357 revolver for shtf?

[wsbrown]

Another reason I like revolvers is ease of reloading. 38/357 is one of the most versatile cartridges in existence for the range of bullet weights you can use. Also, keeping up with spent brass is a lot better vs a semi auto. My personal SHTF scenario, I already live in a rural environment, so I'm sticking with my castle no matter what and I would prefer a handgun that I can easily reload and is capable of bring down small/medium game as well as attackers. 357 is a good balance in lethality and recoil.

 

[Radar363]

While they wouldn't be my first choice in a serious end of the world scenario I wouldn't feel too bad about having to rely on one of my Dan Wesson 15-2's. Barrel changes are easy and I have a box of spare parts.
I always take one to the range and have let several people shoot it and no one has ever said they didn't like the way it shoots and most were surprised how well they could shoot it.

 

[greg vess]

If you could only have one caliber for both handgun and rifle, either .357 or .44mag would be great with a lever gun and wheel gun.

Of course, there's also the Desert Eagle in both those calibers, too!

Very interesting point you have brought up here. Of course, ammo availability would sway most to the 357 or 44. However, lets not for the 45 long colt for lever gun and revolver. If availability wasn't an issue the 45 long Colt would do just fine. It save many a cowboys ass for a long time. Not to say that's what I would go with it just an interesting point. Not just my point but the whole point in general. Two guns each the same caliber. If you think about it, it would be the ideal scenario.
Hell I have so many calibers and so much ammo I would have to scramble and rent a u-haul just to take advantage of all my weapons. LOL

 

[MRH]

Another reason I like revolvers is ease of reloading. 38/357 is one of the most versatile cartridges in existence for the range of bullet weights you can use. Also, keeping up with spent brass is a lot better vs a semi auto. My personal SHTF scenario, I already live in a rural environment, so I'm sticking with my castle no matter what and I would prefer a handgun that I can easily reload and is capable of bring down small/medium game as well as attackers. 357 is a good balance in lethality and recoil.

Very good point. I believe it can be easily argued that a .357 chambered revolver is one of the most versatile handguns available because of the greatly varying loads than can be utilized.

And that's another reason I want a convertable Blackhawk with the .357/.38 cylinder, and 9mm cylinder. So versatile...If they could pull this off in double action...

 

[spistols]

How many times have we seen guns failing or people cleaning them in the Walking Dead? I don't recall any scenes, or may have not been paying attention. Makes for entertaining TV, where someone can fire off a kagillion rounds with nary a gunsmith to be found in the apocalypse. I strain my eyes real hard to find a bottle of CLP or Hoppe's in any background scenes where there is a cache of guns laying around, and have never seen any.

In Road Warrior, the original, you get a sense of real world SHTF where Mad Max has some dud shotgun shells and Humungus has to conserve the crap out of his Smith 29 ammo by being selective in what he shoots at.

If SHTF, what do we care as we will all be toting around our collection of 10+ guns anyway. I highly doubt any of us will settle for just ONE gun.

 

[jeep78]

A one armed man can easily load and fire a revolver, a bottom feeder....nope.

A broken arm can leave you "disarmed".

 

[MaconGuns]

Suppressed Glock or 1911 in 45 or 9mm. Parts are everywhere and ammo is common.
357 and 38 just isn't as common as 9mm and zombie will hear an unsuppressed 357.
Reloading a revolver during combat is more difficult in a fire fight for most people I would guess.
rifle would be a suppressed 22 so don't care about ammo compatibility.

Good news is 80%+ of the population will probably die in the first year so odds are good you won't need to worry about it long.

 

[Wheeler]

When I first left the Corps I worked armored trucks in the NY metropolitan area.
I carried my brothers S&W model 28 with a 6 inch barrel, since I didn't own a handgun of my own at the time.
I liked that gun so much I own one today.

One day in the ready room a couple of guys were talking about guns, this was in 1982, so the "new" high cap 9mm pistols had pretty much just come out. I think there was 3 choices at the time, the Beretta that went on to become the service pistol, the Browning High Power and the S&W 459.

One of the fellas had a 17 round Ram Line magazine in his 459 and the other had a nice Dan Wesson revolver. The guy with the 9mm said take the bullets out of there for a minute, so the revolver guy unloaded. In the meantime he stripped those 17 rounds out of that magazine. He put those six .357's in one hand and those seventeen 9mm in the other.

Then he said if the crap hits the fan do you want the bullets in this hand or the bullets in this hand to the revolver guy.
The revolver guy smiled and shook his head and it made an impression on me.
When I had enough money I bought the S&W 459, it was a great gun and served me well.

Now I own a few S&W revolvers and I love everyone of them.
I carried a S&W model 37 for years concealed, one pound fully loaded, you could forget you had it on you.....

But I'll never forget that conversation in the ready room when working armored trucks, so I'd still go with the magazine fed, double stack pistol every time in a SHTF scenario.....

Accuracy trumps caliber and capacity every time. Nobody really knows what they'll be facing if there really is some form of societal breakdown. It's better to find someting reliable that one can shoot well and not sweat what other folks think about their particular choice.

Ruger revolvers are pretty solid. Unless you drop it I don't see what would break. Maybe order a couple of extra springs or screws in case you lose one.
The ultimate revolver though was the Medusa. No longer made but were designed to fire and extract all .38/9mm rounds rimmed or not. So your looking at .380, 9 makarov, 9parabellum, 9 largo, 9x21,9x23 , .38 super auto, .38 S&W, 38 special, .357 magnum to name a few. A test I read a Lon time ago said it would even fire necked down 9mm stuff like 7.62x25 and 7.62 lugar ect... They also made a conversion cylinder for full size Smiths.

The Medusa was a commercial and practical flop. Not many were made, accuracy was abysmal, and they suffered from QC issues.

I think revolvers are generally more reliable than auto pistols, especially in smaller frame sizes.

But, once I test a particular gun and find it to be 100% reliable, I'll carry it or add it to my collection of survival or "SHTF" guns just in case I need it. And no, I'm not going to stock extra small parts for it in case something breaks.

A 6" barreled .357 mag, preferably a S&W made more than 15 years ago (pre-lock) is about as reliable and versatile as a gun can get for any purpose other than daily concealed carry. But a big S&W .357 and some compact gun of another type will, together, handle just about anything you'd want to do with a handgun.

Revolvers are more reliable than semi autos under certain conditions. You can load up a revolver and stick it in your night stand drawer, not touch it for fifty years, pick it up and there's a pretty good chance it will function well. Not many semi-autos will do that. On the flip side, not many revolvers will hold up to a large amount of shooting in a short period of time. I've tried taking a pistol class with a revolver and had to swap over to a 9mm as it was heating up and not performing.

In the end, a .357 is a pretty good choice, especially if one hand loads. The author of the original linked article was full of derp. He chose to argue his points with lots of conjecture and few, if any facts.

 

[Wheeler]

A one armed man can easily load and fire a revolver, a bottom feeder....nope.

A broken arm can leave you "disarmed".

Not hardly...