My old style .44 Navy single action lets me drop the hammer between loaded chambers, so I get most of the benefit of an empty chamber, and still get that one extra round: A 20% gain for that oh-so-common situation in my pastoral existance wherein I miss the bad guy the first 5 times.
And the added round, for a firearm stoked with black powder makes the defensive smoke cloud even thicker.
Your old Navy .44 reminds me of using a car as a defensive weapon. It gets them the first time if your aim is true, but it takes so darn long to reload.