MudderChuck

It is always a compromise between speed and accuracy. Just an observation, many people when they have a lot of rounds available, tend to opt for speed over accuracy. I've seen it in competitions many times.

Maybe my reasoning is faulty, but it has worked out for me so far. I taught basic pistol in the military. The average population are generally poor pistol shots, best guess is 97% plus have little talent for it and fewer still have practiced enough to be marginally competent. The chances of whomever is pointing a pistol at you from from farther away than 10-15 feet and actually hitting their target is slim. Your task is to hit what you are aiming at first, even if it takes longer to get the first shot off. A little Adrenalin is actually a plus if you have trained enough.

I've seen a lot of people train wrong. Many think it is the number of rounds you fire that counts, like if you shoot enough bullets you are magically going to become competent. This might work if you are one of the lucky 3% that actually have an aptitude for it. The average Joe is much better off practicing accuracy, the speed will eventually take care of itself. I don't aim for the torso, I aim for a button.

A pistol isn't an offensive weapon, when they get inside rifle or shotgun range, just before it turns into knives, fists or teeth is when a pistol is useful.

The guy that taught me once said, you have to have options, when you run out of options is when things get really deadly. He also taught me the reason the military does so much running is training for the the retreat and not the attack. He also taught me, immediate action is to take cover, if no cover is available conceal yourself, if there is no place to run and no place to hide, attack. The only real winner in any confrontation is the survivor.

Giant Cajones are useless unless you survive long enough to put them to their intended use and reproduce.

Oldtimr

This was a pretty serious discussion until the last several posts!

d80hunter

Training and practice trumps which is better for the individual. Carrying a pistol or revolver comfortably and undetectable is fine enough because not carrying is far worse than being undergunned.

Oldtimr

The only BS I have seen on this thread came from you. One post after another 5,6, 7 in a row, all saying nothing. Congratulations, you have managed to run a good thread into the ground.

cjclemens

"Revolvers will get you killed" is an absolute statement. When SHTF, and things go wrong, nothing is absolute. It doesn't matter if the sample size is 1 or a million - each situation is unique, with thousands of possible outcomes. You can't plan for, or anticipate all of them, and carrying more ammo doesn't necessarily make you more ready or prepared. Besides, its just as easy to carry extra speed loaders for a revolver, as it is to carry extra mags for an autoloader. Furthermore, there are a lot of compact autoloaders on the market that don't hold many more rounds than a revolver. Are those gonna get you killed as well? On the flip side, having less ammo is not gonna magically make you more accurate. By that math, we should all be carrying a single-shot. I still say carry what you're comfortable with. Being ready and proficient with your firearm of choice is far more important than how much ammo you're holding.

PS. When I read the OP, I assumed we were all talking in terms of concealed carry firearm choices, because that's really the only situation where you're limited in what you can carry. Now that I've noticed some are talking about home defense, I do have something to add. In your own home, it doesn't really matter if you start out with an autoloader or a revolver. If you don't have an AR, or a 12 gauge shotgun, or a whole bunch of extra ammo strategically located somewhere you can get to easily, I would probably question your life choices.

MudderChuck

I once got caught flat footed bad. We'd just moved into a new house and had contractors and others in and out all the time. I answer the door and two guys with suits are standing there, one says they are there to collect the $5000 I owe them. I told them I had no outstanding bills for $5000, send a bill or call. I was standing door partially opened, foot behind the door and then the guys hit the door together and launched me backwards onto the four steps behind the small foyer. They both marched the length of my body. I laid there stunned for a few seconds. Wife calls down from upstairs, asking who is there. They bound up the stairs, I head for my pistol. Wife screams, they both come stomping down the stairs, I figured they were headed the right direction, away from my wife. I took cover in a doorway, only thing showing was half my head and the pistol. They stop at the bottom of the stairs, staring at my pistol. One guy says to the other, don't worry he won't shoot. I put one into the brick wall right between their heads from around six feet (probably powder tattooed them both). Told them to get the heck out and as far as I was concerned it was shoot on sight the next time I saw either of them. Figured out later they were a pair of leg breakers hired by some guy who the previous owner of the house owed money to.

Like mentioned, each situation is unique. I think of these encounters as most times being pretty darned bizarre to one degree or another.

No castle law here, if I would have shot them I'd be the one in jail.

My front door now has four hinges and nobody is going to kick it in. I never answer the door without looking out of a side window. For years I've had an outside dog that was pretty much a man eater and an inside dog that was pretty much the same. I call it defense in depth.

Twice now I've been trapped between parked cars, one guy in front and two behind. Both times it worked out OK. Like mentioned, situational awareness.

flags

Ever been in a firefight? Lots of unaimed bullets flying around, mostly from guys just pulling the trigger. Aimed shots that hit flesh win gunfights. Always been that way and always will be that way. Firing blindly will make you end up leaking. I want to make the other guy leak so I want to make my shots count.

How many rounds do you think are fired in a military engagement that don't hit anything? During WWII, it was estimated that about 100K rounds of small-arms ammunition were expended per casualty.

CalHunter

Note to self. Retiring in Germany sounds like being in Chicago. Neither one is a good alternative.

As for the respective opinions on revolvers, semi-autos and large capacity semi-autos, everybody has an opinion that is most often based on their particular life experience.

We were initially talking about CCW but Home defense was added which offers more firearm options (rifles & shotguns). Going back to a CCW situation in public (which means a pistol), any pistol is better than none. It's much better to have a pistol that you are familiar with and shoot well than a pistol you don't. Fast misses can get you killed.

I think everybody has their own particular preferences and comfort levels with pistols for CCW. Criticizing another for their choice when such criticism is based on your skillsets/preferences is kind of foolish. Odds are that the other person doesn't have the exact same skillsets or preferences which changes the whole situation.

If a person is more comfortable and shoots better with a revolver, that is what they should carry. The same for a person with a semi-auto pistol or even a large capacity semi. It's what YOU feel comfortable with and shoot best, not what the rest of us think. After all, it's your skin, not ours. And vice versa of course.

Regarding hookeye's gang invasions and BART swarms, yes, more bad guys with guns presents a greater threat with presumably more bad guys shooting at you. But shooting a few of them and taking them down has a huge effect on bad guys. Just about every survey of inmates in prisons that's been done has determined the single thing criminals fear the most is a homeowner with a gun. You might beat the court case, escape the police, etc. but if that homeowner starts shooting, you're the prime target and nobody ducks bullets that well, not even criminals. If you read many of the armed confrontation articles or stories, when people start shooting, criminals start running.

Now there are 2 specific groups of people who won't run when you start shooting--the military and the police. But I'd suggest that if either of those is pursuing you, you have a much bigger problem than any large capacity pistol or even rifle or shotgun is going to solve. Cause they both tend to bring lots of friends with even more guns.

Nomercy448

No argument there, but those points are completely moot and don't address the challenge I raised for you, and others who share your view point.

I've seen these stats trotted out any time folks talk about effectiveness of auto fire vs. slower cycles - usually the "historian" touts out the stats from the Civil War, that over 7 million rounds were fired at Gettysburg to kill ~50,000 soldiers, good for about 140rounds per casualty. Or that the Union commissioned 470 million rounds, and the Confederacy commissioned 70 million rounds (540 mill, for those counting), and only ~625,000 men were killed, good for 864 rounds per casualty... Of course, there's the obligatory statistic from Vietnam of ~52,000rnds/casualty as well... These "historians" tend to cite 864/kill is a lot lower than 50-100,000/kill, so of course, lower round counts are more efficient.

What they don't acknowledge is the cyclic and reload rates, AND they absolutely neglect the SOLDIERS KILLED/engagement statistics. Firing only 860 rounds per kill in the Civil War sure sounds great, until you recall we suffered more casualties in that war than in any other engagement, EVER. So would you rather save money on a low round count and lose another 6% of the US population, or rather run a higher round count and lose less American lives? I know which scenario I'd prefer.

I ask you - as I did previously - prove to me that guys are disabled from "spraying and praying" simply because they have a revolver instead of a pistol?

That's the part I don't buy. If a shooter draws a 642 and pulls until it goes "click," they're not more apt to hit something than a shooter with a G19 which does the same. The only difference, in the end, will be that one fired 5 and one fired 15.

I'll also contest - do you really feel that war fighting round count statistics are applicable for self defense? Most self defense scenarios are NOT battlefield "firefights," to which I assume you'd agree. "Suppressing fire" and "covering fire" aren't common for a self defense scenario, nor is machine gun fire (or any other fully automatic or burst fire, for that matter), nor are 100-600yrd ranges, nor is disabling of artillery or vehicles, nor having an entire war fighting force at your side, nor having an entire war fighting force in front of you... We're talking about self-defense scenarios, and concealed carry handguns, NOT talking about battlefield efficiency. If we were, we wouldn't be talking pistols at all anyway, and certainly not talking about revolvers...

Maybe I'll ask it to you this way - for your personal experience, knowing what little I do about you - since you drop the "have you been in a firefight" gauntlet, I assume you HAVE, and knowing you carried automatic rifles when you were - As a shooter who I believe would otherwise be responsible with your round count, did carrying automatic weapons make you "spray and pray?" Or did you remain to be responsible with your round count? Or were there battlefield situations which dictated rounds downrange which didn't necessarily have ONE recipient's name in mind when it was fired?

I will readily agree, a shooter who intends to make the most of his shots, regardless of what he's carrying, would be more apt to worry less about round count, making a revolver a more viable option IN THEIR MIND, and I'd agree, someone who isn't confident in their shooting ability and feels they, "need every round they can get," will be more apt to carry a pistol. But that's about the mentality of the shooter, not about the handgun they're carrying. In this case, A leads to B, B doesn't cause A. Guys who want to spray and pray might pick a pistol, but picking a pistol - IN NO WAY - makes a shooter spray and pray. It simply gives them more option to do so if the situation so dictated.

So again - if you or anyone else can prove to me that carrying a semiauto materially makes a shooter less responsible with their shots (more apt to spray and pray), or equally, prove to me that carrying a revolver materially makes a shooter MORE responsible with their shots, then I'd change my opinion.

d80hunter

Your statement is very true. Any one who trains for combat even down to hand to hand fighting is subject to losing said training when the adrenaline kicks in. Training is only the path leading to possibly the worst moments of one's life. You only really know when you reach that point. Articles like revolvers will get you killed is just speculation as much as not carrying with one in the chamber.

Even for hunters the problem can occur at less intensity, Buck fever has accounted for much lost game.