Think revolvers are "outdated" and gone for good? Or will they make a big comeback

You don't need to make a comeback if you never left. Sure Law Enforcement has gravitated to the hi cap polymer auto, but that is not the whole enchilada.The revolver will never be a tool of law enforcement again. The civilian market is another thing entirely. Hicap civilian guns are being legislated out of civilian hands. Big chunky guns holding 10 rounds or less are going to fade out. Sure there will be some small polymer semiautos for ccw ,but , there is no better compromise between size and power than a 2 inch 38 revolver. For field and outdoor use , the revolver is king. always has been and always will. Ruger , S&W ,and Taurus know this, Colt apparently does not. New shooters ,especially , the growing market of female shooters ,are better served with a revolver. My daughters and my wife are expressing interest in handguns , I will start them off with a S&W 34 , and move on from there. I predict you will see more 22 da ,and I am betting that someone is going to resurrect the H&R Sportsman in blue and stainless versions. The revolver is here to stay ,period. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I think that in any discussion of this type we pistol men should recognize that, firearm popularity, like the length of women’s skirts or the width of lapels is largely a matter of fashion not function. Particularly now, in the media age, never underestimate the power of the media to influence mass consumption. Consider the following examples:

By 1950 the single action revolver was dead as a dodo. Any knowledgeable “gun crank” would have told you that the single action was old news and yesterday’s design, far outclassed by the double action revolver. Colt SAAs could be purchased cheaply in second hand stores and pawn shops. The future was the 357 Magnum double action revolver, with target grade double action .38 Specials popular also. Then out of nowhere, in the mid-50s a new entertainment medium called television flooded the airways with dozens of western TV shows and suddenly the single action revolver enjoyed popularity even greater than its design heyday in the 1870s or 1880s. Colt was forced to retool and resume production of the SAA, a young fellow named Bill Ruger introduced a modern design of a single action revolver, first in .22 rim fire then in center fire, and built a gun company from the profits. The demand was so great that single action Colt copies were produced both here and overseas. Was this shift in handgun tastes the result of the shooting public acknowledging the strengths of the single action revolver? No, it was media exposure.

By 1971, the .44 Magnum revolver had been around for 16 years and had developed a small but enthusiastic following primarily as a hunting pistol. Smith and Wesson produced small quantities of the big revolver, which, while not commonplace, weren’t rare either. Then Clint Eastwood made “Dirty Harry” and Model 29s became impossible to find for a decade. (As an aside, I recently read a column at Field and Stream and discovered that the original actor scheduled to play Harry was Frank Sinatra, and that his trademark weapon was a 12 gauge shotgun. I don’t know how or why this got changed into the iconic .44 Magnum revolver, but I doubt old blue eyes could have done for the sawed off squaw gun what Eastwood did for the .44)

By the 1960s, the M1911A1 auto pistol was generally regarded as an obsolescent relic of the world wars and useful primarily as the foundation of a specialized bulls eye target gun. Then Jeff Cooper came along, invented a new shooting game that played to the old .45’s strengths, and with a pseudo-scientific training program and some stopping power mumbo jumbo turned the old horse cavalry pistol into a sort of “America’s pistol” by the 1980s.

Law enforcement taste in handguns is similarly capricious. Generally the police will use whatever handgun the FBI tells them to use and more importantly, whatever handgun they are subsidized to use by tax revenues. Tax revenues are declining. Some of the bigger departments (NYC, Chicago and LA) might go off on their own but they won’t stray too far from the federal fold and all that nice Homeland Security money, which motivates the smaller law enforcement organizations as well. Since law enforcement is so political, all it would take is one “incident” (or law enforcement fiasco) to cause a huge change in law enforcement handguns. Think of a Glock or other polymer frame “kaboom” incident at a particularly inopportune time and you could very well see the john laws ditching the polymer pistols for something else. Voters may also tire of the increasing militarization of the police and demand that local police forces once again resemble peace officers rather than an occupying army.

As Elmer Keith pointed out years ago, the auto pistol is dependent on perfect ammunition for functional reliability. Generally overlooked in the auto pistol vs. revolver debate is the fact that high quality dependable ammunition has been readily available, relatively inexpensively, for decades now. That may be changing however; in my part of the country, some pistol ammunition and rim fire ammunition is still (almost 9 months later) hard to come by in the wake of the Sandy Hook fiasco. Reloading components are similarly still in short supply; if one is forced to shoot reloads only, the revolver starts looking a lot more efficient than the self-loader. In a pinch the revolver will still perform if loaded with black powder or a black powder substitute. The self loader won’t.

The fact also remains that there are some things the revolver does well that the auto loader doesn’t do quite as efficiently. The auto loader can’t quite deliver the handiness, reliability and power of the snub nosed revolver for example. The revolver is also the preferred platform for the high powered handgun cartridges such as the magnum revolver loads.

I think the DA revolver will be with us for a longtime to come and depending on the vicissitudes of the political market place, could very well make a big comeback.

Chaffee said:

I like revolvers.............I also like clinging to the past .

It's nostalgia, and the fact that I like the look/feel/history of revolvers over autos. I don't need to carry since I rarely leave the house and highly doubt I'll ever need 6 shots let alone 15.

The fact is that for me, I just don't have any interest in 99.9% of autos. One I'd like to get? A Nambu. Go figure!

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Like you, I figured I needed to own at least one Nambu, and this one fit the bill. Low serial number and very nice early workmanship as it was made in September of 1927. Came with the early style holster and capture papers.

Boge said:

Unless someone has "seen the Elephant" I think it a little unrealistic (if not delusional) that they can whimsically state that they feel confident they can survive the melee with a mere five or six shots that they really "feel" that they can deliver with Camp Perry precision in said circumstances. Far better to error on the side of caution and assume the worst as truth be known most people are lucky to hit a bus at ten yards under duress, let alone a moving and unpredictable assailant at night in a strange location.

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I'm a revolver shooter who takes revolvers seriously. I didn't read completely through this thread earlier. In the spirit of Forum debate, I feel the need to pontificate on behalf of the revolver shooters.

I think it is unrealistic (and downright delusional) to worship at the alter of high-capacity "spray-'n-pray," while categorically stating that revolver shooters are only indulging in whimsical amusement to tote their favored sidearm in confidence. It is not unrealistic to carry a revolver with the confidence that one can effectively provide for his own self-defense. A revolver is a repeating firearm, after all. After a lifetime of shooting, competing, and hunting I am certain that I can materially and positively affect the outcome of any melee with the six shots available in my favorite revolvers and I'm not even the most skillful handgunner to be found here on Colt Forum. I don't "feel" like assuming the worst. It's not a given that skills have to fall apart to the point that one cannot hit a bus at 10 yards and, if skills deteriorate to that extent then neither 6 shots nor 60 shots will likely satisfy.

It isn't as if the revolver shooter is standing in the midst of a square mile of West Texas flatland ( The Driveabout: In Which the Scenery Gets Weirder and Weirder ) stark naked, unarmed and completely surrounded by evil gangbangers equipped with sub-guns. Such scenarios seem to always be conjured up though in firearms forums self defense discussions and the one just given is only a slight exaggeration.

The prudent person is erring on the side of caution by arming himself and not by assuming the worst. If a good revolver man can bring his favored revolver to bear, then the assailant(s) have just acquired a new set of problems all his own. If the revolver shooter registers the first good hit(s) then it won't matter if the bad guy(s) has revolvers of his own or an H&K MP 5. If the bad guy(s) effectively hit the revolver shooter before he can use his revolver to good effect than it won't have mattered what sort of handgun he chose. He's having a bad day at that point. Sometimes that's just the way the cookie crumbles.

And the bad guys aren't just going to stand there like stone statues once the disciplined revolver shooter brings his gun to bear. They're going to be 'jumpin' and "fetchin'" as well. There is also a certain level of duress to be experienced by someone facing an aggravated revolver.

It's not an incorrect notion to take comfort in the ammunition contained within the high-capacity automatic if that satisfies one's perceptions. It's also neither unrealistic or imprudent to have confidence in one's revolver and his abilities to use it.

A personal favorite revolver


Other revolvers carried with fair regularity.






It doesn't matter if revolvers make a comeback or not. They're still in style around here and will remain so for my lifetime.

Well, then there's the odd automatic that occasionally goes along.