In Praise of the Revolver
In choosing a handgun for the home or concealed carry I recommend 110-year-old technology:
The double action revolver.
Advantages vs. the semi-auto pistol:
1) Ease of use--in the gravest extreme, under the most compressed stress you will ever experience, there are no safeties to operate, no adjustments of trigger pull for the second shot (double action auto), just put front sight on center of mass and press trigger.
2) Grips--grips can be customized with ease to a perfect fit, so that when you naturally grasp the piece the front sight goes neither too high or low. Not true of my Glock, or most other semi-autos I've handled.
3) Practice--Practice is the most important and most generally neglected part of shooting to save your life. The revolver dry fires in the same way it live fires, so that one can get unlimited free practice in aiming and operation. The semi-auto must be unnaturally cocked during dry fire.
Disadvantages: Ammunition capacity. The semi-auto generally has from one to 10 more shots available without reloading than the five or six in the revolver. Unless you're defending Fort Apache or The Alamo, this is a factor less than one percent of the time in civilian defense shootings. See 3) above; if your shots hit their target, reloading will hardly ever be needed. Get a couple of speed loaders and practice with them anyway. They take one or two seconds more to reload, with practice, than a semi-auto magazine.
By the way, the above image is of a Smith & Wesson, but there are plenty of other fine choices, especially on the used gun market.
Just make sure a gunsmith inspects your used revolver before trusting it with your life. Shoot straight, and have fun!
(Cross-posted at Eternity Road)
5 comments:
A friend of mine has been educating me in such things and has a partial solution for the 6-round limit with revolvers: some carry 7 or 8. Now, they're big, but as a slightly oversized human with hands to match, I can manage such a slab of metal without much trouble. The weight also reduces the kick a certain amount, of course.
While, as you point out, home defense very rarely involves emptying a 6-shooter, having that extra 1 means it doesn't matter if the punk feels lucky: he's not.
Addendum:
This model carries 7 rounds.
This one's capacity is 8. It's enormous.
Further recommendations he sent me on the topic:
Blue might look cool, but stainless is easier to care for.
4" barrel is probably the best: longer is unwieldy, but shorter sacrifices too much power.
For home defense, stay with .357 ammo.
All fine advice, and a nice addition to this post.
For at home the size doesn't matter too much, but if you carry concealed the two in the photos are hard to beat--only five shots, though.
wahrheit,
You are right that for home defense the size doesn't matter much. For that reason the short barrel shotgun in the 12 ga 00 buck version is excellent (mossberg 590). The excitement of confronting an intruder in your home contributes to inaccuracy when using a hand gun. The down side is the cleanup post incident (yuk) after application of the 590. I have the option of a Tec 9 with 33 round capacity. By the way my sources tell me that our own personal bad guy is now in the end stages of pancreatic cancer induced by ingestion of a surfeit of "substances" :o)
pls see my comments at the new blogger:
http://chessvortex.blogspot.com/
sorry, im too damn tired to do an embed link, but its in the comments.
i know him from CTS well, and several emails. another smart guy, like you!
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