Why do we still use revolvers today if pistols can hold more ammo and shoot faster?
In: Physics
They are great for committing crimes because when you shoot them the shell casing stays in the revolver. Without a shell casing forensics have nothing to trace back to you.
Most Canadians would be surprised to know that firearms owners are attracted to various models in part due to historical reasons.
I am left handed. Most semi automatics will discharge hot shells in my cheek. A revolver solves this problem for all.
As I understand it, for almost all professional settings, magazine fed pistols have fully supplanted revolvers. The only people who regularly use revolvers are civilian gun owners, and some types of competitive shooters.
As someone who carries both, it’s just about personal preference. There’s still production simply because there’s a demand.
– Revolvers can mount scopes. Great for hunting. – Revolver frames are better suited for handling big calibers used for hunting. It would be cost prohibitive to make a pistol that could cycle .454 Casull for instance. – those are the two big advantages. Another small advantage is that revolvers don’t have a reciprocating slide, so you can shoot them while pressed point blank, inside of a hoodie for example.
Your hand has to wrap around the grip of a mag loading pistol. That means the bullets cannot be larger than what you could wrap your hand around. A revolver can have larger ammunition without affecting the grip width. Also, I think if a chamber jams, you can cycle to the next one, whereas when a mag loader jams, you have to unjam it before you can discharge it, but I don’t know how significant that is with modern day firearms.
One thing people arent mentioning is that in many states we are limited to 10 round magazines, which softens the semiauto round quantity advantage.
But the real advantage to revolvers is that they look dope af
You are going to have to define ‘use’. I own some revolvers because they are awesome. They just look cool.
Did I carry a revolver in the military? Nope. Did I carry a revolver as an LEO? Nope. The reason was simple, I was issued a semi auto or I wanted the higher round count and I was trained in the correct operation of a semi auto.
But a revolver has some very decent attributes that lend itself as a good choice for an average person. One is that most firefights are 3-5 rounds at ranges from 3-5 feet and lasting 3-5 seconds. And a revolver can handle that.
Semi autos are ‘better’ because they carry more rounds, but they also have different failure modes.
Don’t pretend that revolvers can’t also fail, they can. And some failure modes are much worse than failure modes of a semi auto.
The issue is probability of a failure and probability of that failure being significant.
Take a ‘failure to fire’. This is when you pull the trigger and the weapon goes “click”. This can be just a simple issue with the primer of the firearm or maybe a firing pin issue. Now with a revolver, you just pull the trigger again. With a semi auto you “Tap/Rack/Roll/Squeeze.”
The revolver is just simply easier.
Now I have experienced a failure on a revolver that locked the firearm up and made it worthless till we performed gunsmith level maintenance… Bit with a revolver the failure modes that disable the firearm are less likely.
If you asked me what firearm I wanted my untrained friend to have in an emergency… It would be a revolver for simplicity.
Simplicity. One button to make it work. Reloading is a different matter but that most likely doesn’t matter in a violent encounter for a civilian.
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