I have a friend who is into single-action revolvers in a big way. He’s gone so far as to say when he gets a carry permit he wants to carry around a Ruger single-action revolver. Personally I’ve always through of the idea as idiotic retarded [I have to piss of those r-word people periodically]. Double-action revolvers and semi-auto pistols both have advantages and disadvantages to one another. Single-action revolvers have some of the advantages of their double-action kids but with severe drawbacks added into the mix. I always through of using a single-action revolver for a carry gun as self-retardation in a self-defense situation.
Well it seems Gunsite has launched a Single-Action Defensive Pistol class to their roster. I will fully admit that a single-action revolver will work in most self-defense situations so long as you can draw, cock the hammer, and fire fast enough. The problem is if you get into one of those corner case situations where a reload is necessary. In these cases pistols shine as they are very quick to reload and each magazine holds more ammunition on average than a revolver. Double-action revolvers is very practical with the use of speed loaders, speed strips, or moon clips. Then you have the single-action revolvers which are impossible to load quickly simply by the fact they’re designed to extract one case at a time and load one round at a time.
Still I can’t really see why this class exists. Are there enough people out there who actually carry a single-action revolver? If there are why do it? Seriously it just seems like you’re purposely handicapping yourself unnecessarily.