Revolvers

A revolver's appeal is that there is very little to go wrong. No magazine to seat, no slide to cycle, no ammunition sensitivity worth mentioning — if a round fails, you pull the trigger again. For a gun that sits untouched in a drawer for years, that simplicity is a genuine argument.

The costs are capacity and reload speed. Five or six rounds against fifteen, and a reload that requires real practice with speedloaders or moon clips to be anything but slow. A double-action trigger is also longer and heavier than a striker-fired pull, which takes more work to shoot well. Small lightweight revolvers in .357 are particularly demanding — many owners load .38 Special and are better served for it.