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surferdaddy wrote: Wed Mar 31, 2021 10:33 amI will say this, that the reliability of a revolver is extremely comforting to me.

I have always thought that the difference between a pistol and a revolver, in terms of reliability, is that a pistol may jam every so often while you are shooting, but you can clear the jam right away with proper action and keep shooting. A revolver doesn't jam anywhere nearly as often but when it does, you need a gunsmith to fix it.

There is the added advantage that if a revolver doesn't fire, you can keep squeezing the trigger to try the next rounds. You cannot do that with a pistol.

srothstein wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 11:30 am

surferdaddy wrote: Wed Mar 31, 2021 10:33 amI will say this, that the reliability of a revolver is extremely comforting to me.

I have always thought that the difference between a pistol and a revolver, in terms of reliability, is that a pistol may jam every so often while you are shooting, but you can clear the jam right away with proper action and keep shooting. A revolver doesn't jam anywhere nearly as often but when it does, you need a gunsmith to fix it.

There is the added advantage that if a revolver doesn't fire, you can keep squeezing the trigger to try the next rounds. You cannot do that with a pistol.

Yeah, I agree that if a revo locks up it will probably take you out of the fight. But my experience is that I’ve had several jams in semi autos, never had a revolver lock up...not saying it doesn’t happen, it’s just never happened to me. But good points for sure.

Surfer

I had a patient who was executed at contact range with a 12 gauge to the base of his neck. He was a long-haired blond white kid. The entrance hole was badly burned around the edges, and probably an inch and a half in diameter. The blast vaporized 2 of his cervical vertebrae. They had simply ceased to exist....along with a couple of inches of his spinal cord. The full charge went down into his left chest. When we cracked his chest, we found the wad sitting on top of his diaphragm. A good deal of his left lung was completely pulped. The miracle was that no part of his aorta had been touched. He was still conscious and talking upon arrival in our ER. His speech was a combination of wailing that "they" had killed him, and begging us to not let him die..... which was inevitable. Blood was pouring out of the wound. Over time, the bleeding got more and more pinkish as it became diluted by IV fluids, despite the transfusions he was also receiving. He was 19 years old. Police believed that it was retribution for a bad drug deal or something like that. His girlfriend said that there’d been a knock at their door, but she didn’t see who it was. She heard a quiet exchange of words, then the vic turned to her and told her that he had to step outside for a minute. A minute later, she heard the boom, ran outside and found him on the lawn, and called 911. He was conscious until just before we got him into the OR, and then he was gone.

It’s one of the cases that has lived in my head ever since. Contact distance gunshot wounds are no joke—especially from shotguns.

Also... this video, which is instructive for other reasons, also briefly covers blast damage from contact range gunshots:
https://youtu.be/NFtQOxjWfaA

The Annoyed Man wrote: Sat Apr 03, 2021 8:12 am Also... this video, which is instructive for other reasons, also briefly covers blast damage from contact range gunshots:
https://youtu.be/NFtQOxjWfaA

Wow, nasty.

He almost lost me at the beginning, when he claimed that the spin of the bullet is what causes so much damage. I'm glad a struck through to where he made more sense. Even though he completely disregarded the impact of bullet weight and volume.