- Joined
- Jul 11, 2022
My treatise on why you should own at least one revolver.
The humble revolver may seem outdated to the ignorant or simple minded. Yes they tend to have a lower capacity and slower reload than semi-automatics, but those two drawbacks get all the focus, none is paid to the many positives revolvers bring to the table, especially in a survival/sustainability scenario.
First lets look at reliability. Even the most reliable firearms still have the potential for issues. When it comes to semi-automatic handguns the most common issues all have to do with the semi-automatic mechanism. Failure to feed, failure to lock, failure to extract/eject, etc. A revolver is immune to all of these issues, its most common failure is related to the ammunition, a dud round. Furthermore when it comes to dealing with an issue the first solution for a semi-auto is a tap and rack drill, smack the bottom of the mag and rack the slide. This is a pretty simple drill that is quick to execute and solves most of the common problems, however it does require training and practice to turn it into the reflex it needs to be for it to be useful under pressure. For a revolver the solution is to keep pulling the trigger which indexes the cylinder to the next round which is hopefully not also a dud. This requires no training as it is simply the natural thing for someone to do even under pressure.
Next lets look at those drawbacks a little more closely. Capacity and reload speed, these are things semi-automatics excel at because of their magazines. However as we just discussed magazines also present the potential for problems. Furthermore, your high capacity and reload speed only last as long as you have pre-loaded magazines ready and on hand. If you didnt pre-load your magazines you're not going to be doing so while under fire, if they aren't on hand you're probably not going to be able to retrieve them in time, and if you run out of pre-loaded magazines you're back to square one. In that case even if you still have ammunition available its going to be practically useless. Compare that to a revolver and while the standard capacity of 6 rounds is a lot lower than the 18+ full size semi-autos can have it is a self contained 6 rounds. You can't lose your cylinder, your cylinder wont develop a bad spring or wonky feed lips, you can't run out of pre-loaded cylinders (unless you're using an old remington) and if you're left with nothing but loose ammo and an empty revolver you can still stay in the fight. Furthermore the reload may be slower but that can be mitigated by things like speed loaders or speed strips, I prefer the latter, and even without those it is faster to load a cylinder than an empty magazine.
Another nice benefit of the revolver is the peace of mind you can enjoy while leaving it loaded. Any magazine based firearm left loaded for too long will develop issues with its spring. Now fortunately thanks to advances in metallurgy and spring design what constitutes "too long" keeps increasing, and modern stuff can be left loaded for years with little risk of trouble. That said the potential is still there when its something revolvers are once again immune to.
I could go on and cover points like how high capacity handguns suffer from a shifting point of balance but I think y'all get the jist of it. Am I saying revolvers are the ultimate weapons? No. I'm just saying that they are far from the outdated relics many see them as, and in fact I would go as far as to say every gun owner should start with a revolver and keep at least one in their collection permanently.
The humble revolver may seem outdated to the ignorant or simple minded. Yes they tend to have a lower capacity and slower reload than semi-automatics, but those two drawbacks get all the focus, none is paid to the many positives revolvers bring to the table, especially in a survival/sustainability scenario.
First lets look at reliability. Even the most reliable firearms still have the potential for issues. When it comes to semi-automatic handguns the most common issues all have to do with the semi-automatic mechanism. Failure to feed, failure to lock, failure to extract/eject, etc. A revolver is immune to all of these issues, its most common failure is related to the ammunition, a dud round. Furthermore when it comes to dealing with an issue the first solution for a semi-auto is a tap and rack drill, smack the bottom of the mag and rack the slide. This is a pretty simple drill that is quick to execute and solves most of the common problems, however it does require training and practice to turn it into the reflex it needs to be for it to be useful under pressure. For a revolver the solution is to keep pulling the trigger which indexes the cylinder to the next round which is hopefully not also a dud. This requires no training as it is simply the natural thing for someone to do even under pressure.
Next lets look at those drawbacks a little more closely. Capacity and reload speed, these are things semi-automatics excel at because of their magazines. However as we just discussed magazines also present the potential for problems. Furthermore, your high capacity and reload speed only last as long as you have pre-loaded magazines ready and on hand. If you didnt pre-load your magazines you're not going to be doing so while under fire, if they aren't on hand you're probably not going to be able to retrieve them in time, and if you run out of pre-loaded magazines you're back to square one. In that case even if you still have ammunition available its going to be practically useless. Compare that to a revolver and while the standard capacity of 6 rounds is a lot lower than the 18+ full size semi-autos can have it is a self contained 6 rounds. You can't lose your cylinder, your cylinder wont develop a bad spring or wonky feed lips, you can't run out of pre-loaded cylinders (unless you're using an old remington) and if you're left with nothing but loose ammo and an empty revolver you can still stay in the fight. Furthermore the reload may be slower but that can be mitigated by things like speed loaders or speed strips, I prefer the latter, and even without those it is faster to load a cylinder than an empty magazine.
Another nice benefit of the revolver is the peace of mind you can enjoy while leaving it loaded. Any magazine based firearm left loaded for too long will develop issues with its spring. Now fortunately thanks to advances in metallurgy and spring design what constitutes "too long" keeps increasing, and modern stuff can be left loaded for years with little risk of trouble. That said the potential is still there when its something revolvers are once again immune to.
I could go on and cover points like how high capacity handguns suffer from a shifting point of balance but I think y'all get the jist of it. Am I saying revolvers are the ultimate weapons? No. I'm just saying that they are far from the outdated relics many see them as, and in fact I would go as far as to say every gun owner should start with a revolver and keep at least one in their collection permanently.
