From: James Rogers (jamesr@best.com)
Date: Wed May 03 2000 - 08:10:44 MDT
On Tue, 02 May 2000, Brian D Williams wrote:
> From: Chuck Kuecker <ckuecker@mcs.net>
> >All I own is mechanical guns. I don't trust those newfangled
> >electrickal gadgets.
>
> Many of my associates won't own a semi-automatic for personal
> defense because they don't consider them reliable enough.
I assume you mean "self-loading" rather than "semi-automatic", since both
revolvers and pistols are "semi-automatic" (unless you are talking about
single-shot weapons).
The mythical reliability of revolvers has, in recent years, been largely
superceded by modern self-loading designs. Most of the reputation of
self-loaders being unreliable can be traced to a hundred year history that
was dominated by the venerable Colt 1911 (first sold in 1905 despite the
designation).
The 1990s saw the emergence of extremely reliable self-loading designs.
Several self-loading designs, such as the H&K USP series and the Glock
(9mm only), have Mean Rounds Between Failure figures that greatly exceed
the MRBF figures for most revolvers. Most of the people I know who don't
trust the reliability of self-loading weapons are long time shooters who
are unwilling to consider that technology has improved beyond what it was
or who are are too stubborn to change. Revolvers are being slowly confined
to the increasingly small niches where they still offer real advantages.
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
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