The following is my opinion as a member participating in this discussion.
@ the S&W 10.5". We're not making blue movies man...
All I can hear is the guy from Blazing Saddles "Excuuuuuse me while I whip this out."
I gotta say - I can understand barrels that long on handguns if you frequent the grasslands of Africa, and hunt out of the back of a jeep, but out in
the pines, a clear line of sight past a few dozen yards is a rarity.
A 5.5 pound revolver that takes 5.5 seconds to draw and requires a freakin' benchrest to be accurate - not my definition of an ideal survival
handgun.
On topic..the 1911 is a great gun, with a storied history, but it's still an automatic (and depending on which one you get, and what you do to it
while in the throes of 1911 tinkerlust, it's one of the more obnoxious ones), and automatics are, as a rule, less reliable than revolvers.
I really do think it's a wonderful firearm, and definitely the only handgun for me in the general sense (no other handgun with real stopping power
has ever felt so perfect in my hand, or been so accurate for me), but we're talking about a very specific use and a very specific set of needs.
I've tried really hard to overlook the 1911's shortcomings in this department, because I like it so much (in the general sense), but I just
can't.
.45 automatics get dirty..quick. They are harder to clean than revolvers. A dirty automatic (especially a dirty 1911, compared to a dirty glock) is
less reliable than a dirty revolver. They have more moving parts, and are vastly more complex in terms of troubleshooting and repair. The feed
mechanism on a 1911 consists of a series of precise angles working in tandem, all of which must be damn near perfect in order for the gun to function
as intended (or at all). The feed mechnism of a .357 revolver consists of..are you ready for it..a hole!
I'm sure the problem is just that we (the people on this thread and others like it) are talking about two very different things. To each his own, I
guess...
If I was hunkering down in mountaintop fortress and fending off theoretical hordes of looters, or the red army, the 1911 would be an easy choice for
me (along with a couple of other heavy weapons that use big, angry-looking rounds that leave big, angry-looking holes in things).
It's all jolly well to use rounds the size of your fist, until you're faced with the prospect of carrying a bunch of those things around with you
through the tangle. It's even worse when one of those big angry-looking rounds turns several hundred calories worth of cottontail or grey squirrel
into so much mist and confetti.
It's not a game-getter, that's what your trusty .22 rifle is for. The .357, for me at least, is an Oh # gun - it's the one you want to have on you
when you come across a bear, or an unlikable person, and the .22 just doesn't cut it anymore. You don't need a lot of ammo for it - it's more like
that 3-pack of flares in the trunk of your car. Who carries 500 flares in their trunk? There's a pretty obvious divide between prepared and
retarded...
You could get a Ruger MKII and tinker with it I guess, and it would be faster and quieter and lighter than the .357, but it still won't make a bear
sit down, and it will never be as reliable or easy to maintain, no matter how many aftermarket parts you throw into it.
I think the problem we're all having here is a failure to communicate. Some folks think SHTF and they picture an urban warfare, video-game scenario,
where magazine capacity and whallop wins the day. I picture moving quickly to a place where the water still runs clear and the sky is not obscured by
clouds of black smoke (civilization is not a nice place to be when people are no longer civilized) - in an instance like that your traps, your tackle,
and your .22 will feed you, and the handgun is just for emergencies.
I know a couple of guys who spent a good amount of time actively searching for bears with no luck at all. The chances of coming across one aren't
great. The .357 just simplifies the process of turning that bear's ass into a fashionable hat, should you be (un)lucky enough to stumble across one
of those big bastards.
As an ATS Staff Member, I will not moderate in threads such as this where I have participated as a member.