Single-Action, Double-Action & Automatic Pistols

The merits of each have been debated for decades; here’s one shooter’s take. - The relative merits of the three basic types of pistols – single-action, double-action and automatic – has rarely been discussed in an impartial manner. All have their place and their advantages and disadvantages, depending upon their use. There is a lot of misinformation and even brazen lies that have been repeated for so long that many people believe them. Chief among these is the lie that revolvers are more reliable than automatics. We need to get that lie out of the way before we go any further. I shoot for a living and I have had far more jams and malfunctions with revolvers than automatics. I have seen a .45 M1911A1 throw sand out of every joint and keep right on firing. If you ever get sand down inside the lockwork of a revolver, it will lock up as tight as a bank vault until you turn it in to Ordnance and they take it apart and clean it.
That brings up another point. Automatics are usually easy to take apart and put back together. Revolvers are not, and double-action revolvers can be a nightmare. Even trying to get some of those tiny screws to start in their holes can prove almost impossible for those that lack the magic touch. Revolvers have to be in perfect timing to operate reliably. As they wear, they get out of time. Bad things happen now. A cylinder may refuse to turn, trigger pulls go up and down drastically in the force required to operate, and a hammer may sporadically lack sufficient force to fire the cartridge or may refuse to go all the way back, etc. I have seen all these things and more.

A revolver that is worn or out of time may work perfectly during dry firing but start doing the aforementioned things when you begin firing live ammo. I have even had a foreign copy of a Colt Single Action have its cylinder freeze up after loading the first couple of rounds. Despite the fact that there was plenty of play fore and aft and no place was visibly binding, the cylinder pin had to be removed to get the cylinder out before you could get the cartridges out. The gun then would cycle perfectly as long as no shells were in it. I sent that gun back to the importer without ever figuring that one out.
Then there are the screws. Revolvers are full of them. They back out sometimes as you fire and then they can tie up the gun. An automatic keeps right on working reliably despite its wear until something breaks. I have never had any weird malfunctions with an automatic.

NOW LET US begin with the single-action revolvers. The Colt Single Action Army (SAA) in .45 Long Colt (as opposed to the .45 Short Schofield) is the classic gun of the Old West. It is simple and easy to master. Thanks to Western movies and TV shows, it is the most recognizable pistol in the world. The ease of hitting with it makes it a top choice for many people. As long as you take the time to point it at the target, its rate of fire is as fast as a double-action revolver.
Since it is a .45, you only need one shot per human assailant. That means you can immediately turn your attention to any other attackers in turn. This is a life and death matter because many men have run out of time and been killed by the other attackers while trying to do a double-tap on each assailant.

THE DOUBLE-ACTION REVOLVER has largely superseded the single-action. It is much faster to reload, especially if it is a topbreak, and the use of speed loaders makes it even faster. The old British Webley is the all-time champion revolver for fast reloading. This rugged, reliable design stands as the best military revolver ever to see service. Sadly, it is no longer made.
The American swing-out cylinder revolvers require that the muzzle be held up when ejecting the cartridges, lest one fall between the cylinder and the ejector and be hard to remove. Ejection requires a separate movement, unlike the topbreak designs that positively eject when the gun is opened fast. Double-action revolvers are the best pistols for the casual user who just wants a burglar pistol, as there is not much to remember. Just point and pull the trigger.

THE M1911A1 .45 automatic represents the ultimate in pistol design. It has the most reliability of all pistols and its .45 ACP cartridge will put down a foe with one shot to the vitals as reliably as anything you can hold in your hand. I have a World War II manual in which the Army states that the .45 ACP has more stopping power than the .30-06. That just bears out what pistol users have seen all along.
While relatively easy to master, you do need to become accustomed to it, whereas the German P08 Luger is the easiest pistol to hit with ever made. You just point and hit. It’s as simple as that. The Luger is also one of the most accurate pistols ever made. While not quite as reliable overall as the M1911A1, it is the champ in the mud. There is no place for globs of mud to enter the mechanism and it is good at throwing the mud off when fired. Read the rest of single, double-action pistols.

An 870? Wonder if he had diddled the disconnector and could fire just holking the trigger back and cycling the slide? We had some ancient shotguns in the service that could do that.

I don’t know. It was at an annual all comers match for our gun club. He was running the match because he had won it the previous year.

He was not competing but for some reason did the final event. It was supposed to be a trap shoot but the wind was blowing so hard that he had a backup event.

Five 2 liter bottles were set up in a “W” pattern. You were to shoot in that pattern in 5 seconds. It turned out to be easy and almost everyone did it. I and everyone else had to pause after the 3rd shot because of some tendency to go straight from 3 to 5. Probably because that is the way we read.

Still 5 seconds was more than enough. This guy obviously did not have that problem as he shot all 5 in less than a second.

Here you go. (Remember, for the .45ACP, .380ACP, .32ACP and .25ACP, the "ACP" stands for "Automatic Colt Pistol". Before the language became corrupted, "automatic" came in "semi-automatic" and "fully automatic".)

That 8.75 27 didn’t happen to be a -2, wooden presentation box, bought out of Texas, by chance?

I danced with one for a couple of seasons, I look back and wonder what I was thinking trading it off, for what was supposed to be the better love of my life.

Now it’s one of my greatest regrets. Dodd have never let her go......

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