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Thread: Another "why revolvers?" thread (culled side conversation)

  1. #101
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    Quote Originally Posted by Half Moon View Post
    Directed at the links and not you - if not dishonest, then flawed and less than serious. Picking just one flaw of several: using a squib as an example, in a not ironic or funny way, is equivalent to, in a discussion of gasoline versus diesel engines, dwelling over the time I saw a diesel vehicle with a flat tire as an example of diesel failure modes. A lot of the linked two parter rings false in similar ways. There are lots of valid criticisms of revolvers and instead of addressing those we are presented with a flawed set of straw men.
    'Flawed', 'straw men' and 'less than serious' come across to me as about as dismissive as 'dishonest'. The perspectives I've linked to are going off of their experiences just as you are going off of yours. What criticisms are to be deemed as valid or not isn't immediately apparent to me.

    There are good question as far as whether the squib in that class as described by Mr. Weems would have have been enough to deadline a semi-auto. and also whether maintenance and mechanical issues are the same as semi-autos. Same with the performance and role in small revolvers compared against other handguns, and if there is any significance in decreasing trends of revolver production.

    Quote Originally Posted by medmo View Post
    I have run more rounds than I can count through wheel guns than I could possibly count and yet to have a failure that was due to it being not maintained and cleaned. I suck at cleaning revolvers and unusually clean them up with a quick CLP brush and wipe down. Revolvers have always been noted for being notoriously reliable. What happened recently where they are now sensitive running machines?
    I've spent enough time lurking around this subforum to see some of the nerdier revolver nerds talking about certain generations or versions of S&Ws and Colts having problems and not always being so perfect.

    I think it was either rob_s or Erick Gelhaus or someone else who mentioned something about teaching the importance of cleaning and lubrication to a group of students that did not necessarily even know how to change the oil in their car. (On a similar note, I remember a guest on Civilian Carry Radio pointed out that the old chestnut of talking about a spinning football to describe the effect of rifling on a bullet kinda falls flat when nobody in the class has ever thrown one). Looking past the temptation of culture commentary, I bring that up because I think it's very possible that most gun owners clean or lube less than what you describe, and almost certainly shoot even less.

    Your comment about sensitive running machines reminds me of that adage about 1911s being around at a time when labor was a lot cheaper. I don't know if revolver production today is a lot more than it was in older times, but even if it isn't, has modern quality control been able to keep up?
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  2. #102
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    Chris Baker's reflections on things he learned from attending the HiTS Revolver Roundup and Rangemaster's Defensive Revolver, 2016.

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  3. #103
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    Quote Originally Posted by Yung View Post
    ...snip...

    There are good question as far as whether the squib in that class as described by Mr. Weems would have have been enough to deadline a semi-auto.

    ...snip...

    Your comment about sensitive running machines reminds me of that adage about 1911s being around at a time when labor was a lot cheaper. I don't know if revolver production today is a lot more than it was in older times, but even if it isn't, has modern quality control been able to keep up?
    Hey, Yung!

    Squibs and deadlining:

    this happened to me once in a Kframe revolver from a reload I made that had no powder in the case. The primer pushed the bullet into the forcing cone, where the nose contacted the rifling and stopped, leaving the rear of the bullet in the chamber mouth and locking up the revolver but good. It did *not* require a gunsmith to clear, but it did require a wooden dowel down the barrel and a solid thunk with a rubber mallet to knock it back into the chamber. Since I had neither mallet or dowel at the range, shooting with that gun was done for the day.

    Similar situations I have seen in other guns:

    a semiauto 9mm, loading the first round of the day from the magazine with a reloaded lead round. The loading cycle felt off, so I stopped and tried to clear the round. It resisted clearing and then when more force was applied to the slide, the bullet pulled from the cartridge and remained lodged in the chamber mouth, locked in place by engraving on the rifling. What had happened was I was shooting a pistol with a particularly short throat, and shooting reloads made by my reloading mentor for a different gun with a standard length throat. My reloads with the same bullet worked in that gun, but his did not because they were seated too long for my chamber. The same remedy was required as with the previous squib .38 round: a wooden dowel and rubber mallet, which I happened to have in my range bag. Without the proper tools, it would have needed to wait till I got home to my workbench.

    A bolt action rifle: while developing loads for a new bolt action, I checked bullet seat length in a couple of ways - micrometer and by chambering the round. A bullet that was seated too long while I was in this process engraved on the rifling and stuck in the chamber, pulling from the case when extracted in much the same way as the previous 9mm. A cleaning rod from the muzzle and light tap with the heel of my hand was required to clear it.

    Each case required knowledge and tools to clear. Without those tools, each gun was deadlined. None were field clearable by things I normally carry except sometimes at the range. Each was also the result of either a mistake in reloading, or a reloaded cartridge with an incorrect cartridge length for that chamber. Each of those guns has since fired a pile of reloaded rounds without a problem.

    Bottom line: the squib described in that class would have deadlined a semiauto pistol, too, until tools could remediate the issue. In either case, revolver or semiauto, if the squib had lodged far enough into the barrel to allow the next round to fire, a catastrophic failure or bulged/ruined barrel would have occurred.

    Second section of your quote: those running modern CNC-produced revolvers (S&W, Ruger, Colt - Kimber?) seem to be doing fine. My newest revolver is a S&W made in 2003, and has fired a pile of factory and reloaded ammunition with never a problem.
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  4. #104
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    Quote Originally Posted by Duelist View Post
    Hey, Yung!

    Squibs and deadlining:

    this happened to me once in a Kframe revolver from a reload I made that had no powder in the case. The primer pushed the bullet into the forcing cone, where the nose contacted the rifling and stopped, leaving the rear of the bullet in the chamber mouth and locking up the revolver but good. It did *not* require a gunsmith to clear, but it did require a wooden dowel down the barrel and a solid thunk with a rubber mallet to knock it back into the chamber. Since I had neither mallet or dowel at the range, shooting with that gun was done for the day.

    Similar situations I have seen in other guns:

    a semiauto 9mm, loading the first round of the day from the magazine with a reloaded lead round. The loading cycle felt off, so I stopped and tried to clear the round. It resisted clearing and then when more force was applied to the slide, the bullet pulled from the cartridge and remained lodged in the chamber mouth, locked in place by engraving on the rifling. What had happened was I was shooting a pistol with a particularly short throat, and shooting reloads made by my reloading mentor for a different gun with a standard length throat. My reloads with the same bullet worked in that gun, but his did not because they were seated too long for my chamber. The same remedy was required as with the previous squib .38 round: a wooden dowel and rubber mallet, which I happened to have in my range bag. Without the proper tools, it would have needed to wait till I got home to my workbench.

    A bolt action rifle: while developing loads for a new bolt action, I checked bullet seat length in a couple of ways - micrometer and by chambering the round. A bullet that was seated too long while I was in this process engraved on the rifling and stuck in the chamber, pulling from the case when extracted in much the same way as the previous 9mm. A cleaning rod from the muzzle and light tap with the heel of my hand was required to clear it.

    Each case required knowledge and tools to clear. Without those tools, each gun was deadlined. None were field clearable by things I normally carry except sometimes at the range. Each was also the result of either a mistake in reloading, or a reloaded cartridge with an incorrect cartridge length for that chamber. Each of those guns has since fired a pile of reloaded rounds without a problem.

    Bottom line: the squib described in that class would have deadlined a semiauto pistol, too, until tools could remediate the issue. In either case, revolver or semiauto, if the squib had lodged far enough into the barrel to allow the next round to fire, a catastrophic failure or bulged/ruined barrel would have occurred.

    Second section of your quote: those running modern CNC-produced revolvers (S&W, Ruger, Colt - Kimber?) seem to be doing fine. My newest revolver is a S&W made in 2003, and has fired a pile of factory and reloaded ammunition with never a problem.
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    This was a reloading snafu from a few years ago with an ugly 3” M29-3.
    Needless to say, that would have been a mess in a life threatening situation if a BUG were not on board.
    I have since bought and carry a Mondanock D’Jammer have used it once to clear an empty case from a deputy’s Glock that somehow got in the chamber backwards.
    Last edited by deputyG23; 01-01-2021 at 08:18 AM.
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  5. #105
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    Reading the thread has given me a feeling of unease. It seems that it's posters don't always see each others' intent. I can't put my finger on it except to say that we may have argued too much. I can shoot either style with either hand but have never fired a shot in anger. I'm really good at managing drunks and nuts. So I ain't qualified to say much. One poster has shot for his life in close quarters combat. How many times? Another has shot for his life on the streets. Others here have been in gunfights but have not posted. One poster who prefers pistols but not revolvers has attended classes and trains.

    Here the weather is cold, wet, and nasty. My wife is making tortillas and is cooking up a big skillet of eggs and chorizo. After I eat, I'm driving out to a remote place. There I will stunt shoot my revolvers and pistols at small targets at great range. I will shoot rocks, stumps, and dirt clods. Once I recommended to a young woman that she buy a Ruger single action Vaquero for home defense. She did and shoots it recreationally. When I told some guy about my suggestion, he said what if she forgets to cock it. Sometimes you just can't win.
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  6. #106
    Member gato naranja's Avatar
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    Several years ago I was witness to a minty '98 Mauser in 7x57 get a bullet lodged in the barrel during a range session, and it took considerable effort to remove said bullet. An excellent, proven gun, name-brand factory ammo and a conscientious operator... the glitch should not have happened, but it did. That shooter and myself both felt that if something could go wrong with gold standards like the '98 Mauser and "X" ammunition, then something could go wrong with any firearm.

    In 50+ years of messing about with guns, you see some dandy situations. I would say that revolver and semiautomatic pistol malfunctions I have witnessed have occurred at roughly the same percentages; I see far more semiautomatic problems nowadays, simply because the current demographics where I shoot ensure such a situation. I personally don't have any real love for revolvers because every one I have ever owned seems to have loosened up on me with endshake or indexing issues despite my TLC, and that really chaps my hide...

    ...but I still have uses for them.

    The old-timers of my youth were not generally handgun aficionados, but the ones I knew well almost all owned good quality (I include the better grade H&R and I-J pieces simply because they were giving good service at the time I am speaking of) .22 rimfire revolvers of a roughly 6" barrel length. They were multi-purpose guns by necessity, and they were expected to handle whatever .22 ammunition was available, including the eclectic mixture of odds and ends collecting airborne particles in the old coffee can on a shelf just inside the door of the barn or garage. From plinking to small game hunting, pest control to slaughtering livestock, it was the "one gun to do it all" up until enough Ruger semiautos joined the Colt and High Standard semiautos already out there in smaller numbers. That was also when rural/small-town America began to change rapidly. The semiautos would not handle birdshot, would not handle S, L and LR rounds reliably, and - in that time/place - magazines were considered expensive and certainly not disposable; the semiautos were also less tolerant of careless/thoughtless handling, though that was a human element being introduced.

    Yes, I am painting with a good-sized brush, but it was, nonetheless, a "thing." The two types of handguns were somewhat like hammers: you didn't use a carpenter's claw hammer in place of a machinist's ball peen hammer (and vice-versa). At least you didn't if you knew any better. I suspect that while knowledge increases, common sense is a constant, and change in that respect is unlikely until we are all microchipped and/or our DNA altered "for our own good" until we really are just interchangeable drones in the hive and it won't matter anymore. At that point nobody will have revolvers or semi autos to fight about.

    ---

    Before the advent of the Glock and their revival of the idea of building QC into the tooling, the big upheavals among the brethren were "pre-'64" Winchesters and post-WWII firearms in general. "They don't make them like they used to" versus "better than ever" springs eternal. I personally consider the advent of CNC machining as just another tool in the box to help chase the chimera of absolutely interchangeable components with zero + or - tolerances. I got lemons then, I get lemons now. I just happen to have bought more semiautomatic lemons* lately than in the old days because I have bought more semiautomatics lately.

    *My momma said, "If you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything at all." So I never talk about the Walther P-22.
    Last edited by gato naranja; 01-01-2021 at 09:58 AM.
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  7. #107
    The Nostomaniac 03RN's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wake27 View Post
    You’ve had multiple instances where you were the only one in an enclosed area with enemy and were reloading a SAW or shotgun?
    The time with the SAW lead to a muzzle thump to the face
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  8. #108
    Quote Originally Posted by 03RN View Post
    The time with the SAW lead to a muzzle thump to the face
    It is pretty funny how the application of a thump to the noggin' (or the threat thereof) can change a whole conversation.



    I can personally attest that 1911s are quite good for that too, but apparently they are no longer relevant, much like revolvers.

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  9. #109
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    Quote Originally Posted by willie View Post
    Reading the thread has given me a feeling of unease. It seems that it's posters don't always see each others' intent. I can't put my finger on it except to say that we may have argued too much.

    ...

    Once I recommended to a young woman that she buy a Ruger single action Vaquero for home defense. She did and shoots it recreationally. When I told some guy about my suggestion, he said what if she forgets to cock it. Sometimes you just can't win.
    Consider reevaluating the idea that not having 'fired a shot in anger' diminishes the weight your opinions hold.

    It's never about winning. Was this person aware that the Vaquero is a single-action only? What was your reply to him?

    Spirited argument in revisiting old topics should not unsettle you; it is one of the ways that this body of knowledge keeps itself from becoming dogma and students from turning dogmatic. Bear in mind this particular thread is focusing on equipment, which in the long run matters a lot less than techniques and tactics (John Holschen etc. etc.).
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  10. #110
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    I've read through all eleven pages of this thread and two quotes come to mind:

    "You are entitled to your own opinion, but you aren't entitled to your own facts."

    and

    "The confidence of amateurs is the envy of professionals."

    I don't know the original authors but they strike the nail upon the flat part.

    Dave
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