Are We In The Middle Of A Revolver Renaissance?

[Jeff22]

Perhaps the revolver renaissance is limited to the cognoscente or connoisseur?

I just had the opportunity to qualify with a bunch of my off duty guns, including my S&W 60 3 inch. I don't carry that gun much any more, but I do like it.

Reading this discussion makes me want to get a 3 inch S&W K frame revolver of some kind. For no logical reason other than it would be neat. The FBI went to the Model 13 the same year I started (1981)

[Dave T]

I remember a discussion back in the 1980s, or maybe it was the 1990s (the memory gets fuzzy beyond yesterday - lol) over the practicality and usefulness of Cooper's famed training exercise, El Presedente. If I mis-spelled that, well you get the idea. It boiled down to, if confronted by three goblins in an ally was the correct approach to solving the problem shooting two, two, and two. After it was bandied about for months Cooper came up with a Tactical version where you shoot one, one, then two to anchor the third guy. Then you were to go back and assuming the first two weren't stopped by your "A" zone single hit, make two head shots.

Yea, the same critics lambasted him for that one too, missing the point that it was a training exercise and not a simulation of real life. I tell this story because of the other conclusion that came out of that discussion. Unless you were a truly gifted person, with incredible reflexes and thousands of rounds in practice, no average person was going to make it through 3 bad guys alive. I always think of this when the subject comes up of five or six rounds not being enough and needing a 15 round magazine and at least two spares to deal with the gang of 10-15 bangers. Good luck with that. (smile)

Dave

[blues]

Perhaps the revolver renaissance is limited to the cognoscente or connoisseur?

I just had the opportunity to qualify with a bunch of my off duty guns, including my S&W 60 3 inch. I don't carry that gun much any more, but I do like it.

Reading this discussion makes me want to get a 3 inch S&W K frame revolver of some kind. For no logical reason other than it would be neat. The FBI went to the Model 13 the same year I started (1981)

I don't think it's just the cognoscenti or connoisseurs among us. There are many possible reasons. Nostalgia. Guns we came up with. Convenience (for the smaller, more easily concealed models). Simple manual of arms, even if it's not simple to be proficient in marksmanship for most folks.

I also started out, within a year or two of you, with a Model 15, (and model 36), and trained at FLETC and later carried the Model 19. I enjoy carrying my 642 because I was familiar with J frames from those early years and shot them well. But I also realize its limitations and plan accordingly.

I sold my 3" L frame 686+ to a neighbor, but only because I didn't like the lock, not because the gun was in any way wanting. My neighbor loves it and I would have as well if I could have gotten past it. I'd get a replacement for it under the right circumstances.

That said, revolvers have a very limited role in my defensive preparedness. They are simply a walking around gun around home and environs, as well as a last ditch point and shoot option for my wife in a home invasion. (She has no real interest though she has shot, and shot pretty well, in the past.)

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Unless you were a truly gifted person, with incredible reflexes and thousands of rounds in practice, no average person was going to make it through 3 bad guys alive. I

Twice, in my life, I thought I would have to deal with 4 bad folks (I don't like the term goblins, Cooper was going to a bad place with that usage). I suppose I should have just rolled into a ball. Avoidance managed to avoid the fight. Once it was with a J frame and I did think as the 'interrogation' evolved, it was going to be one, one, one, one and one left over. That's if I got that far. I had it mapped in my mind.

The J is for sitting around the house OR (the big OR) there are constraints on dress and concealment. That being said, I probably have quite more than a thousand rounds with that little gun and who knows how many with a Glock or 1911.

The extra mag and hi cap debate is clearly decided as said a million times on this distinction:

a. The one or two economically motivated mugger type of interaction. 5 is probably enough. Waving the gun around is probably enough.
b. The much rarer but highly intensive horror show. A Mumbai, Kenya mall (where the guys who went in when the law froze, commented on - Geez, I should have brought more ammo).

You decide. If I were working in a campus, that allowed carry - my concern is probably not choice 'a'. Being mugged during the day would be rare in my affluent surroundings. Having a nut do evil - could happen. We dealt with kids who could have had the potential for such. Having more than one nut - has that happenend? Hmm?

So the revolver return has three drivers:

1. The 'a' usage for average folks, scared of semis.
2. The tactical worriers with a J for backup
3. The aficionado, geezer brigade who like such.

I suggest that type 3 (which I do dabble in) also move their computers back to Dos, or command line Linux.

[OlongJohnson]

The downside... almost half of the Smith's had clocked barrels, most just a little off, a few a lot. And that's just what I could see through the glass. The QC issues continue. Why I keep buying old pre-lock ones, wouldn't consider a new one without a careful inspection first.

I can't remember the last new S&W I checked out that wasn't defective somehow.

[OlongJohnson]

I've realized that at this point, my itch for another revolver is in reality an itch to get out into Lost River places and do Lost River things.

[TGS]

I'll be honest - what gun to carry threads are pretty much summed up best by asking, "What is your threat profile?"

Until a person makes an honest and deep assessment of their threat profile, they are unlikely to provide articulate answers for their choices.

I think the problem with this is that most people don't have any clue how to properly assess risk/threat, and it just becomes a bunch of baseless pontification.

Even in this thread, there's an overwhelming thought pattern that active shooters only happen in certain places, for instance.

Who here works in any sort of office building? Or spends their lunch at a strip mall, food court, or whatnot to grab chow? Or goes to grocery stores to buy things? Congrats, you're in a prime spot(s) for an active shooter. So now everyone in this thread is going to adjust accordingly, right?

Doubtful. People are going to carry what they want to carry, and putting heads in the sand or pulling down the blinds and saying, "eh, it won't happen here, the probability is low and I'm not preparing for that eventuality, it's too far down the totem pole of likliness" is not same thing as "I've conducted a threat assessment on my life and this is an appropriate choice for the intersection of severity and probability in my daily life." Threat, or risk, involves not just probability but also severity.

Like @Trooper224, I'd rather people just be honest and say that they like carrying X because it's a cool gun that they connect with, or because they're lazy, or strictly because they'd get fired if their boss saw them printing so they have no choice other than a tiny pocket gun. But, the aforementioned "pipe-hitting mentality" on P-F.com prevents people from just being honest, peer pressure and all that, and so they throw out terms they don't actually have any understanding of as a superficial justification to their choices.

[OlongJohnson]

I also got a lesson in public perception this past hunting season. I hunted in eastern North Carolina where the mean elevation is about 6 inches above sea level and about 10 snakes per square foot of dry land along with bears, alligators and bigfoot. It was prudent to carry a sidearm anytime you stepped into the woods/swamp, I carried my GP 44 everywhere. Loggers moved in and started cutting right in the middle of the season and I had daily interaction with a couple of them. As we were shooting the bull during lunch one day, a guy from the neighboring hunting club stopped to ask a few questions. After he left the logger asked to the wind and not anyone in particular "wonder why he was carrying a Glock?" I answered him with "probably the same reasons I'm toting a revolver." He replied back with " I never knew anybody to use a Glock as a snake gun before. I though those were for shootin people." The perception of semis are people shooters and revolvers are snake guns is alive and well, at least in eastern NC. I seen a lot of revolvers on hips down there.

I wonder which side of that perception a metal-frame semi with wood grips, riding in some decent leather, would fall on?

[blues]

I think the problem with this is that most people don't have any clue how to properly assess risk/threat, and it just becomes a bunch of baseless pontification.

Even in this thread, there's an overwhelming thought pattern that active shooters only happen in certain places, for instance.

Who here works in any sort of office building? Or spends their lunch at a strip mall, food court, or whatnot to grab chow? Or goes to grocery stores to buy things? Congrats, you're in a prime spot(s) for an active shooter. So now everyone in this thread is going to adjust accordingly, right?

Doubtful. People are going to carry what they want to carry, and putting heads in the sand or pulling down the blinds and saying, "eh, it won't happen here, the probability is low and I'm not preparing for that eventuality, it's too far down the totem pole of likliness" is not same thing as "I've conducted a threat assessment on my life and this is an appropriate choice for the intersection of severity and probability in my daily life." Threat, or risk, involves not just probability but also severity.

Like @Trooper224, I'd rather people just be honest and say that they like carrying X because it's a cool gun that they connect with, or because they're lazy, or strictly because they'd get fired if their boss saw them printing so they have no choice other than a tiny pocket gun. But, the aforementioned "pipe-hitting mentality" on P-F.com prevents people from just being honest, peer pressure and all that, and so they throw out terms they don't actually have any understanding of as a superficial justification to their choices.

T, I get what you're saying, but to borrow a term oft used at trial, your post "assumes facts not in evidence".

I think pretty much every swinging dick on this forum realizes that when they carry there is a chance they may have to use their firearm. And on top of that, though the circumstances of that occasion are unknowable in advance, the types of events are not. Who here doesn't know that they could be accosted or mugged? Or that someone might go batshit at the supermarket or the movies or the mall?

Everyone makes plans and compromises. Mine is that the revolver is a stay at home and walking distance gun. That said, should I prepare for the possibility of multiple attackers or a pack of feral dogs every time I put life and limb at risk walking the half mile down to my mailbox on the main road?

When I go out to town, need I take three spare mags, pepper spray, sap, a service sized semi-auto? Body armor?

I think your post comes across as a bit condescending and I think it's somewhat unwarranted. Give people a little credit. Sometimes they actually have reasons for their choices and decisions even when you don't agree with them.

[TGS]

Everyone makes plans and compromises.

Which is obvious, and also fine. People should just be honest about it though, is my point. Like I said previously, I even carry my revolvers time to time. I'm honest about why, though, instead of throwing out some terms I heard from some cool guy to validate my choice.

As for giving people credit, no. Emphatically. Purchasing a gun does not automatically infer any skill with a gun, nor does purchasing a gun and posting on the internet infer any ability to assess risk.