Why do So Many People Shun Revolvers?

I am one of those who made the switch to revolvers; it just took finding the right revolver!
I inherited an S&W model 14 with a full lug 6" barrel from my father and after shooting it stopped carrying my Ruger auto.
I have shot a very large range of autos ( 1911, Beretta 92, HK, Colt 2000, Star, Wather,..ect) and had used a Springfield 1911 for IPSC competition, but nothing shot as well for me as the S&W.
When I have taught new shooters for the first time almost all of them have shot better with a double action revolver.
 
FirstFreedom

/inlaws/
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:) I know what you mean. :)

I struggled hard choosing between a 686 .357 Mag. 4" and my Glock 19 (9x19mm / 4" Barrel). My reasons to by the Glock were:

1. Reliability and simplicity are not any worse with the glock.
2. Trigger Pull. A Glock has a light trigger pull on every shot, even the first.
3. Capacity. I hav 16 shots in a compact Glock
4. Size. For a .357 Mag. to develop it's potential you need a 4" barrel at least. That makes a BIG revolver in any case. The Glock 19 is way easier to conceal.
5. Caliber. I feel very well armed with a 9x19mm and +P Federal EMFJ Ammo. And hey, if that is to weak, he'l get one more and more and more....
6. Reset trigger. Follow-ups are great and very fast with a Glock
 
I'm a range officer at the largest outdoor range in Utah two days per week. Based on my experience the average citzen who owns a handgun doesn't shot it more than once or twice a year (or less), doesn't know how to clean it and finds it difficult to hit a 6" diameter circle at 15 yards with any degree of regularity. I don't observe that a semiauto pistol significantly increases their hits even when you factor in the spray and pray methodology that comes as second nature to many of 'em. In fact the few new shooters who do show up with revolvers appear to learn to get more hits faster at 15 yards than do the semiauto guys. Very few shooter set their targets at 25 yards and only a handful at 50 yards, all most all who shoot at greater than 15 yards are experienced 1911 or revolver guys.



I CCW either a .357 Magnum 2.5" S&W Model 66 revolver or a SIG 239 .40 S&W pistol. I'm comfortable that either will do the job. Many new shooters seem to have never even considered a revolver. Dennis
 
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Revolver Reloading Speed

Hi Guys!

Very interesting thread! Very Informative! Like my friend Ninjato I too am a semiauto guy going revolvers. Colt 1911 Addict/Fanatic to be exact. Cant Help it, the Philippines has been "Colt 1911 Country" since ....1911! Our local cinema culture has been Colt1911s. But like Ninjato I have become very interested in revolvers, though my actual experience with them is next to zero. From my constant research I have come to appreciate the looks, elegant poetry, simplicity and reliability, and power of the Revolvers. And I am looking forward to owning and shooting my first one.

My basic, number one (only one actually) apprehension with revolvers is RELOADING. I don't know if the FBI Stats are applicable in the Phil, and frankly I don't care! Because in a life or death situation, if my life and my family's life depends on it, I want to have as many rounds as humanly possible. Cause I know that when bullets start flying or the knife starts slashing, when the pucker factor kicks in, my hands are going to shake, and I'll probally get tunnel vision etc. so I want to blast away till the BG is dead or gone! IT IS NOT an accident that ALL, as in ALL, the military forces and Police forces the world over use semi auto weapons! Now Mr. Miculek can fire 6 reload and fire 6 more in 3 seconds, but i'd like to see that bit tried with bullets whizzing by your ears! With the other guy firing 6 reloading and firing 6 more at you! or a guy trying to cut you or a member of your family open with a knife! No matter how much you practice, when the shooting starts fine motor skills suffer and I am apprehensive that reloading a revolver will be more difficult than a semiauto. I don't care how many times it has been demonstrated in simulations, in the IRC, the IDPA, the IPSC. I want to know from real life, from guys who have experienced it, that revolvers can be loaded fast enough when someone is actively trying to kill you.

Short of this one solitary thing, I don't think semiautos have an advantage over revolvers at all. Revolvers are more powerful, mechanically more reliable, easier to maintaing and keep in good working order, easier to shoot well and more accurately, are less fussy and picky with ammo, and aside from the gun itself you only need bullets and cleaning gear. Nothing to replace every X-number of rounds. I believe that semiautos were desired and invented in the first place for the primary reason that they carry more rounds (originally specified as "At Least 7 Rounds") reload faster and easier PERIOD.

I do firmly believe that aside from carrying more rounds per load, and faster easier reloading Semiauto handguns have NO advantage over revolvers whatsoever.

MHO

Nano
 
I can add from my perspective I hate stuffing rounds into magazines, I have to use a mag loader to do it. I also don't like empty rounds flying out past my head as I fire, I'd rather dump them all, ala revolvers.
It's fine that everyone out there at the gun shows go wild over semis, it leaves all the more revolvers for me!
:)
 
It's not difficult for a revolver shooter to reload as fast as an auto shooter of the same skill level by using moonclips or even speedloaders.

As a totally wet behind the ears shooter of 8 months experience I entered local IPSC matches with my revolver and did better than 20% of the auto shooters (I was using speedloaders) and then later 30% of the auto shooters (now using moonclips). Not bragging as I am nothing to brag about. Nor are auto shooters of my skill level.
 
Emotion matter

Hi all,
Well, this is my first mail on any forum. I signed in because I am very interested in the matter.
Unfortunately I do not have much experiences with handguns. When it comes to my personal preferences I prefere the revolver due to its simplicity and loocks.
Beside arms I love steam engines and I asked my self why. The answer I found is, tha one can smell, feel and hear about the inside force. Might be it is something like that, what attracts to a revolver as well. One can see the rounds ( as mentioned in other postings - although I doubt on can see them at night :cool: !). The rotating and swinging out cylinder etc.
So I suppose, it is a personel, emotionel aspect.
It might be more important which hangun you trust more what decides the outcome of a dangerous situation than the type of the gun itselfs (not the caliber of course).
 
I agree with Monty. I like the nosalgia of a revolver. Then again, I like lever action Winchesters, SA revolvers, trains, and flintlock rifles/muskets/pistols, etc.
 
As much as I love my 1911 A1

As much as I love my 1911 A1, I discovered one more thing that I don't like about autos. The other day I was using it at the range and a cartridge popped out into my face. I was wearing eye protection but the case hit me just below the eye on the cheek. Surprised and startled me more than anything else but I discovered an hour later that it left a little red burn. Granted this will only happen one time out of 100 but it is still irritating. Besides, when the cartridges pop out to the side as they are supposed to it is really irritating to shooters who are standing to your right when they have cartridges raining down on their shooting counter or on their person. (This I know from experience too)
 
Make mine a Revolver

Howdy,

I like this thread. Our military and LE agencies have pretty much switched to Semi-auto pistols. Revolvers-rightly or wrongly, are percieved in much the same way as..tube powered radios and TV's. (which by the way, SOUND better than modern solid-state!).Old, out of date, relic.
Mel Gibson's swash-buckling "Lethal Weapon" character didn't help by saying about his partner Danny Glover's service revolver: "All the old guys use them". By the way, Glover and his revolver saved Gibson in a gun-battle! Anyway, TV, Movies are almost all Semi-Auto's now. No glamor for Barney Fife's Colt Revolver. How soon we forgot Clint Eastwood.:(
To Nano Chacho: My wife is Philippino and I visited Manila several years ago. Most security guards carried either shotguns or old S&W Model 10's (.38 Sp.). You should be able to find a Model 10 with little difficulty there. Yes, I also noticed more than a few 1911's.
I learned on a Ruger GP-100 and feel more comfotable with a revolver. Yes, I've got a 1911 and carried it concealed this evening, but I plan on putting it away for my Colt Detective Sp. I've got a "thing" for Colt Revolvers: Pythons ( I've sold the 3 I previoulsy owned), Diamondbacks, Dick Specials, et al.
The revolver is alive and well; just check out the NYPD!

Respectfully,
Larry C.
 
Movies and tv shows like Lethal Weapon and Miami Vice probably had more to do with the switchover from revolvers to autos than actual real world needs.

Most people forget that Platt and Mattox at the infamous Miami Bank massacre carried .357 revolvers in addition to their semiautomatic rifles, and that the weapons that finally took them down were a .38 revolver and pump shotgun.
Most shootings either LE or civillian tend to be within ten feet or less and have about three rounds fired. As one wag put it, your average cop armed with a model 10 could go through two shootings a day without reloading, in "The Law Enforcement Bible."
If you are fighting in a trench and there is an enemy unit in the next trench, you may need a high capacity pistol with fast reload capabilities. But for most shooters a snub revolver is the most practical pistol of all.
A lot of the small arms race is about perception. It annoyed me to no end hearing media mavens go on and on about "high tech weapons of death" knowing that these morons were oblivous to the fact that there was nothing "high tech" about semi autos. It was just that outside of war movies nobody saw semi autos in movies or tv shows until the 80s. Hollywood prop men and directors knew that blank firing revolvers were a lot less temperamental (and cheaper) than blank firing autos that had to be converted by gunsmiths....
Had the producers been gun savvy, Barney Fife could easily have been armed with a 14 shot Browning 9mm and an AK 47 back in the 1950s.
Back then, however, most celluloid cops carried wheelguns and real world cops were pragmatic and guns like the .357 and .44 special along with the various .38 service revolvers tended to suit the needs of the average lawman.
In the 1970s hollywood began focusing on "advanced" weaponry so suddenly 1957 era Pythons and Model 29s showed up in movies and all of a sudden started showing up in holsters of police who wanted to be "serious" as well as in the holsters of the gun buying public.
We have all heard about the guys who would walk into a gunshop in the 70s and ask for the "Dirty Harry" gun, not knowing who made it or what it was called.
When tv shows like Miami Vice and movies like Lethal Weapon and Die Hard became popular you saw the same thing. People wanting whatever celluloid shootin' irons were popular in movies.
The police chief of the town I used to live in carries a four inch Model 10. He can carry whatever he wants, but he chooses that, because its fast, accurate, reliable and not apt to shoot through a suspect.
 
That's funny

Had the producers been gun savvy, Barney Fife could easily have been armed with a 14 shot Browning 9mm and an AK 47 back in the 1950s.
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LOL. Hehehehehe. I can just see Andy and Barney going to a farmhouse in the squad car to break up a whiskey still (something they commonly did in the series) and scrawny Barney emerges from the car and is dressed in SWAT team military garb with bullet proof vest, baseball cap, combat boots, Camoflauge pants, Glock .40 in his holster and an M-16 in his hands (playing that serious "police drama" music they always played for his scenes in the background). I can see him falling over the picket fence trying to stealthfully jump it while Andy walks through the gate. I can see him running around the house trying to climb up the roof fumbling around just so he can decend on a rope and swing into a window with rifle ready while Andy knocks on the door.

Speaking of comical cops and while we are discussing revolvers in TV, remember the Dukes of Hazzard. Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane and Enos carried Colt Offical Police and S&W Model 10s in that show and that was made well into the mid 1980s. (They are reruning that on Country Music Television at 6pm and again at 10pm central time for those of you fans that are in here)
 
The point was not to be anachronistically funny.
The point is that in the mid 1950s when that show was on the air, neither the Browning Hi Power or the AK-47 were "new" guns. They had been around for over a decade and longer. Barney could have been armed with a double action S&W 9 mm too, as it was out back then.
The Browning High Power came out in 1935. It was used by both allies and axis forces during WWII. The AK -47 came out in 1947. It was a cheaper copy of the old German MP -44 from 1944. Even if the producer's couldn't have come up with a Kalishnakov, they could have come up with an MP -44.

This idea that high capacity 9mms and 'assault' rifles are "high tech" is horse crap. These guns were around for fifty years and longer when moronic media mavens began decrying high capacity magazines back in the 90s.
The thing is, because these guns did not show up ON THE SILVER SCREEN in cop films until the 70s and 80s, idiotic reporters did not realize that "high tech weapons of death" were old hat back in Barney Fife's days.
And because police officers in the fifties and sixties on TV were armed with wheelguns and shotguns, real life cops wound up carrying wheelguns and shotguns.
Prior to that, the Thompson SMG was popular in LE circles. Along with the old Remington autoloading rifles. Bigger handguns were popular too, like the 38-44 and the .44 spl.

But the more you saw of 12 guage pumps and .38 police positives on the silver screen, the more you saw of them on patrol.
When other weapons began showing up in movies in the 70s and 80s suddenly real life LE started demanding the same thing.


But real life LE often follows art LE.


>>>scrawny Barney emerges from the car and is dressed in SWAT team military garb with bullet proof vest, baseball cap, combat boots, Camoflauge pants, Glock .40 in his holster and an M-16 in his hands <<<
 
Hi Guys!

Mr. Guy B. Meredith - "20% to 30% faster than semi autos". I read a similar note in another forum once if I remember correctly where a world class shooter competed with a revolver and came in the top ten vs. the other shooters using semis. But I like your note better cause you didn't hear or read it somewhere! You actually experienced it! This is very good to know cause the more I research and study about revolvers the more I like them! My Colt 1911 is feeling very very neglected now! And in fact I do like the way they look more than semis! I can hardly wait to recieve my first ever revolver!

Mr. Larry C. - "Kumusta" to your Filipino wife, from us in the Phil!!!! Your right the security guards all use .38Spl revolvers and shotguns because the law prohibits them from carrying anything more powerful. Given a choice they would be packing Colt1911s & M16s like the cops here. Actually its a bit of the bad rep that revolvers have here - "Security Guard Guns" They are called!!!! But they are not S&W, most of them are Armscor .38Spl. S&W's would be very very old guns, cause now one Brand new S&W revolver would probably cost the price of 4-5 Armscor Revolvers.

The good news for me is that I recently found out from some of my shooting buddys that there actually are a number of revolver enthusiasts around and that that number is growing. In fact they know of some guys who shoot nothing but revolvers. I asked my buddy's to introduce me to some of the revolver shooters, so I can meet and possibly join them cause now I'm one of them!!!!

Unlike before when revolvers never even registered on my radar, now I find myself looking for revolver articles in all the gun magazines! Can't get enough Data/Info though!!!! Theres a ton of stuff about semi autos but not much on revolvers specially the gunsmithing/fixing/customizing stuff. Is it cause the revolver is so simple and reliable as it is, that there isn't much that can be done with &/or to them? Like the stuff we can do with 1911s?

Cheers!

Nano
 
I recall watching one of the gun competitions on TV not long ago in which one of the shooters did use a DA revolver and finished in the top ten. Even single actions are capable of being shot as fast as semi autos. I've seen Bob Mundon (on TV) empty a six shooter faster than you can blink an eye. You'd have sworn he was shooting full auto.
I think there is some research out there pertaining to military and law enforcement indicating that since the adoption of semi autos the number of rounds fired is up but not the number of hits. The fact is, most people under pressure just tend to fire the semi autos too fast to be accurate with them.

Just like the hunter who has used a single shot all his life vs the guy with the semi auto. They will both get their game but chances are the guy with the semi will fire a few more shots.
 
Nano,

Check out www.icore.org. These guys and gals shoot nothing but revolvers and are lavishly supported by S&W. Practice up and come on over and compete in one of the International Revolver Championships. Great people, you will probably meet Jerry Miculek, Jason Pettitt, Vic Pickett, maybe Rudy Waldinger if he drops in from VA.

We have competitors from Australia and other countries as well. Time for the Filipino team to visit.
 
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