Post by oldhippy on Oct 17, 2019 8:41:14 GMT
Most people here are saying something along the lines of “You don’t need any more than the 5 or 6 rounds a revolver gives you.” That’s just wrong. It’s a hugely anachronistic view of gunfighting. Clearly those people have never been in a real fight. I haven’t either, but ask just about anyone who has, and they will tell you that capacity is everything. Keep in mind I’m saying this as a 1911 guy… The professionals ditched 1911s decades ago because THEY didn’t have enough capacity. The weapon of choice these days is by and large a high capacity 9mm. Look at the M9, the Glock, etc. They hold 15+ rounds and can reload in a fraction of the time a revolver can.
Go watch the 11 o’clock news in a big city every night for a week. More likely than not, you’ll hear about a police engagement where several officers fired a total of dozens of rounds- often 60 or more, and the suspect either escapes or is arrested completely unscathed. The average self defense shooting occurs in a home and the homeowner fires two shots and kills or injures one attacker. But I’m not betting my life on what usually happens. If we based our preparedness on what usually happens, we wouldn’t carry guns, we wouldn’t wear seat belts, we wouldn’t have smoke detectors or a plan for what to do if there’s a fire. Most of us will probably go our entire lives without ever needing to defend ourselves, but we still prepare in case we do. Yes, in the unlikely and unfortunate situation in which I do need to fire a gun, I’ll probably only need two rounds, and a revolver will probably get the job done. But I’m not betting my life on that. A semiautomatic will keep me better prepared, and revolvers don’t really have a whole lot of real upsides, and that alone makes them impractical.
A good semiautomatic costs a lot less than a good revolver. Smith & Wesson are generally $800+, Pythons are thousands, and while a lot of people swear by Ruger (which run around $600), I haven’t had good experiences with their handguns. By contrast, you can pick up a Glock for $500.
Yes, revolvers have fewer exposed moving parts, but their inner workings are very complicated, and although they’re unlikely to fail, when they do, bad things happen. Damage to the cylinder timing can render a revolver completely inoperable. If the inner parts get gummed up, they’re very hard to clean. While revolvers are immune to failures to feed or eject, those types of failures are usually cleared very easily, whereas the types of failures unique to revolvers are very difficult to fix. Revolvers are also not immune to misfires, particularly from soft primer strikes. While my personal experience isn’t a reliable way to measure all guns in all situations, I have never had a failure to fire with a Glock (though I have had other malfunctions), but I have had them on a variety of revolvers, including very nice ones, and I definitely shoot the former a lot more. Striker firing is inherently quite a bit more reliable than the exposed hammers of most revolvers, the only issue is feeding, which is easy to correct and is very rare with a decent modern handgun.
I believe revolvers have some flaws that give them less potential for accuracy, but really, that’s irrelevant. Any halfway decent gun has enough accuracy for defense. Few people are going to keep their composure enough to accurately fire in a life or death situation, and the shooter is the weakest component when it comes to accuracy.
The argument that revolvers are as fast as semiautomatics doesn’t really hold much merit. While yes, double actions CAN fire nearly as fast (close enough to not be a practical difference), each round will still be double action, unlike most semiautomatics. This means the trigger pull on repeated shots will be very heavy, negatively affecting accuracy. Yes, I got just done saying accuracy was mostly irrelevant, but the difference between double action and single action is definitely enough to throw off followup shots- unlike the difference in mechanical accuracy between a semiautomatic handgun and revolver both in single action.
There are a few situations in which revolvers have advantages. They can be made very small and light, and those work great for bare minimum carry, such as with light clothes. But the only time such a weapon has an advantage is when it’s the best you can carry. As soon as you’re in a situation in which you can pack more firepower, you’re at a disadvantage. Similarly, their capacity to fire more powerful cartridges make them useful for situations when those would be necessary, such as for bear defense, but in those situations, I’d always prefer a rifle- they only have the advantage when a rifle is not a good choice, if it needs to be concealed or if you need the minimum possible weight.
Revolvers will certainly get the job done most of the time, but they’re far from an ideal choice in most situations.
Go watch the 11 o’clock news in a big city every night for a week. More likely than not, you’ll hear about a police engagement where several officers fired a total of dozens of rounds- often 60 or more, and the suspect either escapes or is arrested completely unscathed. The average self defense shooting occurs in a home and the homeowner fires two shots and kills or injures one attacker. But I’m not betting my life on what usually happens. If we based our preparedness on what usually happens, we wouldn’t carry guns, we wouldn’t wear seat belts, we wouldn’t have smoke detectors or a plan for what to do if there’s a fire. Most of us will probably go our entire lives without ever needing to defend ourselves, but we still prepare in case we do. Yes, in the unlikely and unfortunate situation in which I do need to fire a gun, I’ll probably only need two rounds, and a revolver will probably get the job done. But I’m not betting my life on that. A semiautomatic will keep me better prepared, and revolvers don’t really have a whole lot of real upsides, and that alone makes them impractical.
A good semiautomatic costs a lot less than a good revolver. Smith & Wesson are generally $800+, Pythons are thousands, and while a lot of people swear by Ruger (which run around $600), I haven’t had good experiences with their handguns. By contrast, you can pick up a Glock for $500.
Yes, revolvers have fewer exposed moving parts, but their inner workings are very complicated, and although they’re unlikely to fail, when they do, bad things happen. Damage to the cylinder timing can render a revolver completely inoperable. If the inner parts get gummed up, they’re very hard to clean. While revolvers are immune to failures to feed or eject, those types of failures are usually cleared very easily, whereas the types of failures unique to revolvers are very difficult to fix. Revolvers are also not immune to misfires, particularly from soft primer strikes. While my personal experience isn’t a reliable way to measure all guns in all situations, I have never had a failure to fire with a Glock (though I have had other malfunctions), but I have had them on a variety of revolvers, including very nice ones, and I definitely shoot the former a lot more. Striker firing is inherently quite a bit more reliable than the exposed hammers of most revolvers, the only issue is feeding, which is easy to correct and is very rare with a decent modern handgun.
I believe revolvers have some flaws that give them less potential for accuracy, but really, that’s irrelevant. Any halfway decent gun has enough accuracy for defense. Few people are going to keep their composure enough to accurately fire in a life or death situation, and the shooter is the weakest component when it comes to accuracy.
The argument that revolvers are as fast as semiautomatics doesn’t really hold much merit. While yes, double actions CAN fire nearly as fast (close enough to not be a practical difference), each round will still be double action, unlike most semiautomatics. This means the trigger pull on repeated shots will be very heavy, negatively affecting accuracy. Yes, I got just done saying accuracy was mostly irrelevant, but the difference between double action and single action is definitely enough to throw off followup shots- unlike the difference in mechanical accuracy between a semiautomatic handgun and revolver both in single action.
There are a few situations in which revolvers have advantages. They can be made very small and light, and those work great for bare minimum carry, such as with light clothes. But the only time such a weapon has an advantage is when it’s the best you can carry. As soon as you’re in a situation in which you can pack more firepower, you’re at a disadvantage. Similarly, their capacity to fire more powerful cartridges make them useful for situations when those would be necessary, such as for bear defense, but in those situations, I’d always prefer a rifle- they only have the advantage when a rifle is not a good choice, if it needs to be concealed or if you need the minimum possible weight.
Revolvers will certainly get the job done most of the time, but they’re far from an ideal choice in most situations.
