Why Revolvers? (speaking from ignorance)

[spwenger]

Me Too

I flat out shoot revolvers better than autoloaders.

In January 1997, I was at the San Diego PD range for an NRA Law Enforcement Firearms Instructor Development School. The 50-yard phase of the handgun "qualification" proved to be a challenge for me but I noticed that the guys from Wes-Tec Security, who were using revolvers, did not seem to be having that problem. At that point I realized that if I had brought a revolver, instead of my S&W 6906, I would also be having an easier time.

In June 1998, I showed up at the Metro Las Vegas PD range for an NRA Tactical Shooting Instructor Development School with an ex-LASD S&W 15 as my primary handgun. For some reason, that offended the Metro officers, who made up the bulk of the students. The resentment increased each time that we shot handguns at paper targets and they saw that I was shooting smaller groups than most of them. This was such an issue with them that one group actually built their training exercise specifically to burden me with having to accomplish a reload while lying on my back behind low cover and to make me run out of ammo. As to the latter, they were a bit surprised when I simply slipped my hand into my left pocket and pulled out my 640 backup, to stay in the "fight."

 

[LKB3rd]

I think you pretty much nailed it with your first paragraph. Reliability, history, and old school looks are the primary reasons people like wheel guns. I prefer semi-autos, but I do own a Smith Model 60 and a Ruger GP100.

I have one revolver (Colt Python) and several semi autos and the python is my favorite.
I like how it looks, i like how it shoots, i like how it feels, i like its simplicity and reliability, i like its history.
I carry an xd45 but if i want to have fun at the range, i prefer to shoot the revolver.

 

[BikerRN]

As to the latter, they were a bit surprised when I simply slipped my hand into my left pocket and pulled out my 640 backup, to stay in the "fight."

My compliments to you sir. That is what should be done.

I too carry a BUG in my weak side pocket. It's even faster in to action than reloading an "uberpistol". All this talk of ammo capacity has me wanting to when it's in regards to a self defensive scenario.

Don't get me wrong, I have and use autoloaders. I just prefer revolvers and since I have a choice for off duty carry, looking at the scenarios I'm most likely to face, I'll take a full size duty revolver and a J-Frame as a BUG.

Take care, stay safe and watch your six mate.

Biker

 

[cslinger]

My Two Cents, that I have posted before.

You Know I Really Am Becoming A Revolver Guy At Heart......
As far as civillian, serious social, handguns are concerned I find myself gravitating more and more to revolvers. Now I am a gun guy and find myself proficient with just about anything that goes bang, thats proficient not perfect. I know how to use just about anything.

I have never held a bias against revolvers and have always thought that with every release of some new tiny, tiny wunder-auto that someone was trying to answer a question that had been more then adequately answered many moons ago with the J-Frame sized revolver

Now as far as why I find myself gravitating even more towards revolvers.

1)Super easy to load, unload, inspect etc. No bullet setback issues, no decocking, applying of safeties etc. Easy to wipe down due to ease of unloading and reloading.

2)In my experience super reliable, more so then automatics, especially itty bitty autos. Now all of my autos have been super reliable as well and most have never malfunctioned but the fact remains that in my life I have experienced at least one malfunction with every semi auto brand out there. I have NEVER personally had a malfunction with a revolver. Now I do understand the trade off is that a semi auto malfunction is usually quickly cleared vs. an revo likely being put out of action.

3)Easier for me to carry especially pocket carry and give me more confidence with the long double action pull as far as safety is concerned.

4)The ability to load any kind of ammo under the son from mild to wild from round nosed, to flat nose, to HP, SWC, lead, jacketed, crazy, buttstomping, buffalo killin', cruise missiles etc. I find that my test period is smaller when breaking in a new revolver because of their general lack of ammo sensitivity. Now I realize that there are rare occassions that certain revolvers are sensitive to ammo such as super light guns with super light bullet weights but in general they will just about literally feed rocks.

5)The single action trigger pull on a decent well broken in revolver is absolutely spectacular. I have never shot a semi auto pistol with a better trigger pull. Rifles with set triggers are better but as a rule the single action pull on a revolver is just about the best you are going to get in a normal production, no competition gun.

6)Not held back by the need of an external feeding device. Most semi auto malfunctions stem from either the magazine or the extractor in my experience. Revolvers have numerous charging methods including speed strips, speed loaders, moon clips and loose round feeding. I think this is a very strong point. Now of course this strength is balanced or outweighed by the slower reloading speed. When I say slower reloading speed I am talking about us normal folks not the Jerry Miculeks of the world.

7)In my experience the great majority of modern revolvers made by reputable companies are strong like bull. As in they would make a hell of a hammer or impact weapon. This is not really a huge strength since a good quality auto is also a very strong weapon but revolvers can typically be built to handle much higher pressures.

8)They are easy to learn and teach others to shoot. Full size .357 magnums allow anybody to shoot them due to the fact that they can be loaded with such a variety of ammo. Have a small framed friend who is recoil shy, no problem load up some .38 special. Want to go hunt the great white buffalo no problem load up some of them thar afore mentioned crazy butt stomping rounds. I think this versatility allows for a nice platform to gradually teach new shooters while ramping up slowly over time.

9)NO BRASS TO CLEAN UP. For all of you folks who don't worry about policing your brass......SHAME ON YOU. Clean your brass up and leave the place as clean or cleaner then you left it. For all you reloaders the advantage is obvious.

Now these are just a few of the big advantages I see to practical use of revolvers. As with any tool there are just as many disadvantages to the platform that need to be weighed upon and I have only touched on a couple in the above. Like most tools a personal decision needs to be made as to whether the pros outweight the cons for you personally. For me, average, suburbanite, white, married male, who carries little cash, doesn't do drugs, doesn't sleep with other folks wives etc. the revolver makes alot of sense in an EDC firearm. Were I to be going into harms way my choice would likely change to semi-automatic...............preferably one in a rifle or guage caliber but I digress.

Anyway that is my two cents and anyone reading this should take it for what it is worth, after taxes about .4 cents or not much at all. I am not a gunfighter, cop, "operator", or some kind of high speed low drag ninja. I am a regular low speed high drag guy who knows a little about guns, a little about shooting and am trying to pass along my personal experience to other folks in case they are trying to make a decision for themselve. Maybe my little diatrobe will help them go one way or the other. I have several, ok read that as a buttload of firearms of all types so I do have some practical experience with many different platforms but I am no means an expert, heck I ain't even that edumacated on the subject.

Take care, shoot safe and have fun.

Chris

 

[John Ross]

A K, L, N, or X Frame revolver with the right grips feels like an extension of my arm.

Drop the ammo into the chambers, close the cylinder and shoot. No muscling any part of the gun to get it ready to fire.

Tell if it's loaded with just a glance. No need to handle/open it.

No safety to worry about.

Shoot any bullet shape/weight/material with utter reliability at any velocity.

Better accuracy (esp. long range) out of the box than a $3000 full custom auto.

MUCH more powerful and flat shooting if that's what you want. (The .500 S&W has DOUBLE the power of the clublike IMI .50 Desert Eagle.)

Brass goes immediately into the fired brass bag, not on the ground.

Ed McGivern showed us you can do things with a revolver that can't be done with a semiauto.

JR, the 500 Specialist

 

[DMK]

I have no idea what the craze over revolvers is all about and would like it if someone could explain it to me and reduce my ignorance just a little farther.

1) Simplicity. Less to go wrong. Less to break. Easy to maintain. No magazines to jam.

2) Accuracy. I can usually shoot revolvers better than similar sized semi-autos most of the time. I don't know why.

3) Less likely to jam in single combat. If someone tackles you and has you on the ground, you can shove a revolver up against him and empty the cylinder. A semi-auto will likely jam after the first shot. May even jam before the first shot if the slide is pushed out of battery. You can shoot a revolver from within a jacket pocket.

4) Generally cheaper to buy and no need for magazines. I have boxes of mags for my semi-autos. Every time I buy a new auto, I dread trying to find good mags (there's a lot of crap out there) and spending hundred dollars on SD ammo testing my mags to ensure reliability.

5) Nostalgia plays into it with my single action Vaquero and Single Six Cowboy guns or my WWII Lend Lease S&Ws. But those are leisure time range toys. The rest of my revolvers are strictly business. My S&W 642 and SP101 are fully modern self defense weapons with high tech lightweight alloys, low maintenance stainless steel, recoil absorbing rubber grips, a laser sight system on the 642 and Tritium night sight on the SP101.

 

[DMK]

Glitch

 

[DMK]

Another glitch

 

[DMK]

#@%&*!

 

[DMK]

On the same note, why is the .357 magnum cartridge so popular?

Well for one thing, .357Mag terminal performance is pretty darn impressive:

http://www.brassfetcher.com/357mag158grSpeerGoldDot.html

The round is also very versatile. The same gun that can use 125gr SD loads on night stand duty, can double as a hunting gun with 180gr loads. The only semi-auto round that offers as many high performance loadings for such a variety of uses is 10mm and that round unfortunately is pretty uncommon.

As far as I knew it was just another bullet and some people complained that shooting it was a little too much recoil.

I think that stems from folks with more bravado than sense who try to use hot magnum loads in featherweight alloy framed snubbies.

With my stainless steel framed SP101, I can shoot medium level magnums all afternoon without any trouble. It's not a light gun, but it will work for pocket carry in jeans. For hotter, heavier loads, one can step up to a medium frame Ruger GP100 or N-frame S&W.

.357 is certainly not the handful of bees that 44mag is.

 

[DMK]

Nice pic hexidismal!

Got any more pics of those beauties?

 

[RyanM]

Reliability is bunk. A decent revolver is basically just as reliable as a decent auto. The vast majority of failures in either case will be user-induced. You can't limp-wrist a revolver, but you can short-stroke the trigger. Stuff like that. The main reason to go with a revolver is ergonomics. Revolver grips are designed, first and foremost, to fit the human hand. Automatic grips, they try, but they are first and foremost designed to contain a magazine.

 

[Silvanus]

This was such an issue with them that one group actually built their training exercise specifically to burden me with having to accomplish a reload while lying on my back behind low cover and to make me run out of ammo. As to the latter, they were a bit surprised when I simply slipped my hand into my left pocket and pulled out my 640 backup, to stay in the "fight."

What a bunch of dumbasses! But nicely done, spwenger I would have liked to see their faces when you pulled the 640!

 

[peacemaker45]

Umm, revolvers have plenty of moving parts. When revolvers rarely malfunction, but when they do, they often require professional help to get them running again. Also, the lockwork on a DA revo more closely resembles the innards of a swiss watch than anything you'll find inside the average semi-auto.

On the flip side, when an auto jams, you have to know how to go into an immediate action drill, when a revolver doesn't fire, all you need to know is how to pull the trigger again.

Also, revolvers can take more powerful loads than the average auto. Outside of the Desert Eagle foolishness, the most powerful cartridge you're likely to find chamered in an auto is the 10MM. Not knocking the ten, but it's not the easiest caliber to live with, unless you're a reloader. Revolvers are easy to find in .357 Mag, .44 Mag, .454 Casull, .460 Smith, .480 Ruger, .500 Smith. If you like loudenboomers, chances are that revolvers are for you.

Personally, I have little if any interest in double action revolvers. I find them uninteresting, for the most part. Single actions, on the other hand... I've got SA fever.

~~~Mat

 

[Hawk]

Revolvers: easier to keep one's brass if reloading is an issue. Flexiblity with ammo, nice looking (to me).

I don't find them more reliable or simpler - they gag less often but when they do they do so with gusto. They can take a good long time and a lot of fiddle work to clear.

Almost everyone with a good familiarity with his bottom feeder will be able to keep it running indefinitely by replacing his own springs and, when needed, wear parts. When a Python needs a tune up no mere mortal dare tread there. It probably takes more savvy and experience to choose a Colt 'smith than to replace and adjust an internal extractor on a 1911 oneself.

Revolvers are immune to "dud primers", requiring only another pull of the trigger to bring another round into play - by the same token, a revolver will be somewhat more subject to being blown up by the inattentive that confuse a dud primer with a squib.

I'm still plowing through my Kuhnhausen on Smith DAs. It may just be familiarity with semis that makes the revolver seem at least as fiddly or perhaps it simply is more complicated.

Sometimes I wonder if the revolver didn't preceed the semi simply because of smokeless powder still being in the future at the time.

Still, my last several purchases were revolvers. Go figure.

 

[dasmi]

Revolvers are classy.

 

[zxcvbob]

I like revolvers better because I can shoot them better (I don't know why; my BHP feels better in my hand than any revolver) and because they don't throw my brass on the ground.

As someone else already mentioned, revolver almost never jam; if they misfire you just keep going. But if they do jam, they are awful to try to unjam.

And I can make a lot more noise with a revolver than an auto.

Oh, and I almost forgot. Revolver are sexy -- they have curves.

 

[SAWBONES]

There are many potential advantages and disadvantages on each side of the "revolver vs. semiautomatic" comparison.
Some of the differences are essentially superfluous and constitute "straw man" arguments for fodder in the endless debates over this topic.

To narrow the issue to civilian (non-LEO or military) CCW use, the main revolver benefits are, for me:

1.) They "point" naturally, that is, certain examples, when held in a proper shooting grip, "index" correctly such that a shot will hit the target accurately without use of sights. No single semiautomatic pistol does so in my hands.

2.) Their stocks (grips) can be made more conformable to and comfortable in the hand than any semiautomatic pistol grip since the latter are necessarily constrained in their shape by their requirement to hold a box magazine, while the revolver can have any grip shape and size that permits accurate indexing and efficient access to the trigger, since it carries its ammunition in the cylinder.

3.) A minor advantage is that some revolvers, such as the S&W J-frames and their ilk, come in small lightweight versions which, though diminutive and readily, easily concealable and carryable, nonetheless shoot a relatively powerful cartridge (.38 Special+P/.357 Magnum), and in these respects they notably excel any of the semiauto "mouseguns" as personal protection devices.

These may seem obvious, but they're genuine advantages for me.

 

[fiVe]

This is a great thread with good pics and excellent info!

 

[Roswell 1847]

Umm, revolvers have plenty of moving parts. When revolvers rarely malfunction, but when they do, they often require professional help to get them running again. Also, the lockwork on a DA revo more closely resembles the innards of a swiss watch than anything you'll find inside the average semi-auto.

I can't go along with that at all.
While just looking at revolver innards might give that impression I've found that the lock work of the S&W revolvers is really very simple.
Its not as easy to manufacture quality revolvers as it is to manufacture a modern blowback semi auto, but the quality of such items as the magazine, often made by a subcontractor or an aftermarket purchase is often critical.
Those easy to manufacture pocket autos are among the least effective and most unreliable guns ever made.
One Homocide investigator said that if he could afford it he'd buy a million of them and pass them out to crooks. Twice .380 Davis autos were stuck to his head and the trigger pulled, both times the guns misfired.

The older non transfer bar revolvers were marvelously simple, and could be made to opertate with many parts missing.
I've seen a badly battered cheap revolver fired by using a rubber band cut from a bicycle inner tube in place of the broken mainspring and no trigger or cylinder bolt. Also I've read of an old peacemaker with a broken spring being fired by hitting the hammer with a rock. Thats not going to happen with the floating firing pin of an autoloader and if it did the slide coming back would injure the hand holding the rock.
Cylinder timing is critical for accuracy, but I saw the afore mentioned junker fired by the shooter holding the cylinder in alignment with his weak hand while slip hammering the rubber band powered hammer.

An auto can have a number of problems which don't show up until fired. An S&W I repaired would lock back every few rounds. I found that the stud the slide latch engaged was loose and tilted back a hair. Twisting it and peening down the stud on the inside of the frame seems to have worked but not knowing how it got that way to begin with makes me doubt the reliability of the gun, though its fired hundreds of rounds without a bobble since then.

While I'd trust a well designed and well manufactured Colt or Browning, I don't feel I can trust any other auto I've seen, even high dollar ones, especially those I've had the opportunity to examine closely inside and out.


To some extent the same goes for the cheaper revolvers, but as mentioned a revolver can be made to work as long as the frame, barrel and cylinder are intact.

 

[Jaenak]

DMK said:

I think that stems from folks with more bravado than sense who try to use hot magnum loads in featherweight alloy framed snubbies.

Yep. That's what I've noticed too.

Slugless said:

Bear? The 170, 180 & 200 grain cast lead are rated for black bear. In my part of Colorado the black bear aren't that big. Northern Minnesota? No idea. If the bear are big for the species (adult males typ. max out at 660 lbs), I'd carry something larger.

No, the black bear here are about average size. They, along with the wolves, are simply more numerous than they should be and are losing their fear of humans and are becoming more daring and aggressive as a result.

I've decided that once I get my small credit card paid off and I repay my dad I'm going to buy a S&W 686+ 4", 7round revolver. I want to buy some reloading equiptment too as that's been a goal of mine for some time now. Anyone know of a reloading book for a newbie reloader? I can't reload anything unless I have the proper knowhow.

 

[bkastel]

I just love the looks, reliability, and the simplicity of revolvers. They are an age-less proven design. I only own 3 revolvers though. Papa bear (S&W PC 460VRX 12" Hunter) takes care of coyotes, rabbits, water jugs, and assorted fruits and vegetables and just looks tough. Mama bear (S&W 686-6 7-shot) takes care of my family when we are all tucked in bed asleep. Baby bear (S&W 642 w/Crimson Trace) is with me most of the time when out and about.

 

[Evocatii]

This has been a great thread to read. Great information and opinion along with some nice photos.

 

[DogBonz]

Wow,

A lot has been said here.

good hot heavyweight .357mag won't take down a black bear?

It will if you do your part. When S&W first introduced the 357, its president killed every type of big game in North America with it, including Grizzly Bears.

Here is my favorite, my 1968 6" Colt Python.

 

[RyanM]

Sometimes I wonder if the revolver didn't preceed the semi simply because of smokeless powder still being in the future at the time.

Revolvers were invented before metallic cartridges, even.

------------------

The older non transfer bar revolvers were marvelously simple, and could be made to opertate with many parts missing.
I've seen a badly battered cheap revolver fired by using a rubber band cut from a bicycle inner tube in place of the broken mainspring and no trigger or cylinder bolt. Also I've read of an old peacemaker with a broken spring being fired by hitting the hammer with a rock. Thats not going to happen with the floating firing pin of an autoloader and if it did the slide coming back would injure the hand holding the rock.
Cylinder timing is critical for accuracy, but I saw the afore mentioned junker fired by the shooter holding the cylinder in alignment with his weak hand while slip hammering the rubber band powered hammer.

Those examples are basically bunk, as well. You can fire a Glock with only the barrel, slide, and firing pin assy. Load a round, hold down (or remove) the firing pin safety, and pull back and release the striker a few times. Firing a revolver with no frame? Not going to happen.