Why do we still use revolvers today if pistols can hold more ammo and shoot faster?
In: Physics
Revolvers can have some advantages — the big one is often cited in home defense scenarios. All guns and clips can jam, but revolvers since they have few moving parts and are pretty simple and effective construction, are very difficult to jam or misfire, or get bullets lodged in them. You also may not need a larger clip of 10 rounds+ for a pistol, 6 in a revolver is probably fine for many scenarios. Additionally, cleaning and maintaining a revolver is much easier and simpler, they really don’t need much love to work
A pistol with a clip though is much better for reloading and firing more rounds (assuming you have spare clips ready
Its a tradeoff of revolvers being super reliable vs pistols being pretty damn reliable
As an owner of both, I like the revolver for its mechanical simplicity and the fact you can see the loads. I like the auto for capacity
Revolvers are pistols. Semantics, but words matter.
Simplicity and strength. You can fit a larger cartridge in a revolver both from a strength standpoint and size. With an automatic the cartridge has to fit in the grip. Do this with a 44mag and the grip is huge. The still make small ones but those are mainly a price point self defense weapon. You can get a reliable Taurus that fits in a purse or front pocket for way less than a reliable auto.
Revolvers look cooler to some people. That’s it. They are inferior in every other way. Don’t let any of these others tell you lies. An auto loader is better in every way except larping as a cowboy or 1930s detective.
They don’t leave expended cartridges at “ the scene”. They are more effective at pistol whipping and less likely to “accidentally “ kill. The hammer cocking noise is a very effective interrogation tool.
Revolvers can more easily/cheaply/reliably fire higher powered rounds.
Revolvers have basically no moving parts when firing. Like, obviously the hammer falls and the firing pin strikes the primer, and then later the cylinder rotates, but compare that to a semiautomatic, where you have a whole complicated mechanism of cycling the slide, extracting the brass, stripping and feeding a new round, etc. All of this is driven by the back-pressure of the gasses pushing the bullet before it leaves the muzzle. And if any part of it is not quite right, you get malfunctions (falure to feed, failure to extract, etc).
At the moment that a revolver is expelling a bullet from its muzzle, the gun is not “doing” anything. It’s just a big hunk of metal. And all the “doing stuff” involved with preparing the next round to fire happens when the gun is not firing a round.
It’s not that you can’t design a semiautomatic to fire higher-powered rounds, but it gets more complicated to manufacture, more expensive, and reliability may suffer. So for example, high powered pistol hunting rounds are usually fired from a revolver.
EDIT TO ADD: Also, since revolvers never have to strip a round off the top of a magazine and feed it into a chamber via a feed ramp, the shape of revolver bullets can be different. Semiauto bullets are tapered, or in other ways designed to be reliable to feed. Revolver bullets don’t have to be designed this way. There are some revolvers that can fire shotgun shells.
This is Canada. You can’t justify shooting someone, but you might get away with hitting them over the head with an oversized revolver.
In most legitimate self defense scenarios, you don’t need to fire that many bullets. In fact in most cases you don’t need to fire at all. Just the threat of a gun is usually enough to resolve the situation. And if shooting is required, one or two shots will almost always be enough. It’s very unlikely you will need more than 6.
Unless you are worried about a Russian death squad breaking into your home and hunting you down, a revolver will be more than enough.
Revolvers have some benefits that semi-automatic pistols do not. One of those is a relatively simple action that is very reliable. Imagine for example that I was concerned about personal defense and wanted to slip a small pistol into my jacket pocket. There is no slide whipping around on top, I could fire the revolver from inside my jacket without fear of a jam. Simple, reliable action can be a big benefit.
Another benefit is that revolvers don’t need to feed the rounds through the grip so the shape isn’t limited by that. Someone with small hands wanting a decently sized round, or anyone wanting *big* rounds, wants a revolver.
Revolvers don’t throw spent shell casings around. There are a lot of reasons you might want to avoid this, including just limiting the evidence that might be used against you in a defensive shooting.
Finally revolvers cycle reliably regardless of the power behind the round. Semi-automatic pistols use the exhaust gasses of the previous round to cycle the next round into the chamber, and not all ammunition does that reliably. Spent casings can be caught in the action, low power rounds or even a weak grip can prevent fully cycling, and a round that fails to fire requires manually cycling the slide.
With a revolver the casings don’t go anywhere and can’t jam anything. A weak grip doesn’t stop anything, a round that fails to fire just doesn’t go off. All the shooter needs to do is pull the trigger again.
You can get them chambered in big, fun calibers, their grips are smaller because they don’t have to fit a magazine so they fit smaller hands nicely. Some can shoot multiple calibers such as .357 can also shoot .38 so you get some nice flexibility.
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