In my youth I was one cutting-edge dude. IPSC was hot and I had a sweet custom Detonics Scoremaster .45.  The 1911A1 and it’s variants were king among serious combat pistoleros. I went from that to a custom CZ75 clone with a slide-profile compensator, stippled grips and frame and all the bells and whistles. Cutting-edge stuff, and I was the first police officer in the state to carry a comp-gun on duty. I was also one of the first people to run a Glock 17. Yet even then I respected and recognized the utility of the revolver; my back-up was a custom Chief’s Special, DAO with a bobbed hammer and a trigger-job by Tim Bacus. The main reason was that in a pinch I could hand it to any other cop and they’d be able to operate it.

Over the years I’ve owned and fired a lot of guns. Seriously, a lot. The 1911A1 in it’s various incarnations has remained a favorite- I’ve probably put over forty-thousand rounds through different versions. I’ve had Browning High Powers, CZ52s (in both 7.62 and 9mm,) PPKs, PPs, Makarovs, Glocks, CZ75 clones etc. but I always came back to the 1911s.

I’ve never been a ‘revolver guy’ or a ‘semi-auto guy;’ I’ve always been a ‘gun guy.’ Along the way I have owned and carried numerous other guns in different circumstances, many of them revolvers ranging from .32 to .44 Magnum. I absolutely love  the Single-Action Army (in .45 Colt, thank you very much.) I still remember my Ruger Speed Six .357 fondly, and though I’m embarrassed to admit it I’d love to have my Astra Jovino Terminator .44 Magnum snubby back.

I stopped carrying daily many years ago (for reasons we need not go into,) but now I am going to renew my Carry Concealed Pistol permit (for reasons we also need not go into.) I own a number of fine modern handguns and a quite nice 1911A1, yet I find myself leaning towards revolvers as carry pieces. What am I, some kind of dinosaur? Well, yes, but that’s not entirely why I find myself considering the revolver. There are many reasons, and some of them actually make sense.

In all honesty I am good enough with handguns that pretty much anything that fires an adequate bullet will do for me. That being said the first reason for a revolver is simple; I like them. That’s a compelling reason, but it’s not the only reason.

Then there is the manual of arms. All modern revolvers (and most antiques) share a common manual of arms. A very simple one at that. Open gun, dump empties (if any,) fill the holes with cartridges, close and you are ready to go. All speed loaders and strip-loaders operate identically. Regardless of the size and details of the gun you go through exactly the same motions. Even with weird guns like the Chiappa Rhino it’s the same set of motions. Yes, the manual of arms for a 1911a1 is so deeply burned into my brain it’s practically a reflex at this point. Modern automatics are all at least broadly similar and I can easily train to accommodate their individual quirks. But with revolvers I pretty much don’t have to- there really aren’t any real differences. Taurus revolvers work like S&W revolvers work like Ruger revolvers work like Colt revolvers etc. OK, the Colt’s and Rugers have very slightly different cylinder releases. No prob- I wasn’t planning on a Colt or Ruger in the stable any time soon.

Another issue is reliability, and this applies on a number of levels.  Yes, I know the drill for clearing an auto like it’s second nature- but isn’t it better not to need that drill? With a revolver you pull the trigger and it goes BANG. If it doesn’t you have the fastest possible method of proceeding; simply pull the trigger again. Revolvers do malfunction- but the odds of having a malfunction serious enough to disable the gun are statistically insignificant. Modern semi-autos are very good and very reliable but they still do occasionally malfunction.

An area of reliability that most people don’t think of is operation. Revolvers are dead-simple. In the ham-fisted moment of waking, or when fine motor control dissolves under the lash of an adrenaline dump you can’t accidentally drop the magazine, or fumble a safety, or grip the gun badly and cause a limp-wrist malfunction or get your hand caught by the slide. Training will relieve these issues it’s true; but with the revolver they aren’t issues. If you get the gun in your hand and a finger on the trigger it will go boom. They can also be reliably fired from inside a coat or jacket pocket. Yeah, you aren’t going to get target accuracy, but most civilian self-defense scenarios happen at contact distance. Speaking of contact distance you can fire a revolver even with it jammed into your assailant’s body.

Revolvers are also available in potent calibers in compact packages. This is more true of autos than it was even a decade ago; really compact 9mms, .40 S&W and .45 are readily available and not expensive these days, but still. Wait a minute Tinker- are you saying that .38 Special is a ‘potent’ caliber? Yes, I am. For a long time .38 Special has been the ‘weak sister’ of service calibers. But in recent years bullet design has come a long way, and standardized tests with modern .38 Special, even in standard velocity loadings, show performance very comparable to other service calibers. Funnily one of the best performers from snub-nosed .38 Specials is a load that has been around for decades- the 158gr. lead SWCHP. With soft-lead standard velocity loads it’s performance is impressive from a 2″ barrel. In +P form hard-cast lead works even better- though at the cost of slower follow-up shots in a light-weight gun. Of course revolver calibers aren’t limited to .38 Special- they can commonly be had in .357 Magnum, or rather less commonly in calibers ranging from .22 Magnum to 9mm to .45 ACP.

Another beauty of the revolver is that when it comes to ammunition they are thoroughly agnostic. FMC, hollow-points, soft-points, high-powered, low-powered, they just don’t care. If it fits it will go bang. Hollow points for self defense, soft-points for wildlife or game, cheap fmc or cast lead for target practice– it’s all good.

OK, but what about capacity? Even most of the smallest compact service-caliber guns carry six rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. Some carry as many as ten to twelve rounds. OK, ya got me there.  Semi-autos carry usually carry more shots. They reload faster too. Maybe not a lot faster, but faster.  What about that, Tinker?

I don’t care.

No really, I don’t care. When I was a cop the trade-off of a potential for slightly less reliability was offset by the need for a lot of shots. I was part of a rural police department and could not count on my back-up arriving in a timely manner. We also had survivalists, white supremacists, pot farmers and all manner of unsavory sorts within our jurisdiction; a protracted fire-fight was actually a possibility. By choice I carried a 16-shot 9mm comp-gun with two spare magazines of hollow-points and an extra magazine (carried separately) full of some potent armor-piercing ammunition. For a while I also carried the compact version of the comp-gun (which held another twelve hollow-points and could use the same magazines as the comp-gun) as a back-up before I switched to the Chief’s Special. If I were police officer today I’d probably carry a Glock. But I am not a cop or a soldier anymore.

I’m a civilian. For civilians the overwhelming majority of uses of a gun for self-defense do not result in a shooting. When shooting does happen an average of three shots are fired. These encounters generally occur at ranges of three to five feet. I’ve reviewed rather a lot of accounts of civilian self-defense shootings and I honestly cannot recall a single one where the shooter needed to reload. I’m sure it has happened but the odds seem to be overwhelmingly against it. So five to eight primary shots without reloading seems adequate for any situation I’m likely to encounter. If it isn’t I’ll take cover and reload. Let’s face reality though- I will most likely live out my days without ever having to fire another shot in defense of an innocent life, mine or another’s. This begs the question, ‘Then why carry at all?’  That, my friends, is a whole ‘nuther question for a whole other post.

So do I recommend everyone and their sister Sally dump their semi-auto in favor of a revolver? Of course not, nor am I saying that it is foolish or risky to bet your life on a semi-auto. I’m simply pointing out that it’s not insane to choose to carry a revolver. They have been, and remain, a valid and effective tool for self-defense. It’s up to the individual to determine what works for them, and to train with it so that they are an asset rather than a danger to themselves and others.

Hey, speaking of the twenty-first century where’s my damn jet-pack?! There were supposed to be jet-packs!

Ghost-Ring sights are mounted on pistols, shotguns, rifles and submachine guns.Their advocates claim that they allow the user to obtain a sight-picture faster than any other type of sight, excluding optical sights.  As such their most common application is on defensive or combat weapons.  Understand that this is not a conventional peep-sight, where the relatively thick ring obscures a large part of the target. These sights are designed to be used with both eyes open and the primary focal point is the front sight. This makes the rear aperture sight appear translucent, thus the term Ghost Ring.

I’ve been unable to find out who invented this sort of sight, but they have been around for a quite a while now. Their proponents claim they are very fast at target acquisition and their detractors claim that they lack precision. One thing is for certain- they are easy to use. Even used incorrectly they still work pretty well.

For handguns I have always used conventional sights, whether it was for IPSC competition, target shooting, hunting or defensive use. I trained intensively in a technique called the ‘Flash Sight Picture’ method. It’s very effective, very fast and quite precise when one is sufficiently trained. With practice one can obtain a sight picture as fast as they can bring the gun to eye-level. To me this throws the claims of the Ghost Ring being faster into doubt since I can already aim as fast as I can point the pistol. I’ve recently had the occasion to try out the Ghost Ring sight.

This autumn a dear friend passed away and left me one of his carry pistols- a Glock 23 in .40 S&W fitted with a Ghost Ring sight. This gun wasn’t just carried; he used it in tactical shooting courses as well and he swore by it. In his memory I’m not making alterations to the gun- with the exception of an after-market grip mod needed to keep the slide from chewing up my hand. So I tried the Ghost Ring.

For the first couple of shooting sessions I didn’t ‘get it.’ I used it as an aperture sight and it worked OK, but was less precise than I am used to from conventional sights. My wife Linda tried it out and quite liked it, but her testing was limited because she did not enjoy the recoil of the .40 S&W; she has a bad wrist and is used to 9mm.

OK, I’m a little thick, but eventually I realized how to properly use the sight. Both eyes open, focus on the front sight. This made an immediate difference in precision. Whereas at first it was all I could do to keep my shots on an 8-1/2 x 11 sheet of paper at 50 feet, once I was using the sight properly groups shrank to a size more typical of my shooting with conventional sights. This was notably not faster than conventional sights; in fact it was slower because my eyes have not yet mastered the trick of focussing quickly and correctly for this device. I think in time they will; it’s simply a matter of practice.

For me it will be unlikely to ever be quicker than standard sights, but I have a great deal more training than most people. What about people with little training? I took the opportunity to have several other people at various levels of skill try it out at the range. The results were instructive. The more experienced the shooter was the less they liked the Ghost Ring. But people with little experience found it easier to use than conventional sights, and produced results comparable to or better than they were already achieving. Linda’s experience was similar.

I think that boils it down nicely- on handguns at least the Ghost Ring seems to require less training to produce acceptable accuracy for defensive shooting at close range. It may or may not be less precise when a sufficient amount of practice is applied; I haven’t shot it enough to be able to tell. I’ve put 500 rounds through the gun, but I’ve practiced the ‘flash sight picture’ thousands of times.

Is it a ‘better mousetrap?’ Not as far as I can tell. Is it useful and effective? Definitely. I will never part with my friend’s Glock, so there will be plenty of time for me to try it out and form a more complete opinion.

My recent interest in shooting and modifying S&W .38 Safety Hammerless revolvers has spurred interest in top-break revolvers among my friends and raises the question of why there are no modern top-break auto-ejecting revolvers?  It seems like an eminently practical thing- open the action and the shells pop out, drop in a speed-loader or moon clip full of fresh ammo and you are on your way. Better and faster, right? Yes… and no… and maybe.

With only a couple of exceptions top-break revolvers all but disappeared after World War 2.  The only readily available new top-break revolvers are the Uberti copies of 19th Century Smith & Wesson designs- which run right around $1000 US. Later this year North American Arms will be reintroducing a .22 Magnum top-break micro-revolver as well, and as far as new top-breaks on the American market that’s about it. Other than those two if you want a top-break you are pretty much limited to buying an antique. So if these guns are such a good idea why aren’t there more of them? Let’s look at the issues.

Most affordable antique top-breaks in the US are available in low-powered cartridges like .32 S&W and .38 S&W. By todays standards most people consider these to be too anemic for self-defense, and there is no commercially produced defensive ammo in these calibers that is recommended for firing in a top-break revolver. Buffalo-Bore does make defensive ammo in .38 S&W but advise that you restrict it’s use to solid frame revolvers or Webley/Enfield Mk.IV revolvers.  The reason frequently cited for the lack of more powerful .38 S&W ammunition is that the top-break mechanism is ‘too weak’ for larger calibers. What is very often too weak are the guns themselves. Aside from the Webleys the majority of top-break antiques available on the used market can be lumped into Smith & Wesson and ‘other.’  The others include companies like Ivor Johnson, US Revolver, Harrington and Richardson etc. These others are mostly cheap knock-offs of the S&W guns, often using inferior materials like iron instead of steel for major components. Modern ammunition is loaded to be reasonably safe in these inferior guns.

The mechanism is not inherently too weak, as witnessed by Webleys which routinely fire .455 or .45 ACP cartridges, or the Uberti S&W copies that fire .44-40 or .45 Colt. Is it weaker than a solid-frame revolver? Yes, but it isn’t too weak. There have been a few prototypes for modern full-power top-breaks, but thus far none have made it into production. With modern materials and heat-treatment top-break guns could be made for any handgun caliber made today. So why aren’t they?

One reason is mechanical complexity. Auto-ejecting top-breaks have more to go wrong with them than conventional swing-out cylinder revolvers. Mechanical complexity is also expensive- there’s a reason that these guns went out of fashion and those Uberti revolvers cost a thousand dollars.

Another problem is that if you don’t do it right you can have a cartridge slip under the ejector and fall back into the cylinder, preventing you from reloading or even closing the mechanism. This isn’t a big deal on the range, but in combat it is a serious problem. It’s not particularly difficult to clear, but there’s no way to do it quickly.

But the real, largest and fatal flaw of top-break revolvers is simple; modern solid-frame swing-out cylinder designs are better. They are inherently stronger, they are easier to produce and contrary to what you might think they are just as fast to reload with speed-loaders or moon clips.

Say what?!

No, i am not on drugs. Rapidly and reliably reloading either sort of revolver is a two-hand operation that requires training. I do love the top-breaks so I am training- the S&W .38 top-breaks can use J-Frame speed loaders, so I developed a drill for using these. I can go into this in detail another time, but the net result was that with the proper drill for each revolver neither is notably faster than the other.  A person that is pretty good at a reliable reloading method with either sort of gun should be able to manage a reload in about 4-1/2 seconds. Someone really dedicated might shave a second off that, especially using a competition set-up where the reload is very easy to access. The best revolver shooter I’ve ever seen was able to reload a S&W 25-2 .45ACP revolver, using a competition gun-belt, in 2 seconds. I think it might be possible to achieve a similar level of proficiency with the right top-break, especially a longer-barreled example like a Webley reground to accept .45 ACP moon-clips. I honestly cannot see it happening faster than that, and repeatedly slamming the action open one-handed would accelerate wear on what is already an antique gun.

So basically the reason for the lack of modern top-break revolvers is simple- they are more complex, more expensive and offer no practical advantage. It’s sad- I would love to see a modern production Safety Hammerless, made with modern material science, chambered to take 9x19mm in star clips. But I doubt I’d love it enough to pay more than twice the cost of a conventional revolver to get it.