Claude Werner, The Tactical Professor, raised the issue of asking the proper questions in personal protection in the midst of interweb hullabaloo concerning revolver reliability. I addressed that fracas in Six For Maybe and Six For Maybe, Part 2. I have asked both Claude and Darryl Bolke to produce materials on keeping the revolver running in a training environment.

Speaking of proper questions, trainer and AIWB holster maker Spencer Keepers posed an excellent question via text message, and I will paraphrase it below:

“How do we balance revolver reliability as in ‘It will get you though five or six rounds and a reload if you start with a clean gun alongside the high round count torture tests for semiautomatics with shooters stating that they won’t carry a gun if it has a single malfunction in that arbitrary round count.”

I personally don’t buy into such high round arbitrary standards. In fact, I intentionally keep the actual live fire round count on my actual duty/carry pistols low.

I carry a Glock 19 as my daily carry/duty pistol. When I first obtained the particular sample that I carry, I ran a few hundred rounds through it to make certain that it functioned. Since then, I run it through a qual-course a few times per year. I maintain it. Otherwise, it rides in a holster. When I am attending or teaching a class, I swap out to a “training” Glock 19, and it has thousands upon thousands of rounds through it, but prior to leaving the range, I swap back to my carry/duty pistol.

Machines fail. Pushing a large number of rounds through a pistol (a machine) is pushing it towards inevitable parts failure. Your mileage may vary.