Ever had a revolver fail?

[tacotime]

A Sheriff once told me he would "rather have six for sure than fifteen maybe."

While we all admire the high reliability of the six gun, I am just wondering what revolver failure experiences may be out there? (not including any internal lock related failures please).

 

[Old cop]

I've had a couple of failures on the range. One was a bullet that jumped crimp and tied up the cylinder on my Colt Cobra, the ammo was a cheap reload. Another time a used J frame's cylinder refused to advance when the trigger was pulled. Again this happened on the range. With modern weapons the admonition from the sheriff is just a myth, at least in my opinion. Why else would all law enforcement agencies equip their officers w/semi autos?

 

[k22fan]

Back in the 1970s most pistol cartridges were packaged in 50 round Styrofoam blocks. I was loading .45 Colts directly from the Styrofoam tray into my New Service. Firing DA at empty pop cans the cylinder Froze. It turned out Styrofoam beads under the extractor caused the stopage. Those pop cans could have rolled towards my toes!

Somebody is going to write this so I may as well be first. While with a modern automatic you might get unlucky and have a stopage within your first 15 - 20 shots with a revolver you are guaranteed a stopage after the 6th shot. (6 shooters)

 

[ISCS Yoda]

The only revolver failures I have ever seen personally were ammunition failures or equipment failure due to the shooter.

Examples:

Blown up M19 (I did that) - bad ammunition (overloaded)

Failure to fire - squib loads - bad primers, no powder, etc. All reloaded ammunition for cowboy action guns.

Failure to fire - also cowboy action - cylinder not seated correctly due to loose base pin - shooter's fault for not tightening it correctly except in one instance when the base pin unscrewed itself - similar to the ejector rod in a double action revolver becoming loose during a shooting session and getting stuck but with the base pin it's not stuck, it's falling out. Still, could be the shooter's fault for not paying attention. The gun can't tell him his base pin is loose and his cylinder is out of alignment for the firing pin to hit the primer. I blamed the shooter. It was me, so I didn't hurt anyone's feelings.

Other than those examples I have never seen a wheel gun fail. That's a lot of years and a lot of wheelguns.

Pistol failures that I have seen were all the shooter's fault, too, actually, but for one company's junk pocket 9mm (no names) that just can't shoot two rounds in a row, and two pistols that were range guns with many, many multi-thousands of rounds through them - each broke during a shooting session from metal fatigue. Generally, with quality ammo and a quality pistol, and a shooter who knows what s/he is doing, the quality guns don't simply fail if they're made correctly.

Any filthy gun can fail - still the shooter's fault.

Some people have more experience than I do - maybe we'll get some horror stories.

 

[tbgunner88]

A Sheriff once told me he would "rather have six for sure".

Nothing is "for sure" with anything man made.

 

[ISCS Yoda]

I prefer revolvers over pistols, although I obviously use both, but tis is CLEVER!

Somebody is going to write this so I may as well be first. While with a modern automatic you might get unlucky and have a stopage within your first 15 - 20 shots with a revolver you are guaranteed a stopage after the 6th shot. (6 shooters)

I like it!

 

[k22fan]

Do percussion caps blown back into the frame's hammer slot and tying up the cylinder count?

 

[wbraswell]

I have a 29-2 that I think was orginally bought by an OK trooper. It has an OK Highway Patrol decal on the display case. It had a very slick trigger, and the main spring was thinned on it. I was keeping this gun loaded for HD. One Saturday, friends and I were going to the range, and I got out the .44 to take with me. I unloaded it, closed the cylinder, and then I pulled back the hammer and the main spring snapped! A fat lot of good it would have been in a desperate situation. I had the hammer break on a Model 13-3 that was only a couple of months old, and probably didn't have 200 rounds through it yet. It broke where the trigger engages it, rendering it useless. Simple fix, but still scary. So I trust M&M parts as much as the old "good" kind.

 

[Fishinfool]

When I started as a cop, revolvers were the guns of the day. While working on the range, or shooting my own revolvers, I have seen factory ammo jump crimp, cylinders fail to turn because of primer flow, or parts breakage. Had a box of out of spec factory Federal .357's a couple years ago that the rims were so thick on some they bound the revolver up, pressing against the recoil shield. Loose ejector rods and powder under the star have also been culprits.

That said, most failures can be traced to bad ammo, or poor maintenance of the gun. A properly loaded and maintained revolver is a reliable weapon.

Just to rattle some cages, I have a Glock 1st generation model 19 that I purposely shot many thousands of rounds of varied ammo thru without cleaning, too see how long I could go without a malfunction. It never did jam, and eventually I felt bad for it and cleaned it.

On the whole, I'd say revolvers are potentially more reliable, with failures in both platforms being usually ammo or maintenance related. Bad magazines add another factor to semi's not found in revolvers.

Larry

 

[qballwill]

My dad has a well used 29-2 he bought new in 1976. We were shooting about 9 years ago and the hammer fell on the previously fire casing, tried again with the same result. The hand broke. Quick order and install and she was back up and running.

 

[tacotime]

Had a J frame that would at times give a light primer strike and fail to fire. Ruling out the usual causes I finally noticed a bright spot on the top of the hammer block. The hammer at times would graze the top of the block and that was enough to make the strike too light to fire. It could fail several times in a row. Found out the hammer block eye at the bottom was incorrectly cut, allowing the block to move up where it was not supposed to, getting in the way of the hammer. Replaced with a correct spec part and issue solved.

If that had been a newly purchased gun, one might have fired a cylinder or two and thought the gun was fine and relied on it for years to come, not knowing it could fail to fire at random any time. Shows the need to give a critical gun plenty of testing before going to duty, and I suppose, regular testing after that.

 

[SLT223]

A Sheriff once told me he would "rather have six for sure than fifteen maybe."

That's just another silly gun talk cliche.

I've had a Model 17, 18, and 28-2 lock up on me. All the same reason...junk building up under the ejector star. I kind of expect something like that with heavy use of .22's. The .357 was my fault when working up IMR4227 loads. 4227 apparently needs a lot of pressure and high load density to burn well. My starting loads did neither and unburned powder accumulated under the ejector locking up the cylinder.

 

[Horn]

Yes Had One (only) problem

A Sheriff once told me he would "rather have six for sure than fifteen maybe."

While we all admire the high reliability of the six gun, I am just wondering what revolver failure experiences may be out there? (not including any internal lock related failures please).

Yes, I have. I'd just come off duty and had to take part in some firing on the PD range___in front of about forty other cops from
other departments. I'd just unloaded my duty rounds and loaded up with wad cutters. Stepped up to the first station fired two rounds and the trigger wouldn't pull!
Immediate inspection showed a dink in the cylinder that obviously occurred an hour earlier when wound up tussling with a resister.
That was my Smith & Wesson and rather than have it fixed (got
scraps too) I bought a Colt 357 Trooper. That turned out to be a fine pistol too.
Other than a damaged revolver__no failures of any kind with any lother revolvers.
That said, I always favored semi pistols although my department and most others were slow to go to semi autos.
I have several semi autos now__all the same manual of arms and every one is reliable and accurate. My carry is a Shield 9.
Revolvers are reliable but were never easy or comfortable to carry plain clothes___shaped "funny" for that.
I can remember packing a 1911 with less printing than any revolver I had. (Never one of those five shot ones)
For enjoyable shooting revolvers are fine too.

 

[Iggy]

Been shootin' revolvers since 1957. So far so good.

 

[HCALREF]

I had a hammer mounted, firing pin break on a model 13 once. Dont know why?

 

[pharmer]

I had a Model 19 back in the '70's that FTF about half the time during a range session. Of course this was because some "range commando" back in NJ told me how to get a "free trigger job" by backing out the strain screw. That trigger lightened up nice for exactly one session. Went back to 100% when I re tightened it. Lesson learned. Joe

 

[jtcarm]

Dirty extractor star or high primers.

Tribal wisdom such as what was quoted is that when your DA revolver misfires, just pull the trigger again. But in those conditions, you can't.

 

[Buford57]

I bought a lightly used (barely a turn line) 28-2 a few years ago. On about the third box of ammo (Remington factory .357 125g HP) the hammer nose snapped and dropped into the action. I managed to shake it free, lower the hammer and open the cylinder. As a die-hard revolver fan I still maintain that a 6" N-frame makes a better club than any Glock.

Other failures have been ammo related, except for an RG .22LR "Hinkley Special" that had random FTFs.

It happens. Not nearly as often as FTFs, FTEs and other stoppages in the semi-autos of 30 years ago with anything but ball, which is when the saying had more validity, but it happens.

 

[Bruce51]

Twice

The center pin sheared off on a model 19.

The ratchet galled the recoil shield on my 686 and locked up the gun.

It is a bad feeling when the cylinder won't turn.

It took me years to trust the 686 to be dependable.

BLM

 

[loc n load]

Revolvers failure issues

I carried a revolver as a duty weapon from 73-88, also instructed them and serviced them as an armorer. I carried, instructed and serviced pistols from 1988- 2008 when I retired.
They are all mechanical devices, the DA revolver has several metal on metal contact surfaces that will wear - especially if the gun is ran fast, thousands and thousands of cycles.
The manufacturer's train armorers for a reason.
I am going to leave out ammo failures and just dwell on mechanical failures. I have seen S&W revolvers fail for various mechanical reasons, most common when the hammer nose broke. I have a "high mileage" M-65 that I shot and trained with extensively for 10 yrs that I broke four hammer noses. But, this revolver was dry fired daily and shot weekly for a decade.
All in all, the S&W DA revolvers are very reliable & rugged, but like all mechanical contrivances can fail. Especially when the device has been run fast and hard.
Like all life saving equipment, the DA revolver ( and all duty / defensive firearms) needs to regularly inspected and routine maintainance performed.