“Yup. All the armchair firearms experts proclaiming authority don’t know the difference between a wheel gun and a semi. It seems these clowns think a revolver can go full auto.”
Actually, think about it a little harder.
The rounds go off in a gun in a fire from the heat igniting the primer, not because of a firing pin/hammer/striker impact on the primer. If there is no chamber around the cartridge going off, the pressure of the hot gases created by the burning gunpowder expands in almost all directions and just ruptures the case, and there is no significant push imparted to the bullet—the cartridge just goes “pop” and flies apart. But with a heavy walled chamber around a cartridge, the gas can only expand in two directions—toward the bullet or toward the primer, or both (that’s what the chamber is for), but toward the bullet is easier for the gas to expand, especially if there is a hammer/striker or frame or bolt behind the primer and the cartridge has a strong base with sealed center fire primer. With a semi-automatic or closed bolt weapon, the chamber is part of the barrel, and the force can only go down the barrel. With a revolver, however, the “chamber” is the wall of the cylinder around each cartridge, and the bullet from a round in the actual firing position (12 o’clock) leaves the chamber and goes across the cylinder gap into the forcing cone which makes sure the bullet goes down the barrel and out. But if the cylinder isn’t closed completely or is wobbly, the fired bullet leaves the cylinder and can strike the forward part of the revolver frame, causing serious gun or bodily harm. And if the cartridge ignites in a round in a chamber well away from the frame, the bullet can certainly fly out of the chamber and hit something else ahead, with a lot of force, but without any accuracy because it hasn’t gone down the barrel. Such “sympathetic” or double discharges with a revolver (a discharge of another cylinder position just immediately after the round in the actual firing position discharges, without the cylinder revolving) are well known, especially back in the day of black powder and percussion guns. IF there is enough heat with a fire to ignite one round in a revolver, it could certainly ignite more than one. In fact, the one in the firing position and under that (in a symmetrically loaded revolver, for example, at12 o’clock and 6 o’clock cylinder chambers) might be more protected from the heat and fire less quickly than those rounds in the outside (more exposed) spots.
So, yes, it is possible that rounds “cook off” in a loaded weapon and actually fire with significant force, probably just once in a semi-auto but potentially for multiple rounds in a revolver. WITHOUT the cylinder revolving or the trigger being actuated.
Yes most of us gunsmiths understand firearms and ballistics, CUP pressures, etc.
Thank you. I wondered if a revolver might behave that way. But I am less familiar with revolvers. I have my momma’s .38 special but rarely use it.