Revolver: How to fire during struggle?

[StandardFare]

During struggle with wolf, after chosing the revolver and starting to smash with it, I noticed "once" the option to shoot appear. The next struggle it did not appear and I was only able to smash with the revolver and almost died. Is this random or skill dependant? How does this work?

Edited August 3, 2019 by StandardFare

[ajb1978]

It appears when you get the struggle meter nearly maxed out, like maybe 3/4 of the way full.

[ajb1978]

19 hours ago, rancid0 said:

this is a good question. but i have a second one, when a wolf attacks you and you successfully win the struggle can items in your inventory take damage the way things like a magnifying lens can when attacked by a bear?

if the answer is yes then it might be hard to tell if the revolver is taking damage because of that or because your smacking it.    

I believe items in your pack only take damage if you lose the struggle but survive anyway.  The revolver does degrade if you use it as a bludgeoning weapon, and while I don't have a whole lot of data to back this up, I think it degrades at about 1/2 the rate it would if you fired it normally.  I'm not 100% certain of any of this, but it's my best guess based on what I've seen.