J-frame died halfway through dot torture, revolver uber-reliability is a myth

This is not intended as a screed against the J-frame, but at the range today I had a perfect example of how revolvers can spontaneously fail and become useless.At about the 40 round mark in the first round of dot torture with my 442, I open the cylinder to perform a speed reload and abruptly discover the cylinder will not close again. Spinning the cylinder, checking for debris under the ejector, and checking for obvious broken parts or mechanical issues fail to fix the problem. At this point the gun is out of the fictional "fight" completely, so it goes in the bag.At home I figure out the problem. The ejector rod came unthreaded under recoil and managed to unwind itself while the cylinder was open, becoming long enough to block the cylinder from closing. I try to tighten it and...it comes apart. Duh, reverse thread. Put everything back together and it appears to work now.This isn't the first time the gun has suffered a hard stop at the range, either. I've had four ammunition failures, two with reloads and two with factory ammo, all bullet separations under recoil. One resulted in powder getting under the ejector, jamming the gun and ending the range session. The others required blowing the powder out and finding a tool to push the separated bullet out of the chamber. Changes to ammo selection and the amount of crimp I use in my reloads seems to have fixed this.Total round count? Just under 400. On average the gun hasn't even gone 100 rounds between failures that stopped the gun completely and needed detailed cleanout or going home to the workbench to figure out and fix. To date I have never had an auto go down on the range and stay down. I've had shitty cheap jam-o-matic autos, but never one that broke and could not be immediately fixed with a standard malfunction clearance.I only carry the 442 for deep conceal, and carry with a single speed strip at the most, so I'm not too worried about whether the gun will make it through 10 rounds of properly crimped ammo in a hurry, but still. How many people buy a snubbie, put 20 rounds a year through it, stuff some shitty bulk ammo in the cylinder, and assume it'll work because "granpappy sez revolvers never jam"? Test your carry guns and test your carry ammo. via /r/CCW https://ift.tt/32ZWY4i