I’m not gun maven, but automatics would seem to have it all over revolvers as defensive or offensive weapons. Revolvers have simpler mechanisms, but assuming you have the choice of a high quality revolver or high quality automatic where jamming would be (assumedly) very rare, why would anyone ever choose a revolver?
Automatics aren’t much good for Russian Roulette.
Sometimes I like to play Dirty Harry.
Seriously, though. I don’t know much about guns, but I understand that you need to spend a lot of time cleaning them. I imagine a revolver has a lot fewer parts than an automatic, which means it would be much easier to clean.
I’m not a really big gun nut, so this may not be perfectly accurate.
Revolvers let you shoot off bigger bullets, if you’re into the Dirty Harry thing. As far as I know, .454 Casull, .460 S&W, .500 Magnum, etc have so much energy behind them that an automatic that could handle them would be impractical at best, between weight, grip size, and so on. The Casull does have the very weird Mateba Unica 6 behind it, which is a semi-automatic revolver, for the record.
You get a little flexibility, too. I understand that a .357 Magnum handgun can fire .38 Special bullets, and a .460S&W revolver can fire Casull, .44 Magnum, or .45Colt without complaining (though the reverse order is decidedly untrue), but it takes some work to get, say, a 10MM Auto automatic to cycle properly on .40S&W.
The weak link for automatics is the ammunition and the magazine.
You’d be surprised how finicky and picky a semi-automatic can be when it comes to ammunition- feed the “wrong” brand or type through, and you can get misfires.
Also, if the magazine lips or feed get damaged, the gun is largely useless (unless you have spare magazines), and if a shell doesn’t eject properly (it happens quite often!), then your automatic will jam, and is laregely useless until you clear the jam.
A revolver, on the other hand, is considerably more reliable. If you get a misfire on one chamber, you can re-cock the gun and a new (presumably loaded) chamber will be aligned with the barrel, ready to fire. They’re easier to clean, less likely to malfunction, and can often fire two or three different types of ammunition (a .357 Magnum revolver will also fire .38 Special ammunition, a .38/200 revolver will also fire .38 S&W and .38 Colt Police ammunition, a .44 Magnum revolver will also fire .44 Special and .44 Russian ammo, and even the Nagant M1895- chambered in 7.62x38R- can fire .32 S&W Long and .32 H&R Magnum ammo).
Until recently, revolvers were the only guns capable of handling the magnun-power cartridges, and even now the magnum calibre semi-automatics are huge, bulky, and unwieldy.
In short, I’d say a revolver is still a better defensive weapon than a semi-auto, but a lot of that is simply my personal preference- I find revolver grips more comfortable than those of semi-automatics, for example.
Sometimes it’s nothing more than style. I was an owner of semiautos only, until the day I stopped to buy a few bricks at a new store, and saw it. Not an everyday concealed carry weapon (although it does fit in the same armpit holster as my 10mm), it’s appearance appealed to me. Like Ralphie, I looked and looked, and after handling it, produced a down payment and filled out BATF forms. Taurus44SS6
Miller-it ain’t the number of parts that gets you with cleaning. Revolvers have a little gap between the cylinder and barrel, and lots of crap escapes from that tiny gap. With an equal number of rounds fired, I’ll spend 2-3x more time cleaning a revolver as I will a semiauto.
So you can have a weapon that chambers, fires and extracts 25 different cartridges in the .38/9mm/.357 ammunition range.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/outdoors/firearms/1277301.html
Not to hijack my own OP, but how does one get a deal on a new gun? I’m a pretty savvy shopper for most other things, but given the controls on buying firearms it seems there’s less competition, and thus less wiggle room in price. How do you obtain your best deal on a new gun?
Gun shops sell a toothbrush-like tool with bronze bristles that works very will for this area. A regular toothbrush works great if the crud isn’t baked on too thick.
Revolvers will always be more reliable in my mind. The design hasn’t changed a whole lot in 150 years. They work, and they work well.
An automatic, no matter how well made, will eventually jam once or twice. Murphy’s law says it will happen in exactly the wrong time. And some feed jams are so severe that you have to field strip the gun just to get it shooting again.
Automatics tend to be less accurate, not only because the barrels tend to be shorter, but because there are more moving parts that can realign slightly between shots. In most automatics, the barrel is free floating and only locks into place when the slide returns to forward position. Also, revolvers can afford to utilize heavier, more reinforced barrels which can reduce “barrel whip” (harmonic vibrations of the steel caused by the detonation of cartridge).
You can immediately tell if a revolver is loaded just by examining the front or rear of the cylinder, wheras most automatics look the same loaded or unloaded (and depending on the model, the weight difference can be nominal).
Revolvers are simpler. There are no safeties, magazine releases, or slide stops. With a double action revolver, you open the cylinder, put your cartridges in, close the cylinder, aim, and pull the trigger six times (some smaller caliber revolvers hold seven or even eight shots).
Automatics certainly hold more rounds (my glock 34 9mm can hold 19-round magazines), but in a one-on-one self-defense situation, six shots is more than enough, unless you’re a terrible shot or the guy is farther than 30 feet away (in which case you should probably consider retreating or taking cover anyway).
Not much will beat a .357 or .44 magnum for stopping power, and while a few exotic autos will chamber these cartridges or the equivalent, the standard high power auto is either the .40 or .45, both of which are a bit weak compared to the .357 or .44 mag. It’s actually fairly common to hunt with revolvers chambered for .357 mag, 44 mag, or more powerful rounds, but you rarely see people take their automatic hunting.
Plus they look cool. My Ruger GP-100 6" .357 magnum never fails to impress. 
Two words: gun show.
Go to a few local gun shops and pick a model you like and get a general idea of pricing, and then visit the next gun show armed (figuratively) with this knowledge. You should be able to strike a very good deal.
When bullets cost a 1000 dollars each?
(I know nothing of guns, BTW. Just couldn’t resist. 
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When you want an ultra-concealable gun ?
I love these little guys, but many here don’t. The new-ish .17HMR round has a mean feet per second of 1,200! Pretty good for a gun that is about the size of a business card (length and height, of course).
-Tcat
Oh wow! That’s cool. Yeah, I know from when I looked at buying a .22LR rifle that the .17HMR rounds are very impressive. Price is right at $200 too. (Obviously not a home defense round, but an interesting piece none the less).
The other big problem with autos is mixing ammunition. Some pistols can be very picky about what they eat, and if you mix rounds in a mag it will jam. OTOH, I can load my .357 with a mix of .38 and.357 loads of all powers and it will function like a charm every round.
One consideration is that autos leave shell casings all over a parking lot were as a wheel gun keeps all spent casings inside.
I’m just sayin’…
Plenty of times; revolvers tend to be more reliable.
Double action revolvers are simpler to shoot. For people that don’t practice enough the revolver might be slightly better, but otherwise it’s all personal preference.
I wouldn’t put untested ammo in a fightin’ gun, so that negates the revolver taking anything you put in it, and I have a stack of auto’s that don’t jam ranging from $140 to $1200. Reliability isn’t really a problem with good guns (they don’t have to be expensive), especially if you don’t buy bags of gun-show reloads and dump 'em into a big box, then shake it up and load your mags out of the resulting mess. A reasonably priced Ruger doesn’t have any problem feeding factory ammo, a 60 year old 1911 that Grampa brought back from the war might well choke on a wide hollowpoint, (admittedly a 60 year old revolver wouldn’t). For all the bashing of autos that goes on, the military has been using them for 95 years, and barring certain egomaniacal US generals, no one really wants to go back. The technology was perfected by a certain John Moses Browning near a hunnerd years ago…
My prejudices are painfully obvious, but I can’t say that one is better than the other. Revolvers are better for some people. The ammo capacity of an auto tends to make them preferred for offensive uses, but IMHO it also causes people to waste their shots (but that’s a different show). Home defense? Really, how often would an extra shot or two make a difference? My trusty 1911 is 7-8 shots (depending on the mag) vs. my S&W .357 that only has 6 shots. If I can’t stop a guy in 6 shots, I’m not sure I can do it with 8. Double-stack mags going up to 15
Either I’m suffering from Invisibility again, or you just missed the fact I made the same point back in post #6.
When arthritis makes operating a slide or loading a magazine almost impossible to do.