Welcome to the Colorado AR-15 Shooters Club Discussion Forums.
I agree with what a lot of members have said so far about this. Find what is most comfortable and easiest to use. But most importantly know the potential flaws, know how to overcome them, and get plenty of practice with whichever firearm you choose. I probably just beat the hell out of a dead horse but that is my 2 pennies on it.
Dont half ass two things. Whole ass one thing.
Historically I'm a 1911 guy, but revolvers definitely have their place. I carry one for backup, and I don't feel undergunned when it's all I have.
The organic shape of a small revolver offers some real advantages for concealment. I find that this especially matters with ankle carry. With revolvers, a brief glimpse of holster can be mistaken for droopy socks, but with a semi-auto it tends to looks like you have a candy bar strapped to your leg, which if nothing else just invites a second look.
Revolver advantages:
- organic shape
- more tolerant of *neglect*
- simple, non-bewildering operation
Semi-auto advantages:
- flat, narrow shape
- more tolerant of *abuse* (dropping)
- speed of reloading
- capacity
Safeties? That's not really a revolver-vs-semi issue, as there are plenty of semis without active safeties. Trigger weight? Short barrel? External hammer or not? Same answers.
The mechanics of revolver operation are pretty straightforward, and that can be a big deal. I agree that snubbies are over-prescribed for newbies, but a 4-inch barreled revolver can be a really viable choice for that reason alone. I've seen too many novices intimidated by semis to not take this issue seriously.
Another place revolvers shine, IMO, is in pocket carry. The small semis just require more maintenance than most people are going to put into them. With a linted-up revolver you can always just crunch through to the next round. Ideal? No. But this is the real world.
No true Scotsman.
"When our people become fighters, our leaders will be able to sit at the conference table as equals, not dependent on the whim and the generosity of the oppressors. It will be in the best interests of both sides to negotiate just, honorable, and lasting settlements."
- Robert Williams, Negroes With Guns, 1962
Originally Posted by IShouldDoThisAllTheTime
Never heard Organic used to describe a revolver before interesting......
I like pistol's & revolver's, choice for carry, both. Hard trigger pull, unable to hit anything. That all gets resolved with practice.
Now those lcp's. Very uncomfortable to shoot, for me with wrist & hand issues. However a lot of people would select one of them over a revolver, to each their own.
The Great Kazoo's Feedback
"when you're happy you enjoy the melody but, when you're broken you understand the lyrics".
Sure. A 638 with boot grips, in a good molded leather ankle holster, with a thin dress sock pulled up to the trigger guard...organic definitely seems like the right word to me.
I tried carrying my Kahr PM40 the same way, gave up after a month. There is just no plausible deniability when you have something that blocky hanging a few inches above your Florsheims.
No true Scotsman.
"When our people become fighters, our leaders will be able to sit at the conference table as equals, not dependent on the whim and the generosity of the oppressors. It will be in the best interests of both sides to negotiate just, honorable, and lasting settlements."
- Robert Williams, Negroes With Guns, 1962
This can be argued many different ways... Lots of different points can be brought up for both sides. For triggers, one trigger that is growing on me is the light LEM for Hk's. It's a 4 lb trigger pull on a DAO set up that is very crisp and easy to shoot with. The next thing, is most of the revolvers out there, are not straight forward in how they work, at least not any easier to explain than the normal semi auto. You can note, there are 52 parts to my USP...
...and 70 parts to the S&W J frame...
...and the same ammount of parts on an 1877 Colt, as there is on my USP...
...and this old revolver with 42 parts that is a single action, with no safety...
There are more revolvers with even bigger parts lists than these... Can you tell me exactly what happens when you pull the trigger on your revolver? What parts do what, at which specific time? I guess it depends on what you mean by straight forward...
The only arguement that I will take that the revolver has over the semi auto, is if you have a dud round, you can just keep pulling the trigger till one goes bang, where on the semi, you have to rack the slide, but that's the only arguement I will say is a win for the revolver. The arguements about all of the other faults of semi's... as I said, buy the best one you can if you are serious about carry (this includes ammo). In this, I compare the revolver to my Hk's, and in reliability and durability, the revolver isn't any better, and in a really dirty environment (mud), you won't like that revolver.
If you make something idiot proof, someone will make a better idiot... Forget youth, what we need is a fountain of smart. There are no stupid questions, just a lot of inquisitive idiots.Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome. --Isaac AsimovLike, where's spyder been? That guy was like, totally cool and stuff. - foxtrot
A statement which might be taken to support my point!
No true Scotsman.
"When our people become fighters, our leaders will be able to sit at the conference table as equals, not dependent on the whim and the generosity of the oppressors. It will be in the best interests of both sides to negotiate just, honorable, and lasting settlements."
- Robert Williams, Negroes With Guns, 1962
The last thing I want in a high stress situation is a long, heavy trigger pull.
I'd be concerned about setting my clothes on fire if I was wearing something with synthetics in it. Doesn't polyester instantly melt to your skin? I know a guy with only one nipple because he pulled a pot of boiling water onto himself as a kid while wearing a polyester sweater. The sweater melted to his skin. Patting out a little flame on cotton is one thing, but having half your jacket melt to your body is quite another.
Finally, it might be just because I have VERY limited experience with a revolver, but I recently shot one and had a hard time hitting anything because the trigger was so foreign to me. I'd need some serious range time to get it down. On the same note, that same day I also shot my sub-compact pocket semi-auto and the trigger was so atrocious, and recoil so painful, that I think I hit ONE target that I aimed at the whole day.
"There are no finger prints under water."
When I say "simple operation" I'm not talking about from an armorer's perspective, rather from a naive/newbie operator perspective. Parts counts aren't really relevant to this kind of user.
Me: "So as you pull the trigger, there's a clockwork mechanism that advances the cylinder and cocks the hammer. See? Then at a certain point everything is lined up and the hammer falls."
Newbie: "Oh, yeah, I see that. 'Clockwork' makes sense."
Me: "Some of the recoil energy is stolen by this mechanism that unlocks the action and lets the slide move rearward. There's this hook on the slide that pulls the empty case out of the chamber and flings it across the room. A spring takes over and pushes the slide back closed, and on the way the slide strips a fresh round out of the magazine and pushes it in to the chamber. While all this was happening the hammer(/striker/whatever) got cocked(/pre-cocked), and now when you pull the trigger again all it has to do is release the hammer and let it fall."
Newbie: "Huh?"
I've had conversations like those many, many times. If I'm bad at explaining machines, I'm not alone in it; NRA Basic Pistol classes spend fifteen minutes explaining semi-auto operation, and people still walk away looking bewildered. In my experience newbies have a basic, comfortable understanding of revolvers (again, not at an armorer level) within 30 seconds.
This speaks to an important point: it's really hard for advanced/expert/authoritative users to remember what it was like to be a novice. I submit that those of us who were field-stripping 1911s before we'd had our first kiss will have a remarkably hard time relating to or understanding the needs of someone who has only seen a gun while they were being mugged. A basic understanding how something works is extremely important to confident handling, and if someone can get that more quickly with a revolver than with a semi-auto, that's worth consideration.
/treatise
No true Scotsman.
"When our people become fighters, our leaders will be able to sit at the conference table as equals, not dependent on the whim and the generosity of the oppressors. It will be in the best interests of both sides to negotiate just, honorable, and lasting settlements."
- Robert Williams, Negroes With Guns, 1962
my wife has both a revolver (sp101) and a semiauto (xdm). She usually carries the revolver in an iwb and the xdm for purse carry.
Man, this has spurred quite the discussion.
Guess I should have seen that coming.
Where I grew up there were several public indoor ranges where you could short-term rent to try stuff out. Is there anywhere in the front range (Denver to Ft. Collins) that does that, and has a pretty good selection?
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