An argument put forward by enthusiasts of revolvers is that, unlike the semi-automatic handguns that have largely displaced them for personal defense and duty use, they “don’t jam”. By “jam”, they don’t mean that strawberry stuff you spread on an English muffin, but a malfunction. For some reason a lot of people holding this opinion don’t go in for precise terminology.
At any rate, the idea behind this is that since a revolver is powered entirely by the shooter and all the rounds are already in their chambers, then a mechanical malfunction is an impossibility. My friends, I yield to nobody in my love of wheelguns, but this is just not the case.
Murphy's Law Is Universal
Let’s start with one of the more esoteric revolver malfunctions. If you are not a reloader, you may have wondered “What do those people who handload ammunition do when they know they’ve put together a defective round?”
Well, the answer is that they disassemble it into its component parts using a thing called a “kinetic bullet puller”. This is a gizmo that looks like a hammer, but the head is hollow. You unscrew one end of the hammer head, stick the defective cartridge in there, and just start whacking it on the ground. The differing inertia between the heavy projectile and the rest of the cartridge will cause the bullet to pop out of the case, the powder to spill into the chamber of the bullet puller, and the round to be disassembled.
The thing is, with very lightweight revolvers that fire hard-recoiling cartridges, this is a real problem. I am personally a fan of the long-discontinued Smith & Wesson Model 296, an aluminum-framed, titanium-cylindered five-shot L-frame revolver chambered in .44 S&W Special. Etched on the side of the barrel is a warning to not use projectiles heavier than 200 grains, and that’s a warning that this flyweight big-bore will turn into a kinetic bullet puller if the laws of physics are ignored. One of the other great kinetic bullet pullers I’ve experienced in my time in the gun biz was the S&W 325PD back in the early 2000s. This was a snub-nosed N-frame with a scandium-alloy frame and a titanium cylinder, chambered in .45ACP.
Moon Clips Can Make Problems
In addition to the bullet-pulling problems of a lightweight revolver chambered for a hard-recoiling cartridge, this one added the moon clip problem. Moon clips for revolvers are generally a good thing. They allow the shooter to recharge the cylinder all at once with a lot less hand-jive than even the best speedloader setup. The problem arises from the fact that moon clips can be very inconsistent and are also fragile. Many loading and unloading tools for moon clips and half-moon clips can, if used improperly, bend the clips themselves. And if the clips get bent, they can cause the cylinder to bind and not turn smoothly. Check your moon clips against a known flat surface to make sure they aren’t bent.
Speaking of binding the cylinder, you might notice that old timers who are savvy with the ways of the revolver will, if they’re loading the cylinder without extreme time pressure, run the pad of their thumb in a circle around the bases of the seated cartridges. What they’re looking for is confirmation that there aren’t any high primers in the chambered rounds that might bind the cylinder when shooting.
Another thing that can cause the cylinder to bind is when you eject the empties and, while loading the cylinder again, a flake or two of unburned powder finds its way under the ejector star. In that case the star will not seat flush again and the cylinder will bind up when closed. The best preventative for this is the muzzle-up reload coupled with a vigorous application of the ejector rod.
Failure To Eject? In A Revolver?
One of the more insidious malfunctions is the ejector rod backing out. In Smith & Wesson lore, especially, the shrouded ejector rod is seen as a status symbol as well as “tactically desirable,” because supposedly it was desired by Depression-era lawmen who wanted to pistol whip bad guys without bending their ejector rods.
The problem is that if the ejector rod starts backing out, it will completely tie the whole mechanism of the revolver up. You will not be able to pull the trigger, turn the cylinder, or even operate the cylinder latch to open the gun up.
The prophylactic here is threefold: Snug the ejector rod to the appropriate tightness. Apply the proper degree of threadlocker to the ejector rod. Check the snugness of the ejector rod every month or two depending on the use cycle of the revolver in question.
Probably the last malfunction revolvers are prone to … and the one that will draw the most ire, so don’t forget I’m a revolver fan who frequently carries one… is running out of ammunition. A good medium-frame revolver runs out of ammunition twice as often as a plebeian Glock G19, so don’t miss, okay?
