The Smith & Wesson Brothers — a 686 in .38SPL/.357 Magnum and a 617 in .22LR. Accompanied by the Becker BK 9.
I’m a revolver man.
My EDC pistol is a slick-sided, striker-fired, light-weight, high-capacity polymer-framed 9mm semi-automatic for all the reasons that it should be. But if I’m carrying a belt gun out in the woods, it’s the S&W 686 stoked with six 158 grain .357 Magnum loads. Or if I want to do a little stump shooting, it’s the little brother, my 10-shot S&W 617 .22 LR.
The revolver is a classic weapon of the frontier. The Texas Rangers under Jack Hays adopted Sam Colt’s invention early, appropriating a consignment that had been purchased by the fledgling Texas Navy, but never issued. The five-shot revolver changed the tactical dynamics in the Rangers’ running fights with the Comanche.
Texas Ranger Samuel Walker proposed improvements to make the fragile implement more robust, resulting in the massive and powerful six-shot 1847 Walker Colt. And with that, the template was set.
The big, bad Walker Colt.
I was working in the firearms trade at Pachmayr in Pasadena, California, during the early days of the final transition away from revolvers toward the high-capacity semi-auto pistol. Despite a fair number of Jeff Cooper acolytes who insisted on the merits of the 1911 Colt Automatic Pistol and some devotees of the Browning Hi-Power (what the SAS ran), most gunslingers I knew were still devoted to the revolver.
We sold a whole bunch of Smith and Wesson Model 19s (Bill Jordan’s fave), S&W 586/686; and Colt Pythons with their gorgeous deep blueing and eye-watering price tags. The snub-nosed S&W 642 was tremendously popular for a pocket or purse gun, although obtaining a carry permit in California was basically impossible.
The revolver vs. auto debate was heated and the revolver men held the high ground. Autoloaders jam. Revolvers are more reliable, etc. The FBI one-shot stop report favored the .357 Magnum 125-grain HP by a huge margin over any other round….
But the tide was turning. Pop culture played its part, as it often does. Just as Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry single-handedly created a market for the S&W N-Frame .44 Magnum, Mel Gibson’s 1987 smash Lethal Weapon made the Beretta 92 hot and sexy. The U.S. Military had already adopted it, as had some police departments, but the movie popularized it. In the hands of Martin Riggs, the Beretta was presented as something of a superweapon. Danny Glover’s stodgy old detective Roger Murtagh still carried a revolver, but the badass Special Forces veteran warrior wielded a REAL weapon. And he could shoot a smiley face in a target at 75 feet with it, so…
Here’s the scene that sold a thousand (plus) Berettas:
That beefy Beretta 92 fit my hand well, but I never particularly liked it. Our local indoor range (where the target shooting scene in Lethal Weapon was filmed, BTW) reported frequent slide-stop breakage after just a few thousand rounds. Not good. How the Beretta beat out the Sig Sauer P226 for the U.S. military contract is beyond me.
Speaking of the Sig… The P226 and the more compact P228 are the only semi-auto pistols that truly seduced me. Well, I did have a pretty big crush on a Kimber 1911 once. Sigh… The P226 came into my hand like it was custom made for me, and I shot it very well. It was too expensive for my budget, though, and I’ve never owned one.
Besides, I had my Smith & Wesson 586, bought (extremely lightly) used for a song within my first week at Pachmayr. This was also the era when Glock was first really making inroads into U.S. gun culture. Most of us scorned the “plastic gun” that terrorists could smuggle through metal detectors (they couldn’t), and who needs 17 rounds when 6 125-grain HP rounds will more than do the job (see FBI report)?
There were some enthusiastic adopters though, including one very nerdy, bespectacled Asian guy who worked at the nearby Cal Tech in polymer technology. He loved the things, of course, and bought one in every caliber and configuration we could order for him. He told us it was the pistol of the future, and we thought he was just a science geek and what did he know?
Well…
*
My friend and store co-manager Mark Hogan was a revolver man, too. Until the day he was invited to shoot a tactical course with the Pasadena PD, which had recently gone from the venerable .S&W Model 10 .38 to a semi-auto (don’t remember what flavor; probably the Beretta). Mark ran his revolver. He came back and said, basically, “Sorry, but revolvers are over.” Magazine capacity — and, more importantly, the ability to reload quickly and smoothly — rendered the six-shot revolver and speed loaders obsolete. Nothing like experiencing reality in action.
I’ve had that experience myself. My S&W 686 (my editor gave me the stainless version of the .357 Magnum as a bonus early in my freelancing career at The Nugget) is NOT an adequate modern tactical pistol. Not even close. The big revolver hangs up on seatbelts and such, and an average magazine change is quicker than a fast speedload. As it turns out, more rounds is mo’ better, and modern bullet design and materials cleaned up the ballistic performance issues that used to plague the 9mm.
OK, fine. I’ve adapted. I’m STILL a revolver man.
*
Not that I require validation for what must now be considered mostly an aesthetic choice, but I was most pleased (hat tip to the I’m With Roscoe Facebook page) to stumble upon an enduring European Cult of the Revolver.
From the online magazine The Drive:
The Groupe d’Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale, better known by its abbreviated name GIGN, which translates to National Gendarmerie Intervention Group in English, remains France’s premier counter-terrorism and hostage rescue unit. Since its founding shortly after the terrorist acts in Munich in 1973, GIGN has risen to prominence among the world’s counter-terrorism community. But one piece of gear in particular not only differentiates the unit from others, but it is also deeply ingrained in its lore and tradition—the revolver, and in particular, the French-built Manurhin MR73.
While it is available in several calibers, the classic MR73 chambering is .38SPL/.357 Magnum. I’ve never seen a Manurhin in the wild, but it is a legendary piece. The cylinder chambers are hardened to handle ridiculous pressures, giving the revolver the repute of being the strongest available. Like the magnificent German Korth revolver, the trigger is adjustable in both double action and single action, without negatively affecting the spring and the hammer strike.
The MR73 is reportedly capable of remarkable accuracy.
*
You know that the cockles of my heart warm at the use of words like “lore and tradition.” This bit of Continuity & Persistence pleases me:
The revolvers are issued to each GIGN member for symbolic reasons as well as utilitarian ones. A passage from a 2014 issue of the official Gendarmerie information magazine states:
“Respect of human life and fire discipline have always been taught to group members since inception, and each new member is traditionally issued with a 6 shot .357 revolver as a reminder of these values.”
The Drive piece lists a number of tactical advantages of the revolver, which basically track with the classic ones: Revolvers go bang almost perfectly reliably, they’re hard-hitting, and they don’t have a slide that can hang up in tight quarters. But, honestly, you have to stretch a bit to identify a circumstance where a revolver is clearly superior to a semi-auto pistol.
Clearly, GIGN sees it as a lightsaber of sorts — an elegant weapon whose time may have largely passed for all but the most capable operators. But for those who can employ it with extreme efficiency, it still remains a potent, if not superior in some respects, tool for many applications.
Lightsaber, eh? I may have different cultural touchpoints, but that’s a nice illustration. For me, the revolver is like the 1952 Vincent Black Lightning motorcycle in the great Richard Thompson song:
Nortons and Indians and Greeves just won’t do
They don’t have a soul like a Vincent ’52
As Justin Carroll, a MARSOC veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan and founder of the website RevolverGuy.com put it, the Smith & Wesson 686 is a gun “to ride the river with.”
Justin Carroll’s piece on the S&W 686 “A Gun To Ride The River With” is illustrated by the revolver and another of my favorite implements: a Becker knife. Obviously Justin Carroll is a brilliant guy.
When they light my pyre on a longship and push me off on the long night journey down the river, I wish to be accompanied thus: My Breedlove guitar; my Baldwin hat; my CZ rifle; my CZ side-by-side shotgun; my Becker BK 9; my Wetterlings woodsman’s hatchet — and my Smith & Wesson 686 revolver.
Those .357 magnum rounds should be cooking off any second now…
Paul McNamee says
The muzzle loader gave way to the breach loader (a bit) gave way to magazines and multi-shot options …
I guess eventually we’ll arrive at ray pistols, and TASERs that don’t require a wire running back to the weapon, and they’ll all think the automatic lead throwers are passé.
Mike Lazarus says
Nice work. Enjoyed reading this. Rullman will likely affirm my preoccupation with past technologies in this field. I initially picked up a revolver as a training tool. If one wants to perfect trigger press, a 12 pound double action represents a desirable difficulty to move closer to that end. However, I’ve fallen into the rabbit hole. We now offer a Revolver Only class. Interest has been picking up, despite limited offerings of this class.
JimC says
This makes me happy.
Kevin Bates says
Two of my absolute favorite revolvers (686 4″ / 617 4″)! Thanks for a great article.
JimC says
Appreciate it Kevin. Welcome to the campfire.
Eric G Landkamer says
One could also surmise that revolvers are a continuation of “The Riddle of Steel”. My Grandfather was a revolver man, my Father was a revolver man. Thus I was born a revolver man. My favorite is my Granddads K22 Smith&Wesson. But my go to, is a S&W 657. Love that 41mag don’t ya know.
JimC says
I like that.
Ugly Hombre says
Theres not much a double action centerfire revolver won’t do.
If your not a cop or a soldier- a six shot, .357/38, a .41 mag .44 special, 45 ACP- Colt, Smith & Wesson or Ruger revolver may be all you need.
Easy and safe to use, easy to teach with, can leave one loaded for years with no problems, no safety to disengage, intuitive to use, can get power levels far beyond most automatics- etc. many great aspects about them. Very skilled shooters like Clint Smith etc still favor them.
I recently ran into a young shooter at the base rifle range he had a Smith 586, he had studied it, researched it, figured out the way to go was the .357 D/A route for his first hand gun.
“I looked at guns for a long time- many good points on this choice I thought- the more I considered it- better it seemed to fit me”.
A very savvy young shooter- he was hitting dead on as well. Pretty sure that Smith won’t be his last handgun. But it might be his favorite one.
Don’t have any polymer pistols I know they are good- reliable, cheap, easy to replace, fast etc. But that’s not me. To me, the kings of the handgun world are- the Colt SAA, the Smith N frame, and old slab sides the 1911.
JimC says
Both .41 Magnum and .44 Special are underappreciated. Don’t really know why the .41 never took off. I knew several guys who were downright evangelical about the .44 Spl.
Eric G Landkamer says
Another fun thing about revolvers is the availability of Lever guns in the same caliber. Oh so much fun!
Quixotic Mainer says
My mother’s house gun is a .44 special, she shoots it very well too. I usually reference that when I hear people whine about controlling recoil.
Ugly Hombre says
“Both .41 Magnum and .44 Special are underappreciated”
You are right. One thing about the 41 when it came out it was supposed to be a police round, Skeeter, Bill Jordon, and Elmer were involved in getting it made. But according to what I was told the factory ammo was loaded to bear killing levels. While the gun and round was directed at cop use and self defense originally- though it can by loaded up hot of course.
https://www.fototime.com/BE94F5084366E18/orig.jpg
Yep, the 44 special has quite a cult following, “44 Associates” etc. I have one and like it a lot, in the case of the .44, the factory ammo was weak as hell. Reverse of the .41 iirc. Elmer and other 20’s and 30’s serious revolver men took it up to its potential with hand loads.
In the Colt SAA, the cylinder walls in the .45 Colt are paper thin, that’s why many thumb buster fans love the 44 and seek it out. Elmer blew up a lot of 45 Colts until he discovered the potential of the .44 Special.
https://revivaler.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/The-Smith-Wesson-Model-29-the-.44-Magnum-and-Elmer-Keith-7-gunsandammo.com_.jpg
Its a super round imo, wish more people would discover it and there would be more demand for it so factory ammo prices would fall, no room for a reloading set up un the rude hut.
The old .44 40 is much sought after as well by the traditional type cowboy revolver shooters its near the same as the .44 and a powerful round esp considering its age. I would jump on one if I found a good one and had the pesos.
Ugly Hombre says
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.41_Remington_Magnum
Here’s the history of the .41 Mag If anyone is interested. Elmer originally seemed to want a upgrade to the old .41 Colt round. The “.41 Special” but it took off and went the magnum route.
“In 1963, Elmer Keith and Bill Jordan, with some help from Skeeter Skelton, petitioned Smith & Wesson, Remington, and Norma to produce a pistol and ammunition in .41 caliber which would fall between the extant .357 Magnum and .44 Magnum cartridges in ballistic performance, and at the same time address perceived shortcomings with those loads.[1] While as early as 1955 Keith had suggested a new, medium-powered “.41 Special” cartridge, this idea was passed over in favor of the higher-powered “Magnum” option, and the Special survives only as a custom wildcat cartridge, bearing roughly the same relation to the .41 Remington Magnum as the .38 Special does to the .357 Magnum and as the .44 Special does to the .44 Magnum.”
Probly some .41 Magnum shooters can give more info.
J .R. Winton says
Good article. I don’t agree with every point made, but I recognize the logic of them.
I grew up around my maternal grandfather; a former southwestern lawman… and a dedicated revolver man who had “shot for blood” and had no use for what he dismissed as “bottom feeders”. He saw autos as intrinsically unreliable, had seen them fail when the chips were down, and had an unfailing faith in the reliability of a good sixgun (though he did carry a toothbrush with him everywhere he went, so he could brush out the extractor star and the ejector rod housing should they become fouled with dust).
I spent time in law enforcement, and I’ve owned the high-speed, low-drag tacticool semi-autos… and now that I’m out of that field, I find myself taking much more personal pleasure and satisfaction out of carrying revolvers. When I have a good run on the range in a combat drill, I can almost feel my grandfather standing off my shoulder with a smile, and can hear him say: “Well done, young man.”
Interestingly, with a shot-timer to test it, I find I’m a hair faster out of the holster, and faster to first shot on the target, with a DA revolver; provided the grips fit my hand and the action is tuned to be good and smooth. My grandfather used to say, “He who lands the first good, hard punch generally wins the fight.” So, with that in mind… I carry a revolver. I do hedge my bets when it comes to the reload; I just carry a second, lightweight revolver as a backup. Though there are statistical outliers, the overwhelming majority of street fights are over in six shots or less (often much less) provided the defender places his shots well; so, to me, the high capacity of a semi-auto isn’t as important as the reliability and speed the revolver provides me.
Oh, don’t think I don’t like autos. I own more than one 1911 and I have a couple of high-cap Berettas and definitely see the merits they bring to the table. Modern autos are far more reliable than the autos of my grandfather’s day and I recognize that. Part of my choice is a personal, “cult of the revolver” one: I just like them and appreciate their simplicity and aesthetic appearance… and that’s good enough for me.
JimC says
Outstanding. Thank you.
Quixotic Mainer says
I think that unspoken “because” that people reach for when they justify the round gun is handling and pointability. With a pistol, how it fits your hand and how naturally they swing and move is not to be discounted, much like a fine shotgun on clays or flying birds. I hunted with six guns, and competed in quick draw and SASS long before my profession put me in an arranged marriage with Austrian battle plastic. I can do finer work with my revolver, but I can do more work with the G19, they’re just different tools.
JimC says
“my profession put me in an arranged marriage with Austrian battle plastic.”
That made me laugh.
Miguel Rodriguez says
Jim, imagine your feelings if you take the next step and discover a single action army pattern revolver such as Colt or clone, or the excellent Ruger New Vaquero in 45 Colt or 44 Special with a 4.75 or 4.6 inch barrels. Lighter, handier than the 686 (of your configuration) and more fun to shoot.
JimC says
Oh, I know it…..
J.F. Bell says
The first handgun I ever bought with own money was a 1937 Brazilian Smith & Wesson contract. I was looking for a 1917, but even in those days the market for First World War holdovers was already pretty tightly closed to a mostly-broke college kid. Enter the Saxet Gun Show and a guy with a table of mostly trash – and, incidentally, a beat-to-hell heavy-framed Smith with a lanyard ring.
The thing looked like it’d gone a couple of rounds inside an unbalanced washing machine with a couple of handfuls of scrap iron. There was nothing recognizable as finish anywhere. The grips were those blocky 1980s S&W service horror shows; you need gorilla fingers to get all the way around, and if you could do that you realize they still sucked.
Weirdly, the lockup was good and the bore was pristine. Go figure. Of greater import, our intrepid seller had discerned that the crest on the sideplate was Brazilian, and this was in fact a cheap South American clone. The Smith & Wesson markings were pretty good – but, he assured me, hopelessly fake. I didn’t argue. I gave him three hundred dollars and hauled ass before he started talking to somebody with a Blue Book.
Still got it. It went though some further mishandling by a gunsmith in Austin who had it for a year and got it back to me in marginally better condition than I’d left it. Eventually it followed me to gunsmithing school and got back where it should have been.
There is something intrinsically magical in chucking .45 auto downrange with a large-frame Smith & Wesson, rust blued, with the old lockwork, and back in its God-given martial guise. They still build them – but not like they used to.
Of course, revolvers are like eating popcorn. You start, and you keep going, and eventually you either run out of money or you die. There may be a third condition that puts and end to it.
I haven’t found that one yet.
JimC says
You write so damn well… What a pleasure.
J.F. Bell says
Thanks, boss. Great having a place I can post stuff like this – and a crowd of similar mindset.
As an aside…you get that last one I sent? I can’t recall but I may have used the wrong email.
Ugly Hombre says
” If you take the next step and discover a single action army pattern revolver such as Colt or clone, or the excellent Ruger New Vaquero in 45 Colt or 44 Special with a 4.75 or 4.6 inch barrels. Lighter, handier than the 686 (of your configuration) and more fun to shoot.”
Miguel is right on, the New Vaquero is a excellent revolver, its just a shade fatter in the cylinder than the Colt with more beef around the charge holes a good thing in .45 imo and the Italians SAA clones are getting better and better according to long time single action army shooters over at the Colt forum. There’s near 10000 years of collective single action army experience over in that hang out. A great place to learn about the venerable thumb buster.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/IPlgWedsess/maxresdefault.jpg
You can get the New Vaquero in 45 Colt with a .45 ACP cylinder a “convertible”- cheap big bore ammo in .45 ACP, power up in .45 Colt, or you can get one or the other in a Birds Head Sheriff’s model in one or the other.
Fun as hell.. happy hunting!
Once you get snake bit by the single action bug, no cure is known.. lol
J.F. Bell says
I’ll be a devotee of Colt’s lockwork until I die, but I have to express a certain admiration for Ruger’s bringing the single-action into the modern world.
Back in the day Ruger hit the sweet spot. They build an affordable wheelgun with classic styling that was easy enough to work on at home and – if you were a mind to push the out limits of what could be done with classic cartridges – you damn near couldn’t blow one up.
I know a lot of the old hands weren’t too excited when the New Vaquero came along. Closer in the lines to the old Colts at the cost of thinner cylinder walls. Per the range gossip these were slightly easier to explode using grizzly rounds, but still pretty tough.
Dave T says
The original 45 Colt (black powder) drove a 255g soft lead bullet at 920 fps from a 7.5″ barreled SAA. There are not many handgun tasks that won’t be solved by that level of ballistic performance and the New Vaquero will easily handle loads that do that, even in shorter barrels.
I too am a fan of the Colt lock work but find its truest expression these days in late production USFA single actions. I suspect the Standard Manufacturing guns now being made are pretty close but they don’t offer the black powder frame, which I prefer.
There is indeed a cult of the revolver. For me the single action evokes a time when five would do, if you would do.
J.F. Bell says
USFA was top-notch. Fantasy piece or not, I always had a soft spot for their Omnipotent – but I wouldn’t have passed on a standard SAA had one drifted my way.
Shame what happened to them. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a gun company implode so drastically or so fast.
Greg Walker says
Truly delightful piece, Jim.
My first revolver for duty carry was a S&W Model 66 .357 (Anchorage Police Department, Anchorage, Alaska) in 1974. Hard-hitting round and absolutely reliable during the winter months where an auto-loader could “freeze up” at -45 and greater below zero.
I came to favor the Browning Hi-Power during this same period. My introduction to this legendary auto-loader came via NYPD detective Frank Serpico’s book and follow on film. I later carried an HP while with the 10th Special Forces Group and then the 7th while serving in Latin America.
However, the revolver once again served me well when in 2004 while working as a high risk protection detail leader in Baghdad, Iraq, I came across a beautiful S&W Model 29 .44 Magnum. I carried it on my Tactical Tailor custom made chest rig, upper center chest and at the appropriate cant. The .44 changed minds swiftly when it had to be presented on the streets of that war-torn city – and with a 240-grain round it was an effective “stone breaker” if you will.
Only one other “Old Guy” in Baghdad that I knew – from our days at the Florida Ranger Camp decades earlier – carried a Baghdad-scored revolver. His was a S&W Model 28 .357 in 4″ barrel.
Both of us were dyed in the wool Bill Jordan apostles from way back so that may explain our love for the “wheel gun” even under those extreme circumstances.
Again, delightful and relevant article.
JimC says
Thx amigo.