those pistols are no longer in the collection, the only problem I've had with my Kimber Custom II have been extremely infrequent stovepipes, maybe one stovepipe per 1000 rounds fired, the light-strikes with the Mark II are a recent problem, but I think I've solved it, as it has not recurred in the last two range trips since I gave the firing pin channel a good cleaning and polished the firing pin