Why don't revolvers have safeties?

The prevalence of Webleys with manual safeties seems to have been in Asia. In the case of the Webley, the safety only blocked the hammer in the uncocked position, rendering the gun totally inert until the safety was pushed to unblock the hammer.

There was no provision for applying the safety when the gun was cocked. I presume the philosophy behind this was that, if the gun was out and cocked, it was to be ready for instant use.

Some European revolvers, mostly Belgian and French also had some form of manual safety, but it seems to be on the cheaper "Velodog" types. Again, I presume it somehow blocked an uncocked hammer, though I'm not exactly sure how these worked. Most of the examples I have seen were of the concealed hammer type.

Other than the fairly recent French Smith & Wesson police contract, I think the manual safety on a revolver is basically a dead issue. (At least until our government mandates it.)
 
Your brain will not do anything to prevent an AD if you carry a revolver cocked...
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... And why in the world would you do that??? Using that space between the ears would 'normally' say 'bad idea'. Point is, a revolver doesn't need to be carried 'cocked', In a DA you just pull the trigger which cocks and fires the gun. Simple and safe. A SA is even more 'complicated'... Cock and then fire (two steps). What could be 'safer'? Seems like the argument is moot. Leave an empty chamber under the hammer on a non-transfer bar revolver. Simple... and safe.
 
Your brain will not do anything to prevent an AD if you carry a revolver cocked IWB...
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Your brain, if working properly, should prevent you from ever doing such a thing. :confused:

And I'm fairly certain that qualifies for a negligent discharge, not accidental.


and some jolt lets the hammer drop and sends a bullet through your pelvis....
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If all it takes is a jolt, then you also need a gunsmith, along with an IQ test.
 
There was an Enfield Webley type revolver with a button on the frame that when pushed blocked the hammer's rearward movement.
 
... And why in the world would you do that??? Using that space between the ears would 'normally' say 'bad idea'. Point is, a revolver doesn't need to be carried 'cocked', In a DA you just pull the trigger which cocks and fires the gun. Simple and safe. A SA is even more 'complicated'... Cock and then fire (two steps). What could be 'safer'? Seems like the argument is moot. Leave an empty chamber under the hammer on a non-transfer bar revolver. Simple... and safe.
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Clearly it is a bad idea. I am not suggesting that you should actually carry a revolver SA. This much should be evident.

The reason is it is not safe.

BUT: People carry semis in SA locked and cocked all the time.

It is safe.

The guns have safeties.

They don't need to because they could just fire them DA, as with a revolver.

But they don't use DA; they choose to carry them locked and cocked.

And all I asked was why this was not the case in revolvers as a safety being part of the design would allow people to carry this way.

I got the answer in post #2.

Your brain, if working properly, should prevent you from ever doing such a thing.

And I'm fairly certain that qualifies for a negligent discharge, not accidental.
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If you had taken the time to read the whole thread you would know that this is not a pursuit I am entertaining, nor endorsing for others, but I am asking... oh why bother. Just read the bit above your quote...

If all it takes is a jolt, then you also need a gunsmith, along with an IQ test.
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I think you know very well the point I was trying to make.

So what you need is to decide if you actually want to contribute something relevant to the topic about the evolution of revolvers compared to semis.

Or if you want to make snarky remarks about people's IQ because, as OP, I have not found your posts on this thread to be very helpful.
Your decision.
 
The reason is it is not safe.
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The reason is it's not necessary.


BUT: People carry semis in SA locked and cocked all the time.
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That IS necessary if you want to be 100% ready when the gun clears leather.


They don't need to because they could just fire them DA, as with a revolver.

But they don't use DA; they choose to carry them locked and cocked.
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I don't find this to be very intelligent either. The whole point of the DA is to be able to just grab it and jerk the trigger. Carrying a DA cocked and locked means an extra, mandatory movement before the gun can be fired and that is inviting failure. Those that carry 1911's understand this and train heavily for it.


If you had taken the time to read the whole thread you would know that this is not a pursuit I am entertaining, nor endorsing for others, but I am asking... oh why bother. Just read the bit above your quote...
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So what you need is to decide if you actually want to contribute something relevant to the topic about the evolution of revolvers compared to semis.

Or if you want to make snarky remarks about people's IQ because, as OP, I have not found your posts on this thread to be very helpful.
Your decision.
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I'm making a point. If you carry a revolver with the hammer cocked, you're an idiot and I don't think anyone here will argue with that. Hopefully none here are insulted because that would mean we have some real dummies here giving advice.

I'm simply stating the obvious. If you don't want to hear it, that's your problem. I don't find this entire thread to be helpful or meaningful.
 
Sigh...

- I have never said I want to engage a safety when in DA on anything.

- I have never said I want to carry a revolver in SA.

- I made the exact same point about why SA in a revolver is not a good idea in post 36.
 
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There was an Enfield Webley type revolver with a button on the frame that when pushed blocked the hammer's rearward movement.
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See my previous posts. It was Webley & Scott Mk III and Mk IV .38s.

The only benefit I can see from that manual push bar safety is that it would prevent the hammer from snagging on something and causing an accidental discharge, As it cannot be applied when the revolver is cocked, it has absolutely no function when the gun is cocked and ready to fire. As I mentioned prior, it seems to have been primarily found in W&S revolvers issued to Singapore Police Forces and Royal Hong Kong Police, both previously heavily influenced by the British.

Revolvers and autoloaders have two fundamentally different operational philosophies, which I guess accounts for the fact that no revolver I have ever heard of has a manual safety that is applied when it is cocked.
 
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The whole point of the DA is to be able to just grab it and jerk the trigger.
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Carrying a DA cocked and locked means an extra, mandatory movement before the gun can be fired and that is inviting failure.
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Just grab it and jerk the trigger...most folks would say jerking the trigger is a good way to MISS.

I disagree that the "extra mandatory movement invites failure".

it might, for you, but I don't see it that way, in general. ALL the guns that are DA/SA that HAVE safeties (not just decockers) can be carried hammer down, safety ON. With the safety ON, you cannot just grab it and jerk the trigger to have it fire. You HAVE to take that extra mandatory movement (take the safety OFF) or the gun will not fire.

You are making blanket statements that do not even cover all the common guns in their particular classes, let alone the less common ones, which still tear holes in blanket statements.

Here's the underlying point, with a single action (anything) with the gun cocked, you only need do one thing (pull the trigger). HOWEVER, the fact that you only need do one thing, and its a short, light thing, makes it risky to carry the gun cocked. SO, you put a safety on the gun.

Now with a safety, and the gun cocked, you need to do two things to fire. But it is the price we pay for being able to carry the gun, cocked, safely.

NO ONE forces you to USE the safety, you could safely carry the gun UNCOCKED, in which case, you still need to do one thing (cock the gun) before you can fire it.

IN MOST CASES, taking a safety OFF is slightly faster than cocking the gun.

HOWEVER, the fastest speed possible is not always the most important concern. (and, please don't come back with old saws about how being marginally slower will get you killed. It is equally possible that being the fastest shot will also get you killed. You need to be fast, sure, but you need to be accurate, more than fast.)

And this is where the DA/SA semi auto has issues. Getting off that first shot DA, MAY be marginally faster than taking a safety off (which can, and should be done on the draw, BEFORE your gun is even pointed in the target's direction let alone aimed), but the difference in speed is due to the shooter, NOT the gun.

And lets talk for a moment about those long heavy first shot DA triggerpulls. Nearly everyone agrees that it is more difficult to learn how to shoot that shot as accurately, AND each following shot has the different SA pull.

Many people have difficulty making that transition and maintaining accuracy.

AND as I said before there are lots of DA/SA autos that have a safety that decocks the hammer. This means that to ready the gun for instant use carry, you have to do 2 actions, in order. Put the safety on (decocking for the DA pull) and take it back OFF, so the DA pull will actually FIRE the gun when the trigger is pulled.

Now, we generally do this BEFORE we are in a high stress situation, so most of the time, most folks do it correctly. MOST folks, Most of the time.

But by the standard of "extra mandatory action invites failure", the DA auto (with a safety) is even MORE "failure prone" than anything else.

thoughts?
 
The point is that it's one more thing that can go wrong. One can easily forget to swipe off the safety. One can miss the safety. One can fumble the safety. The psychological and physiological effects that come into play when you find yourself in a fight for your life cannot be dismissed. Taking the safety out of the equation eliminates all those possibilities. You might do it right a million times at the range and completely hose it when the chips are down. It happens. It has happened and people have lost their lives because of it.

Why would you carry a DA auto with the hammer down and safety on?

If you can't jerk your pistol from its holster and jerk the trigger and hit a perp at typical gunfight distances, you need more practice at all that jerking. We're not talking bullseye competition here. With more and more of these active shooter scenarios, jerking might be all you have time for.
 
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This is about all that's germane to safeties on revolvers:

(1) The original mechanical design of "modern" revolvers goes back close to 200 years. At the outset, no one felt it was necessary to include a mechanical manual safety in the design.

(2) Those revolvers that have safeties seem to have been predominately European, where revolver philosophy differs somewhat from American. The few that I have seen seem to come at the request of certain police agencies (Singapore, Hong Kong, France). There have been a few examples of German 11mm Reichsrevolvers observed.

(3) The few safeties that have been included in revolver design only seem to block the mechanism when the hammer is at rest. There are NO safeties (that I know of) that render the action of a revolver inoperable when cocked. (Edit: Jim Keenan pointed out that the Webley-Fosberry had a manual safety that could be applied when cocked. I had forgotten about that.) As I mentioned earlier, it is assumed that, when the revolver is cocked, it is meant to be used instantaneously if necessary.
 
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Thanks for the summary, Gyvel.

That Webley you referenced appears to fit with what I was thinking could have evolved.

It seems there were some people who wanted the option of carrying a DA/SA revolver, in SA mode, but doing so safely in the same manner that some do with semis today.
If there hadn't been any demand whatsoever, I guess the Webley would not have come into being.

Nonetheless, clearly it is not a practice that caught on and I suspect the reasons in post #2 go some way to explaining why: you'd be back to DA for all remaining shots anyway...
 
The Webley Fosberry Automatic Revolver is a truly unique design.

The general appearance is close to other Webleys, but the function is radically different. IT is, in effect a SA semi automatic pistol, that uses a revolver cylinder instead of a box magazine.

Which it why it has a safety. It LOOKS like a revolver and part of it is a revolver, but the rest of it isn't. What it actually is, is a semi auto pistol that manually feeds and ejects the rounds (break action revolver style).

When you fire it, the upper frame assy (hammer, cylinder & barrel, etc) recoils on the lower frame assy (trigger and grip). This action rotates the cylinder to the next chamber and cocks the hammer.

It is classified as a revolver, but it really isn't one in the usual sense. Never very popular, and long out of production. It was long out of production when it got mention in The Maltese Falcon, as the gun used to murder Myles Archer, Sam Spade's partner.

A unique design, and a complete dead end.
 
As a side note, there was a similar design produced briefly in the U.S., the .32 S&W Union revolver. It was designed and sold by Charles Lefever (a son of Daniel Lefever) from 1909-1912. It used the same physics/mechanical principles as the Webley Fosberry, but more closely resembled a contemporary S&W, Iver Johnson or Harrington & Richardson top break revolver. Ironically, unlike the Fosberry, it had no manual safety.
 
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Thanks for the summary, Gyvel.

That Webley you referenced appears to fit with what I was thinking could have evolved.
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You're very welcome. Don't know if you looked or not, but one of my earlier posts in this thread has a picture of a Mk IV .38 with the crossbolt safety.

The only type of "practical" manual safety on a modern revolver that I could see would entail a small button installed through the trigger that would physically block the trigger from being pulled when the gun was cocked. Use of the trigger finger would quickly disengage it, but it is still another motion to perform to prepare for shooting, and I would think it would be prone to being easily disengaged accidentally were the revolver "carried cocked and locked."
 
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A couple of points to consider, about why a manual safety (safety lock, either lever or button or...) isn't found on revolvers in general...

It comes from the history of firearms development. Once you go past the original matchlocks, to some system where the gun is cocked, then fired its about all the same.

They are all "single action" systems. Once the gun is cocked, one action, pulling the trigger, fires the gun.

With a few exceptions, until you get to the later 1800s, everything had an exposed "hammer". One that had to me manually cocked for each shot. It was always your decision when to cock the hammer.

Repeating arms complicated this a bit, but not all that much as designs like the Henry/Winchester lever guns, and many others had a provision for "safe" carry via the half cock hammer position. The small degree of risk lowering the hammer to half cock was considered acceptable until the later 20th century, when the old designs were revamped to include an additional safety (often a button).

And, with the lever guns, like revolvers, it was up to you to decide when you cocked the gun for its next shot. An additional safety lever simply was not felt to be needed or useful.

Semi autos changed that. Semis "automatically" cock the gun, during the reloading cycle. You don't get to decide when it is needed, it is always done automatically by the gun.

This is where a manual safety becomes most important. With a manually operated repeater, once you fire the chambered round, the gun is totally safe and inert until you make it ready again. There is no live round in the chamber and its not cocked, until you make it so.

If you don't need or want to shoot again you don't actually need to do anything to or with the gun. With a semi, that's not an option. Once you fire the round that you put in the chamber, it puts another one in, and recocks the gun in the process. SO you are "hot" automatically, and if you aren't going to shoot again, you need to so something to make it safe.

Design philosophies differ over which kind of safety is better, active / passive, and user opinions differ even more about what is "best". What is universally recognized is that on a semi auto there is a need, not just a use, for some kind of safety.

While not universal, the overwhelming majority does not recognize a need for a safety on a revolver.
 
Thanks for the walkthrough on the parallel evolutions of the two platforms. Makes a lot of sense when you say it like that, especially the "by choice" and "default" nature of the gun being hot following a shot fired.
 
The first large number revolver with a safety was probably the German Reichsrevolver. As reloading required pulling the cylinder axis and use it poke the spent cartridges out of the lose cylinder that makes sense; you didn't want to lose any rounds to accidental discharges ;).
 
Why don't revolvers have safeties?

Perhaps because they're difficult enough to shoot well, without them (unless you're Jerry Mickulek)?
 
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