Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Ye Olde Semi-Auto vs Revolver Reliability Debate #357.45

Relax, I'm not judging you.
I own firearms with manual safeties and am perfectly happy with the concept. It was an honest question to understand the reasoning in adding an aftermarket safety to a factory gun I'm not familiar with.

Sig P220 for reliability and power.

We're getting a little off track here but still being pretty civil. With a revolver the gun, even still loaded is going to have the hammer down on an empty so holstering isn't going to be too dangerous for the most part. With the semi auto if we holster a hot gun with no safety which is what happened in the 2 cases I'm talking about it's a possibility (maybe rare) that we get an AD while holstering the gun.
I shot with Elgin Gates many times & all he ever shot was Auto Mags & they never lacked for power. One day he tied the existing worlds record with that 44 Auto Mag with that crazy knees up style that he used. Semi Auto's could take those rams down as easy as any gun on the firing line.

Dick

Okay, I'll go with that.

When I tried the P320, the trigger felt to me like it was approaching that of a 1911. If I intended to carry the pistol always in a holster, which I agree is ideal, I wouldn't have a problem with it the way it is. But my particular reason for even considering the X10 includes some other methods of carry some of the time. I'm quite used to wiping the safety off on a 1911, so any similar safety is not a detriment to me. Further, although I strongly doubt the reports of the 320 firing without any pressure on the trigger, a manual safety would add peace of mind. That part may be irrational, but IMO it's also harmless......IF the safety is a well designed one that works as well as the ones I find on my 1911s.

I have several pistols that neither have nor IMO need a manual safety, and find no conflict in using both systems. The safety always gets "wiped off" at the correct time, whether it's there or not.

It's true that the triggers on DA revolvers are less likely to be fully pressed by a foreign object while holstering than those of many autos. But we all should know by now that this is a software problem - which, BTW, has nothing to do with reliability.

A few comments about semi autos and revolvers.

These are generalities and there will always be some notable exception. Revolvers can be left for very long periods of time, loaded. They can have whatever lubrication that was applied to them dry up, and they will still tend to function reasonably well, when pulled from a drawer, or wherever they were stored. There are reliable in that fashion.

Where they fail in terms of operational reliability is when they get shot repeatedly in a somewhat quick succession, without any preventative maintenance.

If you take your basic K Frame Model 19 and 2000 rounds of ammo, and your basic Model 19 Glock 9mm and 2000 rounds of ammo, and shoot them side by side, the odds of the K Frame going the full 2000 rounds before it malfunctions are slim to none. In fact, odds are if you are shooting it in a non stop fashion, such as in a typical training environment, the odds are it will not reach 500 rounds, before it binds up.

Just about any experienced revolver shooter will tell you that they kept a tooth brush for in between shooting stages at a match, and you cleaned the crud out of your gun in between stages. When guys carried wheelguns for work, a toothbrush was pretty much always on the line. Guys cleaned their guns in between practicing and the actual qualifications. If they didn't, there was a good chance of having an issue.

With your typical polymer service auto, as long as it has been properly lubricated, they generally will go 2000 rounds without cleaning. I have seen some absolutely filthy guns that were a testament to both the excellent design and the true laziness of some of the owners.

Where semi autos do take a back seat is their ability to digest various types of ammunition. The revolver, due to its design will simply fire pretty much anything it can chamber. That is certainly not the case with the semi auto. There is a balancing act going on and the ammo has to have sufficient power to complete the cycle of operations that is happening with a semi auto handgun.

Some semi autos are exceedingly reliable though. In the early 2000s, I was asked to go to a training facility to evaluate the place for the owner. He/his organization had multiple .mil contacts on the special warfare side and he needed an honest eval done.

Long story short, I went for 5 days. Took my service gun which at the time was a .45 caliber Glock. In 3.5 days I fired over 5,000 rounds through it. It was cleaned initially but after that the only thing I did was add oil. I wanted to see how long it would take before it would malfunction. Aside from adding oil, the only other thing I did was wipe off the front tritium night sight for the kill house stuff, as the whole front of the gun was black with gunpowder residue. I was shooting very warm 230 grain Blazer ball. The gun never malfunctioned.


Some will say that brand X never malfunctions or breaks, and that they were issued brand y, so it is the best. Personally I have seen literally every major high quality brand fail at one point in time or another. S&W revolvers will tie up. Colt 1911s will choke. Glocks will fail, H&Ks will go down, Ruger revolvers will break. If it is mechanical and made by a man, and you use it long enough, it can and will break.

As far as the odds of that happening, well chances are if you purchase a good quality tool right from the start, and maintain it properly, odds are you will be fine. I have a couple guns that have north of 50K rounds through them. They have parts replaced as needed, and they still run perfectly fine. These days I don't shoot a fraction of the amount of rounds that I used to, as I am not paid to shoot, and there are no connex boxes full of ammo. Plus my hands, wrists and elbows are paying for the abuse of doing that stuff for a living.

Pick a good tool, maintain it, shoot it, shoot it a lot more. Get really really good with it, and don't worry what others think about what is best.

That should be the end of the discussion.

I agree, words to live by.

Well said, and I agree with you.