What type of revolver should i buy

This cylinder turns on a pivot pin in the center to align each hole in the cylinder in turn with the barrel and the firing mechanism. The first recorded revolver is an 8-shot, manually rotated, flintlock revolver made in It belonged to the officer Georg von Reichwein from Hessen in Germany.

The modern design revolver has been around since when Sam Colt was bored while crossing the ocean on a slow boat and carved out a wooden model of a revolver. He is arguably said to have invented the modern revolver with that model. By he was producing the Colt Patterson, named for Patterson, N. A neat feature on this gun was that the trigger was hidden inside the frame until the gun was cocked.

Colt made a huge mistake when he dismissed an idea from one of his gunsmiths, Rollin White. They patented his invention and blocked Colt from building cartridge firearms for almost 20 years. It was that concept—drilled-through cylinders to allow the use of pre-loaded cartridges—which launched the revolver into what we see as the modern design.

Of course there have been a multitude of improvements and changes, but if you put a revolver from today next to one from the late eighteen hundreds it is easy to tell they are the same species. The Smith and Wesson Model 1 was the first revolver to use self-contained cartridges. Later, in after the patent ran out, Colt introduced the Single Action Army pistol, perhaps the most famous revolver in history.

Colt made them equal. The Single Action Army Colt, along with the. While these are mostly for outdoorsmen, some of these guns could also be considered the best concealed carry revolvers. Certainly, some of these are perfect for protection against lions and tigers and bears in the wilderness. Many of them work pretty well for two-legged threats, too.

There had long been rumors of a new and more powerful cartridge called the. Then, in the eighties, Freedom Arms in Wyoming started making revolvers. Of course, I had to have one. It took a while as the Freedom Arms revolvers are not cheap. But they are worth every penny. They are built with the precision of a Swiss watch and the strength of an Abrams Tank. My first Freedom Arms Model 83 came with a standard 7. I mounted a Leupold scope on it with a J.

I have lost count of the critters I have shot with that Model Deer, bears, hogs plus a lot of smaller game. I have shot it a bunch at the range working up loads and practicing, yet that gun is just as tight as the day I got it 33 years ago. Another time I shot a south Alabama whitetail with the revolver. Later another guy in the camp was tracking a deer he had wounded. The skimpy blood trail had given him hours of frustration until it intersected the one from my deer. I have others now.

Another 5-inch barrel,. The introduction of the. Sure Elmer Keith was hot-rodding the. It was a wonderful piece of gun making art. As an aside, I once had a chance to buy one for a few peanuts. But I had a new job, a new house and a new kid. I had no peanuts. The large frame, called the N frame, is a bit of a heavy handgun in.

Designed for cops, this was also a gun for hunters and outdoorsmen. It was meant to be carried. Most outdoorsmen never shot that much anyway. Neither did cops, for that matter. I used it for PPC competition with. For many years I carried it whenever I was out and about in the woods. With that handgun and handloaded ammo I have taken every critter legal to shoot in my home state of Vermont, except a bobcat and a black bear.

I truly believe that cartridges and guns have soul mates. For example the. They are symbiotic and one would not have survived without the other. They are a perfect match. For the. This beefier handgun remains one of the top hunting handguns ever made. That it fell to pieces if shot too much was one. That surfaced when Handgun Metallic Silhouette shooting took off in the late seventies. The Super Blackhawk is kind of like a rock, in that you need to work very hard to break it.

One of mine digested about six gazillion full power loads when I was competing and it still functions like the day it was made. I used my other Super Blackhawk to shoot my first ever black bear. For a hunter looking for a. Apart from the reenactor revolvers, there are two other classes of revolver that shooters want to see.

The first of these are the small, compact revolvers that can easily slide into a pocket holster and be carried comfortably all day.

Some revolvers with concealed or shrouded hammers can be fired from inside a pocket; not even the best compact can manage that. The other type of revolvers that shooters seem to want is the Magnum caliber revolver. Semiautomatic handguns in these calibers need to be overbuilt in order to handle the pressures and the slides made much heavier. Even with some modern auto pistol rounds like the 10mm fired through a 6-inch Glock 40 , the power factor is at the lower end of the power scale when compared to the revolver cartridge it is trying to emulate.

Regardless of the type of revolver, the hallmark of a wheel gun is its simplicity and shorter learning curve. We learned how to shoot on semiautomatic pistols, and when we started as an instructor we were convinced we could teach all our students the same way.

For some shooters, though, the revolver has a quicker learning curve. It may be they are distracted by ejecting brass, have difficulty with slide manipulation or are enamored by the superior grip characteristics of a classic Colt or Smith. If part of your goal is to introduce new people to the shooting sports, a spare 38 Special revolver can help a newcomer who might otherwise give up.

But if you're the kind of fellow that drives a classic sports car and orders your dry Martinis shakenand not stirred, nothing will do but a Python. Favored by expert practical handgunners such as Skeeter Skelton and his son, Bart Skelton, as well as John Wooters and Jim Wilson, Ruger's Blackhawk is arguably the best working man's single-action revolver available.

Its action is distinctly stronger than that of Colt's SAA, making it more suitable for stout magnum loads. It's more robust, too, and it is easily tuned and customized. It comes standard with adjustable sights and is very reasonably priced.

Mounting a scope on one, while considered a travesty by traditional wheelgunners, is painless and helps milk the inherent fine accuracy. The quintessential classic Blackhawk is typified by the early "flat top" models, but despair not: Ruger has made limited runs of flat tops recently, and with diligent search, they can be found and purchased.

Although it was introduced in the mids, the Model 29 didn't achieve its worldwide legendary status until Clint Eastwood used one actually several in the Dirty Harry films. Perhaps the epitome of a great.

Commonly very accurate, Model 29s may be fired fast in double-action mode or precisely in single-action. Add superlative good looks, and it's easy to see why it remains one of the most popular big-bore revolvers of all time. Overbuilt for durability and strength against the battering of high-pressure heavy cartridges, it's ideal for big-bore rounds such as the. Integrated scope mounts for Ruger's proprietary rings allow for easy mounting of a scope, thus making it an optimal choice for handgun hunters.

All things considered, the Super Redhawk is the dark horse of those included in this list, and it is arguably one of the most practical for heavy handgunning. If you're a fan of Swiss pocket watches and vintage Jaguars, the Model 83 is your poison. Absolutely the equal of a very fine custom rifle in terms of precision manufacturing and quality of finish , Model 83s are available in a variety of calibers and finishes, with one constant: Every one of them is superbly accurate and tuned - yes - like a Swiss watch.

The only downside is the cost of Freedom Arms revolvers. You can purchase a whole handful of Ruger Blackhawk revolvers for the same cost, but if owning one best-quality six-shooter is important to you, look no farther than Freedom Arms.

Introduced in the late '20s, the Detective Special was one of the first modern-type double-actions that employed a swing-out cylinder for fast emptying and reloading. Chambered in. Today, Detective Specials are something of a classic and are, for the most part, more valuable for their place in history than as a practical firearm.

That being said, if you had to pull one out of the glass cabinet and defend hearth and home with it, the little. Made in a vast variety of different guises, the tiny-but-capable revolvers built on the J-frame foundation are unarguably the best available. I've used everything from scandium-framed ultralights to long-barreled adjustable-sighted models, and they are invariably reliable, accurate and tuned to perfection, although, as with any compact revolver, they aren't always pleasant to shoot with full-house loads.

My personal favorite is the Model 60 with a 3-inch barrel and iron sights. Back when I used to carry it all the time I could hit a shoebox at 50 yards with every shot.