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Where there are discussions about revolvers and semis, seem like the shortcomings of the semi is always mentioned, i.e. FTFs, FTEs, stovepipes etc. and one would think that the revolver has no shortcomings at all. So I decided to look into the situation for myself. Since I was going to Gunsite (Summer 2004) to attend the Advanced Tactics Handgun Course and since I had taken semi-autos to my three previous “prerequisite” Gunsite handgun classes, I decided to take a S&W 686, 2-1/2” revolver and a S&W 686, 4” revolver as a backup.
I discovered that revolvers have few, if any, advantages over semis, and I was surprised to discover they are not as reliable as a semi and they are anything but simple to operate. I also discovered that the semi is more durable and robust than the revolver.
The retired Border Patrol officer who instructed the Advanced Tactics Class, said he carried a backup revolver in a more protected area (under a coat/jacket), even though it was against regulations, because he knew if his main revolver got in the sand it would probably lock up and it would require tools and time to get it working again. Yet in demos, Glock reps typically bury their guns in the sand and then let every student in the class shoot it and it rarely fails.
In a previous class, I mentioned to my instructor, Giles Stock, that with all the malfunction drills we were practicing for autos, it seems like carrying a revolver would eliminate a lot of potential problems. He replied that he merely dropped his revolver once and it locked up so badly that he had to take it home, remove the side plate and clean it out to get it working again. On the other hand, in one of my classes, I saw a police officer lose control of his Beretta 92 during a draw and fire drill and wound up inadvertently slinging his gun 15 feet in front of him resulting in the gun doing a flip or two and then sliding to a stop in the dirt/sand. He picked it up, blew it off and continued without a problem.
I was practicing speed reloads with my revolver one day at my local outdoor range and as I pushed to go a bit faster, I dropped my S&W 686 revolver. It hit on a crumpled sheet I was using to catch brass and then it bounced into the dirt. When I picked it up, the cylinder wouldn't close; the cylinder rod that the cylinder rotates on had bent. The gun was totally disabled. I took it home and literally hammered the cylinder back into alignment with a leather gun mallet. I had the gunsmith at Gunsite check it and it was in perfect alignment! I guess it proves dumb luck does beat skill sometimes!
I learned a number of things about revolvers from my instructor at Gunsite. It seems revolvers commonly shake the ejector rod loose. Since I had to remove my ejector rod to repair my gun, I put LockTite on it when I re-installed it because I noticed how easy it was to remove. Then I did the same thing to my back up revolver.
Next I learned that I should never put or allow lubricant to get under the ejector star because it holds debris which will cause the cylinder to bind up. Along with that, I was instructed to periodically check the cylinder to make sure it rotates freely, because, even without the lubricant, debris will build up under the ejector star and cause the cylinder to bind. I noticed that that does indeed happen.
I discovered that even if you do everything right, “speed” reloading a revolver is an iffy procedure. Many say that you will not have time, or not need to reload a gun in a gunfight so reloading is not an issue. But if we shoot three of our five shots at the BG and even if he’s down, are we just going to stand there with two rounds in our gun? Is it really over? Is the BG’s partner coming on the scene? Do we really want to leave two rounds in our gun after shooting someone? I just don’t think that’s a good idea. So we just may want to get that thing topped off, just in case, and that’s often problematic. Revolvers are both slow and tedious to reload efficiently unless you really practice it and use good technique. Compare that same situation with a semi loaded with 15 rounds – there’s no need to worry about reloading after two or three shots.
I found that reloads can get messed up for many reasons. Residue can collect in the cylinder chambers and cause a number of problems. One problem is when you turn the gun "upside down" to eject the cases, one case may not drop out. When that happens you have to realize it and pull the case out. The smaller the gun, the more likely it is to happen. That means a normal 5 - 6 second reload turns into a 8 - 10 second reload, while the auto can be reloaded in 2 seconds if it needs to be reloaded at all.
The other problem that can happen from debris in a chamber is when you start to reload the fresh rounds. Sometimes one round doesn’t fully seat, and you don’t realize it until you try to close the cylinder and the case is catches on the frame and the cylinder won’t close. It is confusing when it happens and it adds time to the reload cycle.
Another problem I experienced, was not realizing a case didn’t come out until I tried to insert the fresh rounds into the cylinder and none would go in. I had to look to see what the problem was, and since I now had the gun in one hand, the reloader in the other hand, I had to remove the case with the other hand. Wait, that’s too many hands isn’t it?
Yet another thing that can happen when you try to eject the cases, they can hang on the grips, especially if the cylinder closes slightly. And the smaller the gun the more likely it is to occur.
Reloading a revolver under stress, it is a far more tedious and nebulous procedure than reloading a semi. A semi only requires pressing a button to drop the mog out of the gun; you retrieve a rather large boxy magazine and insert it into a relatively large hole in the bottom of the grip. It’s interesting that the semi-auto tactical reload is criticized as too complex or too much manipulation but no one ever mentions that reloading a revolver is complex and requires much manipulation.
Reloading a revolver requires opening the cylinder, switching the gun from the shooting hand to the support hand, turning the gun upside down (barrel up), pressing the ejector rod with the thumb of the support hand so you can be reaching for this rather small, round speed loader at the same time, which is mostly obscured by the pouch that holds it. By the way, when it comes to reloading a revolver, terms like speed, reliability, and simple shouldn’t be used. Reloading a revolver is none of those things! I know Jerry can do it in one second, but what about us mere mortals with ordinary skills and little practice with revolvers that don’t have highly chamfered chambers or moon clips?
Anyway, then you turn the gun 180 degrees (barrel down) so you can align six little objects with six little holes. Once you believe you have the bullets started into the cylinder, you push (Safariland loader) or twist the little release knob (HKS loader), discard the speed loader, close the cylinder and switch the gun back to the shooting hand. Simple?
There’s yet another problem or two that can happen during a reload. One is the speed loader doesn’t fully release the rounds and extra time has to be taken to correct that. Or, the some or all of the rounds hang in the speed loader and when you discard the speed loader the rounds go with it. That happened to me once during a timed qualification drill and all six rounds fell on the ground. It’s more than a little embarrassing.
Anything else that can happen during a reload? Well, yes, since you asked. Since you have to twist a knob on HKS reloaders, I’ve noticed more than once, my support hand, whose job it is to hold the cylinder, inadvertently loses contact with the cylinder and when you twist the knob, instead of releasing the rounds the cylinder just spins. That’s why I switched to Safariland reloaders; you just push them toward the cylinder and they release – that’s what I took to Gunsite and that’s what my instructor recommended.
Ok, so in an actual, average, gunfight, we’ll never have to reload our revolver, right. That’s what I thought until we did this little two BG drill. When the BGs turned, I shot each BG two times as instructed - pretty good shooting if I do say so myself. I was awakened from admiring my shots when the instructor said, “You got two shots left, do you think maybe it would be a good idea to reload – just in case?” What about the auto guys? Well they still had five rounds in their 1911s, so they were in pretty good shape. So I proceeded to reload, by dumping the empty cases and two unfired rounds on the ground. I figured if this was real, it’d be better to get the gun reloaded as quickly as possible rather than trying to retain two rounds by doing a slower and more complex reload with retention technique.
Most of the “passive” simulators required us to clear a building. Normally civilians wouldn’t/shouldn’t be doing this, but as pointed out, it may be necessary to “clear” a building in order to escape from a situation or to reach a loved one. So, I found myself in the same situation over and over again. I’ve shot two rounds at a BG and I haven’t escaped yet. So, do I proceed with four rounds in my gun or reload? If I reload, how do I want to deal with the four unfired rounds in my gun? Although I had four Safariland reloaders on my belt, in reality, few of us civilians, carry more than one reload for a revolver, so those four rounds in the gun are significant in the given situation. Had I been carrying a five shot revolver, I would only have three rounds left in the gun and I’m pretty sure that calls for a reload.
A shotgun has about the same capacity as a revolver – 5 to 6 rounds. Typically you are taught in shotgun courses (I took Gunsite’s shotgun course and I do believe it was the funnest course I’ve had, bruised arm and all), if you fire two, then you reload two ASAP, etc. Now here is a pretty awesome, but low capacity weapon and the strategy is to keep it “topped” off. Why shouldn’t/wouldn’t the same strategy apply even more so to a low capacity, not so awesome, relative anemic hadngun? It should, actually!
That brings me back to the situation where I had fired two shots from a six shot revolver, don’t I need to reload? Well, I thought so. There is a revolver technique where you unload only the empties, and yes, there’s a way to do this in complete darkness, and reload only the empty chambers. But it is very slow and if all your rounds are in a reloader you have to take rounds out of your reloader and that’s even more time consuming and tedious. So probably the best choice is to dump everything in your hand, put cases and rounds in a convenient pocket and reload with the reloader.
But that only solves the problem once. If I encounter one more BG and shoot him twice, I’ve got the same problem again except worse; I now four rounds in the gun, four loose rounds in my pocket intermingled with two cases and no reloader. Now I must remove the empties, reach in my pocket, get two rounds and load them. Well maybe that’s not so bad after all. Then again, if I had my Beretta 92 or Sig 226/229 I’d still have 13 rounds in the gun after four shots (I carry a 17 round Mecgar mag in my gun and another on my belt or pocket). I could carry 18 rounds in the gun, but I don’t, and that’s another issue.
One last reloading problem – it is a disaster! This has happened to me, I’ve seen it happen to others, and my instructor mentioned that it happens, so I guess it does. That is, sometimes a case gets under the ejector star. It takes time to fix. And when we were doing one handed drills, my instructor said, “If you get a case under the ejector star, I know of no way to fix the problem with one hand.” Hmmmm….
After observing me use a revolver for the week at Gunsite, one of my fellow students said something like, “I'm impressed with speed and accuracy he shoots his revolver with, but no offense, they just seem too complicated.” I took no offense and agreed with him.
Some other things to consider about revolvers are night sights and weapon mounted lights (WML). Some like night sights; some wouldn’t have them. Some like WMLs; some wouldn’t have them. But nevertheless, night sights are more of a problem for revolvers than semis. They are more difficult to find and can be problematic to get them installed on revolvers. If you have to send a revolver to someone to have night sights installed, it’ll cost about $60 shipping plus the price of the sights and costs of installation. If you had to send a semi off, you do have the option of just shipping the slide.
As for WMLs, for those who like them and believe in them for certain situations, I don’t believe I have ever seen a WML on a revolver. It would require some kind of mounting adapter that would attach to the barrel in such a way that it would allow the ejector rod to clear it to swing out the cylinder. Even if such a thing existed, you could not find a holster for it. Further, a revolver the same overall size of a compact semi-auto (Sig 229, Glock 19, etc.) would have too short of a barrel to mount a WML on.
Speaking of size, for a similar size, a semi will always have a significantly longer sight radius than the revolver. Some believe the longer sight radius is an advantage.
Having said all of that, a revolver would be my recommendation to novices and those who will not be handling or shooting their gun much. This would be those that would shoot three shots at a BG and not even think that there’s a need to reload; after all, there’s still two shots left in the gun.
I discovered that revolvers have few, if any, advantages over semis, and I was surprised to discover they are not as reliable as a semi and they are anything but simple to operate. I also discovered that the semi is more durable and robust than the revolver.
The retired Border Patrol officer who instructed the Advanced Tactics Class, said he carried a backup revolver in a more protected area (under a coat/jacket), even though it was against regulations, because he knew if his main revolver got in the sand it would probably lock up and it would require tools and time to get it working again. Yet in demos, Glock reps typically bury their guns in the sand and then let every student in the class shoot it and it rarely fails.
In a previous class, I mentioned to my instructor, Giles Stock, that with all the malfunction drills we were practicing for autos, it seems like carrying a revolver would eliminate a lot of potential problems. He replied that he merely dropped his revolver once and it locked up so badly that he had to take it home, remove the side plate and clean it out to get it working again. On the other hand, in one of my classes, I saw a police officer lose control of his Beretta 92 during a draw and fire drill and wound up inadvertently slinging his gun 15 feet in front of him resulting in the gun doing a flip or two and then sliding to a stop in the dirt/sand. He picked it up, blew it off and continued without a problem.
I was practicing speed reloads with my revolver one day at my local outdoor range and as I pushed to go a bit faster, I dropped my S&W 686 revolver. It hit on a crumpled sheet I was using to catch brass and then it bounced into the dirt. When I picked it up, the cylinder wouldn't close; the cylinder rod that the cylinder rotates on had bent. The gun was totally disabled. I took it home and literally hammered the cylinder back into alignment with a leather gun mallet. I had the gunsmith at Gunsite check it and it was in perfect alignment! I guess it proves dumb luck does beat skill sometimes!
I learned a number of things about revolvers from my instructor at Gunsite. It seems revolvers commonly shake the ejector rod loose. Since I had to remove my ejector rod to repair my gun, I put LockTite on it when I re-installed it because I noticed how easy it was to remove. Then I did the same thing to my back up revolver.
Next I learned that I should never put or allow lubricant to get under the ejector star because it holds debris which will cause the cylinder to bind up. Along with that, I was instructed to periodically check the cylinder to make sure it rotates freely, because, even without the lubricant, debris will build up under the ejector star and cause the cylinder to bind. I noticed that that does indeed happen.
I discovered that even if you do everything right, “speed” reloading a revolver is an iffy procedure. Many say that you will not have time, or not need to reload a gun in a gunfight so reloading is not an issue. But if we shoot three of our five shots at the BG and even if he’s down, are we just going to stand there with two rounds in our gun? Is it really over? Is the BG’s partner coming on the scene? Do we really want to leave two rounds in our gun after shooting someone? I just don’t think that’s a good idea. So we just may want to get that thing topped off, just in case, and that’s often problematic. Revolvers are both slow and tedious to reload efficiently unless you really practice it and use good technique. Compare that same situation with a semi loaded with 15 rounds – there’s no need to worry about reloading after two or three shots.
I found that reloads can get messed up for many reasons. Residue can collect in the cylinder chambers and cause a number of problems. One problem is when you turn the gun "upside down" to eject the cases, one case may not drop out. When that happens you have to realize it and pull the case out. The smaller the gun, the more likely it is to happen. That means a normal 5 - 6 second reload turns into a 8 - 10 second reload, while the auto can be reloaded in 2 seconds if it needs to be reloaded at all.
The other problem that can happen from debris in a chamber is when you start to reload the fresh rounds. Sometimes one round doesn’t fully seat, and you don’t realize it until you try to close the cylinder and the case is catches on the frame and the cylinder won’t close. It is confusing when it happens and it adds time to the reload cycle.
Another problem I experienced, was not realizing a case didn’t come out until I tried to insert the fresh rounds into the cylinder and none would go in. I had to look to see what the problem was, and since I now had the gun in one hand, the reloader in the other hand, I had to remove the case with the other hand. Wait, that’s too many hands isn’t it?
Yet another thing that can happen when you try to eject the cases, they can hang on the grips, especially if the cylinder closes slightly. And the smaller the gun the more likely it is to occur.
Reloading a revolver under stress, it is a far more tedious and nebulous procedure than reloading a semi. A semi only requires pressing a button to drop the mog out of the gun; you retrieve a rather large boxy magazine and insert it into a relatively large hole in the bottom of the grip. It’s interesting that the semi-auto tactical reload is criticized as too complex or too much manipulation but no one ever mentions that reloading a revolver is complex and requires much manipulation.
Reloading a revolver requires opening the cylinder, switching the gun from the shooting hand to the support hand, turning the gun upside down (barrel up), pressing the ejector rod with the thumb of the support hand so you can be reaching for this rather small, round speed loader at the same time, which is mostly obscured by the pouch that holds it. By the way, when it comes to reloading a revolver, terms like speed, reliability, and simple shouldn’t be used. Reloading a revolver is none of those things! I know Jerry can do it in one second, but what about us mere mortals with ordinary skills and little practice with revolvers that don’t have highly chamfered chambers or moon clips?
Anyway, then you turn the gun 180 degrees (barrel down) so you can align six little objects with six little holes. Once you believe you have the bullets started into the cylinder, you push (Safariland loader) or twist the little release knob (HKS loader), discard the speed loader, close the cylinder and switch the gun back to the shooting hand. Simple?
There’s yet another problem or two that can happen during a reload. One is the speed loader doesn’t fully release the rounds and extra time has to be taken to correct that. Or, the some or all of the rounds hang in the speed loader and when you discard the speed loader the rounds go with it. That happened to me once during a timed qualification drill and all six rounds fell on the ground. It’s more than a little embarrassing.
Anything else that can happen during a reload? Well, yes, since you asked. Since you have to twist a knob on HKS reloaders, I’ve noticed more than once, my support hand, whose job it is to hold the cylinder, inadvertently loses contact with the cylinder and when you twist the knob, instead of releasing the rounds the cylinder just spins. That’s why I switched to Safariland reloaders; you just push them toward the cylinder and they release – that’s what I took to Gunsite and that’s what my instructor recommended.
Ok, so in an actual, average, gunfight, we’ll never have to reload our revolver, right. That’s what I thought until we did this little two BG drill. When the BGs turned, I shot each BG two times as instructed - pretty good shooting if I do say so myself. I was awakened from admiring my shots when the instructor said, “You got two shots left, do you think maybe it would be a good idea to reload – just in case?” What about the auto guys? Well they still had five rounds in their 1911s, so they were in pretty good shape. So I proceeded to reload, by dumping the empty cases and two unfired rounds on the ground. I figured if this was real, it’d be better to get the gun reloaded as quickly as possible rather than trying to retain two rounds by doing a slower and more complex reload with retention technique.
Most of the “passive” simulators required us to clear a building. Normally civilians wouldn’t/shouldn’t be doing this, but as pointed out, it may be necessary to “clear” a building in order to escape from a situation or to reach a loved one. So, I found myself in the same situation over and over again. I’ve shot two rounds at a BG and I haven’t escaped yet. So, do I proceed with four rounds in my gun or reload? If I reload, how do I want to deal with the four unfired rounds in my gun? Although I had four Safariland reloaders on my belt, in reality, few of us civilians, carry more than one reload for a revolver, so those four rounds in the gun are significant in the given situation. Had I been carrying a five shot revolver, I would only have three rounds left in the gun and I’m pretty sure that calls for a reload.
A shotgun has about the same capacity as a revolver – 5 to 6 rounds. Typically you are taught in shotgun courses (I took Gunsite’s shotgun course and I do believe it was the funnest course I’ve had, bruised arm and all), if you fire two, then you reload two ASAP, etc. Now here is a pretty awesome, but low capacity weapon and the strategy is to keep it “topped” off. Why shouldn’t/wouldn’t the same strategy apply even more so to a low capacity, not so awesome, relative anemic hadngun? It should, actually!
That brings me back to the situation where I had fired two shots from a six shot revolver, don’t I need to reload? Well, I thought so. There is a revolver technique where you unload only the empties, and yes, there’s a way to do this in complete darkness, and reload only the empty chambers. But it is very slow and if all your rounds are in a reloader you have to take rounds out of your reloader and that’s even more time consuming and tedious. So probably the best choice is to dump everything in your hand, put cases and rounds in a convenient pocket and reload with the reloader.
But that only solves the problem once. If I encounter one more BG and shoot him twice, I’ve got the same problem again except worse; I now four rounds in the gun, four loose rounds in my pocket intermingled with two cases and no reloader. Now I must remove the empties, reach in my pocket, get two rounds and load them. Well maybe that’s not so bad after all. Then again, if I had my Beretta 92 or Sig 226/229 I’d still have 13 rounds in the gun after four shots (I carry a 17 round Mecgar mag in my gun and another on my belt or pocket). I could carry 18 rounds in the gun, but I don’t, and that’s another issue.
One last reloading problem – it is a disaster! This has happened to me, I’ve seen it happen to others, and my instructor mentioned that it happens, so I guess it does. That is, sometimes a case gets under the ejector star. It takes time to fix. And when we were doing one handed drills, my instructor said, “If you get a case under the ejector star, I know of no way to fix the problem with one hand.” Hmmmm….
After observing me use a revolver for the week at Gunsite, one of my fellow students said something like, “I'm impressed with speed and accuracy he shoots his revolver with, but no offense, they just seem too complicated.” I took no offense and agreed with him.
Some other things to consider about revolvers are night sights and weapon mounted lights (WML). Some like night sights; some wouldn’t have them. Some like WMLs; some wouldn’t have them. But nevertheless, night sights are more of a problem for revolvers than semis. They are more difficult to find and can be problematic to get them installed on revolvers. If you have to send a revolver to someone to have night sights installed, it’ll cost about $60 shipping plus the price of the sights and costs of installation. If you had to send a semi off, you do have the option of just shipping the slide.
As for WMLs, for those who like them and believe in them for certain situations, I don’t believe I have ever seen a WML on a revolver. It would require some kind of mounting adapter that would attach to the barrel in such a way that it would allow the ejector rod to clear it to swing out the cylinder. Even if such a thing existed, you could not find a holster for it. Further, a revolver the same overall size of a compact semi-auto (Sig 229, Glock 19, etc.) would have too short of a barrel to mount a WML on.
Speaking of size, for a similar size, a semi will always have a significantly longer sight radius than the revolver. Some believe the longer sight radius is an advantage.
Having said all of that, a revolver would be my recommendation to novices and those who will not be handling or shooting their gun much. This would be those that would shoot three shots at a BG and not even think that there’s a need to reload; after all, there’s still two shots left in the gun.
