r/canadaguns • u/Flat-Dark-Earth Big Bore Specialist • Mar 01 '26
Buy recommendations Revolver-Rifle…PCC’s. Do we think there’s a future for them in our market?
Since we’re now seeing a handful of revolver actioned 410 shotguns, some of which can chamber for 45 LC.
Do you think we will start to get the same configuration in 357, 44…45/70? Modern furniture on a revolver actioned rifle.
6-8 shot capacity, additional loaded “cylinders” ready for a quick swap.
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u/Q-Ball7 In the end, it's taxes all the way down Mar 01 '26 edited Mar 01 '26
In theory, but I think it's unlikely simply because manufacturers, even the Turkish ones, generally don't have a good enough reason to build one.
Is the underlying concept good? Of course it is. A 9mm DAO revolver rifle, with 10 or 12-shot cylinder loaded through moon clips, is a lot of firepower. And a 10mm revolver rifle would be competent when hunting as well as allowing the use of .40 S&W for more casual use. Don't listen to the "but muh cylinder gap" people; this is a problem solved with a cover.
But the reasons they aren't getting made are better reasons not to make one.
First is inherent complexity. Unless you're designing from scratch, the machining on a revolver and its internal components are obnoxious and you can't just do it on a single CNC machine like you would any other modern rifle. And while Turk manufacturers are very good at paying little for assembly, these parts actually have to be made and timed right or the gun just straight up doesn't work, and there isn't as much institutional knowledge about revolvers in that country.
Could you design a very simplified revolver from scratch? Yes, but designing such a thing is itself quite expensive, and the return on investment wouldn't be great because...
Second is modularity, and is why manual-action PCCs generally don't exist in general. With a revolver, you're closed over the set of what you could possibly do with the thing. Want to offer different calibers? Sorry, can't (and if you want to offer your gun in a non-stupid caliber, like 9mm, the first reason applies again). Want to offer higher capacities for countries with more liberal gun laws? Sorry, can't. Want to make a full-auto version, even just to expedite reliability testing? Sorry, can't.
Third is that there's no meme factor to tap into for instant marketing. The only two reasons lever-action rifles sell well are cowboy memes and because .44 Magnum, while still a poorly-designed compromise cartridge, is powerful enough to be a hunting cartridge and short enough that putting it into a levergun isn't stupid (though given that .30-30 rifles still sell, this isn't actually that important).
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u/Xaxxus Mar 02 '26
Also the Canadian (and probably worldwide) civillian market for something like this is tiny compared to the US.
And why on earth would someone in the US want something like this when they can have literally any other gun.
As much as I want something to replace the semi autos that have been stolen from us, there’s just no reason for a company to do so. Especially since it will probably just get banned or reclassified as a “semi auto” once poly sees it.
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u/Q-Ball7 In the end, it's taxes all the way down Mar 02 '26 edited Mar 02 '26
And why on earth would someone in the US want something like this when they can have literally any other gun.
Well, no, they actually can't.
Revolvers aren't semi-auto by the definition of any law I'm aware of; Canadian law requires something else to happen once you pull the trigger, and it does not.
This becomes relevant once you consider that a significant minority of the population of the US can't buy a semi-automatic rifle with "evil features" (read: modern ergos) and a detachable magazine, and this market is captive in this state for the forseeable future. This restricts the availability of 9mm detachable-mag semi-auto rifles in particular quite severely. Revolver cylinders aren't magazines in any of those laws, if I recall correctly; neither do moon clips qualify as magazines, and even if they did, just use half moon clips. You wouldn't even need a particularly large cylinder to offer a superior product; 10 rounds would be sufficient.
A few states require hunting rifles to be chambered in straight-wall cartridges (and these laws were only just changed, so you can expect this to persist for a while); .350 Legend exists in part to fulfill this niche, but if we're going to go full lever-action replacement, might as well go all the way. Revolvers have a few advantages over other types of rifles in hunting; they are more reliable, can be made more resistant to dirt ingress (especially with modern manufacturing), provide a faster follow-up shot, and they inherently retain spent brass where other rifles do not. S&W already offers a revolver in .350 Legend for these (and other) reasons, in fact. And sure, suppressors are less effective on revolvers, but 9mm out of a 20" barrel is pretty quiet already.
or reclassified as a “semi auto”
Again, that's not how the law works.
As for Poly, well, turns out that Poly-aligned Progressive female mass shooters are the real threat to schoolchildren these days, and they have a protest in Quebec to amp up the hysterics over. I don't think we have much to worry about from them for the time being.
Especially since it will probably just get banned
You live under the law you deserve.
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u/Cre_AK47 Name Prohibited by OIC Mar 02 '26 edited Mar 02 '26
You have to keep in mind there are some Communist states like California and Illinois that will literally make it a misdemeanour or felony for a semi-auto rifle having too many features, including "high capacity" magazine restrictions.
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u/Iokua_CDN Mar 01 '26
A pump action 9mm carbines seems much easier to make than a revolver carbine, and just as much capacity with easier reloads and probably nearly as quick.
I agree lever actions do as well as they do because they bring out an inner cowboy to anyone who grew up watching westerns and pretending to be a cowboy. In Europe without the popular westerns, lever actions are pretty rare and not often made
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u/Q-Ball7 In the end, it's taxes all the way down Mar 01 '26
A pump action 9mm carbines seems much easier to make than a revolver carbine
But semi-auto rifles in this caliber are even easier to make than pump-actions as a property of how blowback operation works. This is the main reason nobody builds one, and in the vast majority of jurisdictions if you can own a gun you can own a semi-auto, so why would you overcomplicate it?
And the answer to "why overcomplicate" is exclusively "because meme gun"- lever actions are all stupid obsolete designs, but they still sell, so why reinvent the wheel if you'd just get less money afterwards?
probably nearly as quick
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u/Iokua_CDN Mar 01 '26
Good point, when semi autos are so easy to make, there is much less demand for a pump. I'd still like one because I like short bon restricted guns, where as most of the short 9mms I see in the states are technically pistols and would be Restricted if they sold them here.
Also good point on the revolver shooting. However that's a quality revolver, I assure you, the Turkish 410 revolvers woth their heavy heavy double action triggers, do not shoot anywhere close to that speed
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u/Q-Ball7 In the end, it's taxes all the way down Mar 01 '26 edited Mar 01 '26
I'd still like one because I like short bon restricted guns
A Canadian company manufacturing a revolving rifle as I described would likely be relatively viable, both for the domestic and international markets.
Yes, cloning a S&W directly would probably be difficult and not particularly efficient, but why would you do that when you could clone a better revolver, or better yet, take advantage of the fact this is a rifle and you're not as space-constrained in behind and don't need the hammer in the same place?
Or hell, get rid of the hammer entirely and just use a striker (with a lever on the side if you want it fully-cocked), do what the Dardick revolver does and have the "frame" just sit in an aluminum chassis, do what the Unica 6 does and have the hand and bolt be the same-ish piece, fire from the bottom chamber to reduce the distance you have to move everything, and probably more stuff I'm forgetting.
And then you chamber it in .350 Legend so you can shoot every 9mm cartridge ever made. Thanks to moon clips, you don't even have to exclude the shitty obsolete revolver cartridges, either.
There are legitimate improvements that could be made here, and they've existed in some form or another at some time or another; the question that actually needs to be answered is... why bother?
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u/Iokua_CDN Mar 02 '26
The idea of clambering it in 350 Legend, and being able to shoot 9mm sounds wild to me!! That would be a sweet gun! Hunting round and plinking round. I didn't realize 350 was just a longer 9mm round
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u/Q-Ball7 In the end, it's taxes all the way down Mar 02 '26
Well, it is and isn't. The thing with .350 is that its rim is smaller than the cartridge body, so while you can just shoot 9mm out of .350 Legend barrels, you generally also need a bolt [and extractor] that can accept that larger rim diameter.
With a revolver, though, all you need is a moon clip with a slightly different size of tooth to snap onto the smaller base.
.400 Legend, by contrast, literally is just longer 10mm, so any bolt that accepts .400 Legend accepts 10mm.
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u/black_covfefe_please Mar 02 '26
In Europe huh? Most replica lever guns are made in Italy.🤷♂️
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u/Iokua_CDN Mar 02 '26
Replicas maybe, but I'd say most lever action guns are made in the US, period. A healthy amount are made in Brazil. A few are made in Japan, and now a few are made in Turkey too.
Italy has some history with the lever action, and some brands, but they are an exception, not the norm. The rest of Europe doesn't seem interested in lever guns, and history has made very very few. Compare that to the amount of Break action shotguns, bolt actions and even semi autos made by European countries.
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u/HappyCan7250 Mar 03 '26
Uberti and Taylor Co make a few, I think 45LC and 357 revolving rifles. Prophet River has then a while ago and may still., they were around $2k if I remember right.
Turkey is also now making a rifled 45LC/45acp model (Moon clips for 45acp). A few sites had them up a bit ago, saw them on Tenda. They were a bit pricey though at around $1200, considering the 410 smoothbore models are $600-$700.
But there are several rifled revolving rifles already on the market, just a bit tough to find sometimes and only a few sites carrying them.
I wouldn't mind one for the novelty but I don't think I could justify $1200+ for a Turkish gun when I could almost buy a Henry lever gun in the same caliber for the price, but there is a market for them here as they've definitely been selling. Tenda sold out pretty fast on the 45LC/ACP rifles.
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u/Q-Ball7 In the end, it's taxes all the way down Mar 03 '26
Uberti and Taylor Co make a few, I think 45LC and 357 revolving rifles
These are just oversized, stocked versions of a gun design that was rendered obsolete over 130 years ago! Yes, it costs them nothing but the cost of the wood and extra barrel to make these- which is why they make them- but they are bad products and have all the usability problems people say they do simply because they do nothing to mitigate them.
Tenda sold out pretty fast on the 45LC/ACP rifles.
Yes, because they're double-action, actually have a way to hold them forward of the cylinder, and come in the only caliber that isn't a complete joke. But they still only hold 5, and are ultimately just bog-standard revolver internals so they continue to be a bit compromised ergonomically. At least they're smart enough to put the blast shield on them and the modern stuff on them is definitely the way they should go.
I believe that if you want to succeed with a revolver rifle you actually have to take the project seriously, and that starts by building it from the ground up as a rifle, not a pistol. But who knows, maybe Derya will do that if they sell enough of their beta products?
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Mar 01 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Iokua_CDN Mar 01 '26
Good points. I still like them for small fun guns. But I honestly think a magazine fed pump or lever action is going to:
have more ammo. Be more reliable Be just as quick And not have the cylinder gap issue making it lose power and injure the shooter Plus a quicker reload.
Heck, if it wasn't a pump or lever, I'd Even take a left handed bolt action or straight pull like the Dark Mountain Stowaway rifle, but with a magazine. Hold the gun with your right and cycle it with your left hand. With a short and light enough barrel, it would be easy
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u/Ok_Rush_246 Mar 01 '26
No, that design was a failure for a reason.
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u/mwmwmwmwmmdw Mar 02 '26
there are many impractical gun designs still selling like hotcakes for the fun factor
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u/c20710 Mar 01 '26
I think Borderlands is a fun game and if I ever want to shoot those guns, I’ll just play borderlands.
If semiautos end up gone for good, that’ll suck, but I’m not going to debase myself to trash tier guns that you just know Provost’s reanimated cyborg corpse will ban in another 30 years.
Just get a marlin bro.
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u/Iokua_CDN Mar 01 '26
I think the shortie 410 revolver shotgun is actually a pretty fun little gun. But I agree, it's not something to build a whole platform on, and a lever action is going to do more and do better. Heck, a Mares leg with a full stock has as much rounds as a revolver carbine but it's a much better fun.
But still, shortie revolver 410 carbine is a ton as fun. Whether blasting clays or hunting grouse, or just am all purpose hiking gun. Well worth existing, just not the ultimate platform that OP describes it as. It has some serious flaws.
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u/Iokua_CDN Mar 01 '26
I kind of like the current ones we have.
Tr410 micro looks amazing due to the 5 inch barrel. With a barrel like that, you could shoot it by keeping both hands on the pistol grip and away from the cylinder gap, something that I found a bit harder to do with the wood stock 10 inch barreled sr410.
That being said, moving up to more powerful rounds means more gas coming out of the cylinder gap and it means you need to have that short barrel or else you will be burning yourself if shooting it traditionally.
So my idea if I was a gun maker, would be to keep the revolver with lower pressure rounds. 410. 45 acp. 9mm. Maybe 357 at a maximum. Something like that with a 5 inch or 10 inch barrel seems wonderful.
What I would also like to try is 410 chamber adaptors. If you bought a 600 dollar 410 revolver. Then threw in $100 or so in adaptors to shoot 9mm then maybe threw in a longer rifled adaptor down the barrel.... you could perhaps have a 800 dollar 9mm revolver carbine. Thsts cheaper Than the 410/45. SR 45 (It's 1100 dollars)
All that being said, I think magazine fed pump and lever action carbines will be superior. Resist mag swaps more capacity and no cylinder gap. But I'll likely get one of each
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u/NeruLight Mar 02 '26
I tried out .45 colt caliber reducers in my SR-45, both 9mm and 38sp. They’re a cool idea but they seem to keyhole even worse than 12GA adapters. Plus they get frequent light strikes. And they’re expensive lol. I did shoot 5 calibers from my SR-45 in one session though. .38sp, 9mm, .45ACP, .45LC and .410 critical defence. Was a blast lol
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u/Iokua_CDN Mar 02 '26
I think you'd need to put like a rifled adaptor down the barrel itself. Like the 410 adaptors I've seen are all mostly non rifled. But a rifled adaptor down the barrel itself could hopefully stabilize it. I know chazel sells them but is usually out of stock
Edit how do you like your SR410 btw???? How do the 45 acp and 45 LC do??
I have the SR410, so cheaper and no rifling but was given the opportunity to return it and put the credit towards a sr45 if I wanted to
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u/NeruLight Mar 02 '26
I like it. The last time I had it at the range a young kid turns to his dad next to me and goes “that’s cool” lol .. it’s a cool gun, for sure!
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u/xx_rider nt Mar 01 '26
I love revolvers as a pistol, no interest in a revolver rifle. You loose chamber pressure and because of the cylinder you don't want any body parts you care about beside the cylinder so you can't use it as a rifle very well.
Personally I'll take a lever action over a revolver rifle any day of the week.
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u/hafetysazard Mar 03 '26
You don’t lose much pressure, but you’re right about the gas blowing out. Shooting anything over 20k psi would get old pretty fast with that shit blowing so close to your arms and face.
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u/xx_rider nt Mar 03 '26
Well you would loose more than you would with a pistol lengh because the barrel is longer and gives much longer to vent and you are already loosing 5-20% based on the best info I can find for a revolver. A lot depends on the gap and the round and these aren't exactly the highest quality so I'm guessing it's closer to 20 than 5%....
So it's a loss in speed, a loss in accuracy because you can't hold them right, and a increase in danger having a open cylinder that much closer to your face. Doesn't sound like a good sell to me.
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u/Icy_Librarian_8130 Apr 16 '26
Exactly my thought. Give me a short version of the henry lever action supreme in 9mm, 45acp, .357/38spl, and on and on.
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u/Icy_Librarian_8130 Apr 16 '26
Hear me out: Henry lever action supreme but in every PC you can dream of.
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u/Afrocowboyi Mar 01 '26
Revolver tolerances are very important for safety. The cylinder timing to the barrel but also the gap spacing as well.
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u/NeruLight Mar 02 '26
Lever guns are neat and will outperform the revolver but they can also jam really badly and be difficult to load. Revolvers are badass because they’re kind of bullet proof. The Turkish revolvers use slightly bigger cylinders than commonly available speed loaders too which stinks .. you can kind of make a speed beez one work though, sort of/almost
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u/LumberjackCDN Gold'n Loan Outfitters & Pawn Mar 01 '26
We have some revolver 357s on order already. They are coming