Could a person be fully justified in carrying something like a K, L, or N-frame these days? Does the revolver’s reliability advantage make up for its lower capacity, slower reloads, and heavier trigger? If someone has several serviceable semi-automatic pistols could a revolver have a niche personal defense role in certain situations?
Absolutely personal preference.
If you shoot a revolver well, who gives a shit what other people think.
I carry a 4" 686 Plus occasionally in a simply rugged pancake and it carries great. Additionally, 7 rounds of 357mag is hardly a compromise especially when you compare to those who carry a full size 1911 with only 8 on board.
Carry what works for you and be happy.
If you hang around in the woods where “personal defense” includes furry things with teeth and claws, if you worry about defending against people inside vehicles, or if you might take a 100 yard shot with a pistol. Then the big magnum revolvers are a better hammer.
I’d also figure that an assailant in body armor might have problems shrugging off a double tap of 250gr .44 Magnum rounds as easily as a couple .380 rounds.
I’ve got a couple large frame 4" revolvers and they’re really not that much harder to carry than a 1911 or big Glock in a good holster.
You ever watch Jerry Miculek videos?? 
He can fire and reload a revolver twice before I could find my next mag on my belt.
To answer the question, no it is not obsolete. It’s a different tool for the job.
I used to carry a colt python when hunting or just trekking through the woods. It’s been replaced with a Glock 22. Is the python ineffective? No. For me it came down to what would I prefer to lose, tear up(much more active in my younger days), and more bb’s(16 opposed to 6). That’s it really.
I still somtimes carry the python. Why? Because it feels good in my hand. Lots of rounds through that pistol, like it a lot. And if I shoot somthing in the face with it, short of a bear or extra large critter, I don’t think I’m going to have any more problems with said critter.
Now a lot of this depends on where you live. If you are in bear country, I would have my .41 mag or .44 mag. Bigger hammer as said above. In my area, anything above .380 would be good.
The revolver will never be fully obsolete. To the non-gun enthusiast “six for sure” is still the mantra for people who don’t have the time or interest in learning malfunction drills with a semi-auto, or simply find all the levers and push buttons on an autoloader to be too much to train for.
A revolver lets you know it’s loaded or not at a glance. A revolver can be unloaded in a flash by just emptying the cylinder.
You don’t have to worry about jams, bad magazines, or low-powered rounds failing to cycle the action. If a round fails to go bang, just pull the trigger again. No tap, rack, bang needed here.
I might also add: I’ve seen more than one person reach the age where they did not have the hand strength to chamber the first round in an autoloader. No such issues with opening a cylinder and putting rounds in.
Not at all obsolete! Also keep in mind in areas with mag cap limits the auto advantage shrinks as well(sadly I live in one of those places) while not as big as some make it out there is still a reliability edge with wheel guns. Also even your garden variety smith k frame will tend to be much more inherently accurate than the typical combat auto.( a person on the trigger who can exploit that potential is an in reading rare bird these days) I have been to ppc matches and seen guys really good with wheels run sub four inch fifty yard groups with box stock k frames shot double action. No combat auto made today and even come close to that. My club runs a idpa type shoot and we run a course once with auto and once with the revolver up to about 40 targets. Even with the extra reloading my times for the wheel run are very close to my auto score. Not sure if that means I am good with a revolver or bad with an auto!
Nothing that launches bullets effectively can be truly “obsolete” . Not ideal, maybe, but not obsolete.
I have a 19 k frame with a 2.5 bbl being worked on right now that I wouldnt mind carrying.
To follow up I guess I am old as my start in handguns pretty much the choices were a 1911 with seven round mags or revolvers. The difference between 8 45’s and 6 357’s is marginal. I know some people who can really smoke it with revolvers - not miculek speed but darn fast. With good technique even now average can learn to reload a revolver quickly and the stats that indicate the majority of fights end long before six rounds are gone are still true. I still carry reloads and won’t deny the auto is faster in this regard, but a skilled revolver guy or girl with a k frame is still a force to be reckoned with.
If by obsolete you mean there is no reason to get one over an autoloader then I think yes. As much as I love revolvers, and I really do love them because I learned on them first, they just don’t really have advantages over autoloaders in my opinion. You gain reliability but you can still have malfunctions caused by carbon build up or just the annoying difficult to extract casing (in all fairness issues are usually rarer than in autoloaders). Some like to say that revolvers have a ballistic advantage over autoloaders- there doesn’t really seem to be an advantage of .357 mag over 9mm/.40/.45 now since companies seemed to have frozen development of .357 mag bullets while constantly improving 9mm/.40/.45. On top of that the recoil tends to be harsher with .357 partially because it is more powerful but also because you don’t have energy going into a reciprocating action. Plus revolvers are just large and heavy for their barrel length.
I might sound like I am just hating on revolvers here but I really do like them. Just ask yourself, would you rather carry a G19 with 15+1 rounds with a 4" barrel or a 686 with 6 or 7 round and a 4" barrel which weighs roughly twice as much and is much bulkier?
Short answer no, they are not obsolete. There are a number of areas in my mind that they do excel, big game hunting/protection, as well as teaching/training new shooters (.38 wad cutters out of a full sized .357 is a very soft shooting gun and can raise comfort level of recoil skiddish shooters.)
I’ll be working on a detailed answer to that question this weekend at HiTS close quarters pistol class with a 3" GP100.
My thoughts exactly. In 99% of self defense situations a revolver is probably totally sufficient. In most cases the gun is not even fired, it is the presence of the gun and a person willing to use it that deters most cases of further violence. In a small fraction of cases people have needed more that 6 shots to adequately defend themselves. And if you need 15 then what’s to say 30 would not have been better or 100? It gets to a point that the gun itself is often enough for 80% of the cases (or whatever the percentage), and three shots deals with another 15% (estimating), and 10 handles another 3% and 15 shots maybe another 1/2%. Another way t look at it is, a person armed with a revolver is better armed than probably 99% of the general population.
No way you can say a revolver is obsolete for self defense. Personally I prefer to carry as much ammo capacity as possible in order to improve my chances even just a few percentage points. But when I do carry my M29 or 640 I still feel well protected.
Kind of hard for me to picture a situation where I would rather have a revolver than a 10mm Glock except for a BBQ.
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“I’ll take a revolver, You take your chances,” - Bill Jordon. Everyone should own at least one quality revolver I feel. I wish I was a decent revolver shooter as those who are are a joy to watch. It’s easy to see why most prefer a pistol (me included) but I can’t see how the revolver will be obsolete. If I spent more time in the woods and back country, a big bore revolver would be my choice for side arm. On the CCW side, pretty tough to beat a snubbie with appropriate loads for weight/size and “six for sure” aspect of them.
Digging around in my nightstand turned up an SP 101 and a GP 100. I sleep okay.
I spent the weekend shooting next to this guy. He more than held his own, shooting those two “rotary drum-fed assault pistols.”
And by the way, he was shooting .357 magnum rounds in those two pistols, not cheating with some weak .38 Special pipsqueak handloads.
500 rounds over two days, most of it shooting on the move doing head shots on demand, between multiple no-shoots.
So yeah, it can be relevant, if you are up to it.
Am I selling my G17’s? No. Am I keeping my GP100? Yes.
Good shooting with you, dude. Looking forward to doing it again. Be safe.
Considering most personal defense encounters result in no shots fired and those that do have 3 or less shots fired, it’s hard to say that 3 shots of 38SPL / 357 Magnum / 44 Special / 44 Magnum won’t get the job done.
While I am prepared for reloads with my firearms, odds are you won’t need to reload in a SD shooting.
People who dismiss revolvers are simply closed minded or uninformed.
Obsolete? Not for me but I suspect I am in the minority. Love my 6 shot, .357 S&W M13, 3" barrel but I fully recognize the advantages of more capacity and faster reloads with the auto.
Thanks SS. The class was full of good shooters and to be able to hold my own compared to them in the eyes of an observer is something. I got a ton of practice reloading.