Pistol versus Revolver

One of the accepted things that you are taught if you work in a gun store is that you push new shooters and women toward the revolver counter. I'm not saying it's right and I'm not saying it happens 100% of the time, but it does seem to be the norm. I was listening to one of my favorite gun podcasts the other day and the host was railing against this. He said that he thought that a double action revolver was the worst choice you could make for a new shooter. He was specifically talking about female new shooters. I want to state my personal opinion on this.

The first thing is that people seem to make a lot of assumptions about gun choice based on gender. They assume a female shooter will have weaker upper body strength, will be more recoil sensitive and less likely to take up shooting as a hobby. I'd have to say that as a general rule, my experience has been that these are all true, BUT I've seen enough exceptions to have learned not to assume anything.

The logic behind pushing female shooters and new shooters to revolvers is that they are easier to operate, less likely to have a mechanical problem and need less maintenance. You can load a revolver, stick it in your nightstand and forget about it for years and it still work fine. The problem with that is that no gun should be just left loaded for years. If you own a gun for self defense, you should be practicing with it. You should know how it works inside and out. You should be taking it out to clean it and inspect it at least monthly and preferably shoot it monthly. If you do that, there is no real advantage to a revolver over a pistol.

In fact, there are several disadvantages. First, revolvers in general have more recoil. With a pistol, the motion of the slide absorbs some of the felt recoil. With a revolver, the only thing absorbing recoil is you. Second, revolvers have lower capacity and are harder and slower to reload if you run out of ammo. Lastly, a revolver may fail less often, but when it does fail it is much harder to quickly get it back into the fight than a pistol.

Now, please don't take this as a slam on revolvers. I love revolvers. I own several of them. I like shooting them more, because the slower reload and lower capacity makes me take my time at the range and concentrate more on my shooting skills and less on seeing how many rounds I can spray down range. In fact, I have my daily concealed carry gun within arms reach of me as I write this and it is a 5-shot .38 Special J-frame revolver. I just disagree that gun shop employees (and when I was one, I was guilt of it too) should steer people toward them. Instead, I think they should explain that a gun you don't practice with and understand will not do you any good if the time comes to defend yourself. If you do practice with your gun and train with your gun, either will do the job well.