Are revolvers better than autos for what?
When the Texas Rangers first fired revolvers at the Comanche, the superiority of the revolver over other handguns of the day was marked and evident. Revolvers that used self-contained metal cartridges were even better.
Near the end of the nineteenth century, however, most armies began equipping their cavalry soldiers with semiautomatic pistols. The UK stayed with the revolver until WWII, but when British Lt. Winston Churchill participated in the last cavalry charge in British history at Omdurman in 1898, he chose to carry a Mauser semi-automatic pistol. A late friend of mine was an officer in the US cavalry in the late 1920s (and into early 1942), and he once demonstrated firing the Model 1911 from a galloping horse in Washington, DC. He said that the ability to reload rapidly while riding was the real advantage.
No, we don't have horse cavalry any more, but semi autos have supplanted revolvers for most law enforcement applications.
For me, for self defense applications, trigger pull and capacity make the semi-auto preferable to the revolver. For concealed carry, the flatness of the semi-auto is advantageous.
One last thing: gas escaping from the cylinder gap can be pretty harmful unless one exercises due care. Drape a piece of notebook paper over a revolver loaded with hot loads, shoot it, and let people see the results. They may be less apt to make a mistake in the future.
I have been shooting both revolvers and semi-automatics for over half a century, and I do like both. I have yet to handle a handgun that fits my hand and balances as well as a Colt Model 1851 Navy or a Model P, and in my opinion there isn't a polymer or black-finished police auto made today that has the eye appeal of a Colt Shooting Master or a .38-44 Outdoorsman. However, if one needs to carry something inside the waistband for a very serious purpose, one realizes the wisdom in the old movie quote, "a gun is a tool, Marion.".
