Revolvers are better for handgun hunting than semiauto pistols? Why?

Yes to all the above on revolvers, but on autos you have forgotten the 10mm, which is the only auto recommended for comfortable medium game hunting. The top loads give .41 magnum power without tearing you hand up, or rattling you teeth loose like the other big dogs.Revolvers are better for handgun hunting than semiauto pistols? Why?
Longer barrel


Ability to mount a scope


Better selection of appropriate calibersRevolvers are better for handgun hunting than semiauto pistols? Why?
Many good answers here, but reliability is not an issue with modern firearms. There are few if any semi-auto pistols that have enough power to kill even a deer at moderate ranges. The are a few that will kill a moose. The LAR Grizzly in .45 Win Mag, Wildey .475, Automag in .44 automag, and the IMI Desert Eagle in .50AE.


The problem with them is most states limit the magazine capacity in hunting weapons to 4 or 5 rounds and on the above mentioned, there is no practical way to do it.
they are not! too much hand movement equired to fire causing one to move off target also, too slow especially in emergency. revolvers take lots of training and semiauto is more ';point and shoot';1
Revolvers are less prone to malfunction, but the predominant reason is that they can be chambered in cartridges that would make short work of an automatic action. For example, my Ruger Redhawk will last until the other side of forever (.44 mag), while a semi-automatic handgun chambered in .44 mag will suffer spring failures constantly, requiring the disassembly of the gun entirely, and replacement of crucial parts after ';X'; number of rounds. Short and simple, it's harder to ';break'; a revolver, than it is to ';break'; a semi-auto (provided they are of quality, from reputable manufacturers).
Well, when facing a 1100lb grisly on a mountain ledge you may not want a jam. Revolvers hardly ever jam. The big calibers are revolvers excluding the Eagle niche gun that is to $$ anyway.
Bigger bullets.
Autos can be just as reliable as a revolver. A revolver can chamber rounds that simply can not be put into an auto-loading pistol.





I hunt with a 44 Mag, and have shot several White Tail deer, as well as Black bear. I can shoot a 340 grain bullet out at over 1500 fps. This is huge energy and penitrating power.





Considering that shots are at about 50 meters, this is an ideal gun. There are even heavier hunters like the 500 S%26amp;W Mag, and a better suited 460 S%26amp;W Mag. These are for killing big animals like a Brown Bear, or bigger. Or in the case of the 460, long ranges out to 200 meters are possible. These Super Mags dwarf the .44 Mag.





I been using a 44 for years, and it is a very capable caliber, the 500 is a downright hand cannon, pushing 500 grains out at 1500 fps. This is what a 12 gauge shotgun slug does!!!





If you ever took a look at a 45 ACP bullet, and compare it to a 44 mag bullet, or a huge 500 S%26amp;W Mag, you would understand. The sheer size of the hunting calibers make chambering in a pistol difficult at best, impossible with any degree of potablity.
I don't think there is a big enough difference to preclude one over the other. In the right hands that is. Having said that. It seems all the answers above are right. Most of the time you won't be using a regular hand gun for any real long distance shooting. I know I know there are specialty hand guns out there like the Remington's (I think it's Remington) XPS bolt action or the T.C.Contender that really can reach out and touch someone. I'm just talking 6'; or so barrel. Wheel guns are more reliable in nasty conditions just due to the design. I would hate to have to live on the difference in reliability...There isn't much.
One inherent reliability advantage the revolver has over the self loader that hasn't been mentioned is the very rare event of a cartridge failure. The the action of the auto must be worked to clear the failed round where the double action revolver need only have the trigger pulled again to fire. I have had a couple or three center fire cartridges fail on me and dozens of rimfires over the years.
If you're shooting small game with a 22, it won't make a lot of difference. Medium game, though, requires a powerful cartridge. That begins about 41 Magnum, though some people think 357 Magnum is enough. Moreover, when you use those cartridges, you'll choose a long, heavy-for-caliber bullet of hard lead alloy with a wide, flat nose and a shoulder of Kieth design. If you ignore the bullet, there are a few auto cartridges than can look on paper like they're close to the ballistics of heavy hunting revolvers' cartridges, but they can't handle the bullets. If you get to the auto's that handle rimmed magnum cartridges, they'll (1) be handicapped by not being able to use the best bullets and (2) be clunky, unweildy, and unreliable. They're also likely to be noisy. Some of us are even picky enough to prefer single-action revolvers to double-action, though I use both, because with the single-action revolver, the hammer can be pulled back in perfect silence, if you know the trick, where a double-action will always have the clicks. The same could be said of the snick of flipping the safety on most autoloaders.
The revolver can be chambered for rifle cartridges and they can have much longer barrels. (At some point it's simply a rifle with a pistol grip, in my opinion). They also are heavier so they soak up more recoil.





In the end if you don't care about that stuff and it's legal to hunt with in your state, then it's entirely personal preference which one you use. I live in PA, I desperately wish they let us hunt with semiautos because I LOVE the Beretta Neos pistols. No such luck though.
Most modern automatics are not accurate enough. A modern pistol can usually get something like 6'; or 8'; so at 50 yards. That means with a perfect shot, you shill have a very large area. This is perfectly fine for shoot outs at 7, 10 and 20 yards (most people can't hit squat past those areas anyways).





Because of handgun's lower power, they have to hit a smaller target on the animal.





Most modern, auto's can't do that.





You can get a nice revolver with a 6 or 8 inch barrel and get groups of 2' at 50 yards or smaller.





That, and the fact that there are a lot of revolver calibers that are much more powerful than common auto calibers.





That isn't saying you can't hunt with autos. You just have to have be much pickier on your shots. Like maybe 15 yards and perfect line up as opposed to 40 yards with a good profile.
by the simple fact that a revolver can be designed around a cartridge that offers heavy projectile weight.


Big cartridges produce heavy stresses in pistol chambers---it can be a problem, the autoloaders offer limited mass to work around if effective locking lugs are required to contain those heavier pressures
They malfunction less when dirty. They also fire larger bore and more powerful cartridges. Many cartridges approved by the DNR are Revolver cartridges, more so than Semiauto rimless rounds.
Because they are chambered for the most efficient hunting calibers. Very few semi autos are made beyond the power of the .44 Mag,and many of them are no longer made.
A Colt style 45 acp 1911 works well in all environments.