So, Frank James told about (in his book) a drill for the revolver that I have to try next range session. It helps your familiarity with loading to try to overcome the loss of fine motor skills in a stressful situation. And since more often than not I am CCWing a revolver when I can...
Essentially you load one, set the revolver cylinder so it is the next one fired, then load another one, set it, and fire. And you try to get the speed up. You are loading from loose rounds in your pocket, too. It seems designed to be fumbly. Te get that muscle memory up and going, along with the speed. After a bunch of single drills you load 2, &c. It's important you manually remove your spent casing/s one at a time, to simulate or actually accomplishing, a top off of the ammo. So only push the ejector up a little bit and grab the spent ones that way, one, two, or if you are really good, three at a time. It's to keep the gun "gassed up" (This was Clint Smith's, the instructor at Thunder Ranch that taught Frank this method, term.) Don't waste the good ammo by dumping the live from the fired cartridges.
Now many 'tactical' situations won't call for his method, but it's good to have the familiarization practice, if needed.
Load the gun 'high' so the threat area or target is still in your field of view instead of looking down at your belt buckle the whole time.
DA only, naturally.
In public, the idea is to carry a speedloader of some sort and loose rounds for top off, so you have both options, of a top off or a full reload in a hurry.
Frank brings up a good point. Say you are without a pistol when the zombies show up, and the owner of the house you are staying has an extra gun. If they hand you a revolver and you are a wizard with your Glock, you are sorta stuck fending off the undead with whatever is available. It don't hurt to get some revolver time in. I'd hate for you to get eaten by Zed.
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4 comments:
I like this idea. I want to be familiar with any tool that comes to hand. It's why I have such a variety.
Left and right handed as well.
...
+1.
Be able to operate what comes to hand - either hand.
One reason Clint teaches folks to recharge autoloaders by pulling the slide back instead of using the slide stop; it works on all pistols regardless of where the slide stop may (or may not be) found...
Excellent drill! Many years ago, back when most cops were shooting with revolvers, I did some shooting with one of the range guys at Phx. Rod and Gun. The guy was amazing. He could shoot two, open the cylinder, pop out the two used cartridges, load two new from a dump pouch, and put two more down range, faster than most semi-auto shooters could fire one, reload, and fire again! Shortly after that, he went to Iran for some kind of diplomatic duty, and disappeared. This was at the start of the revolution. I've always fantasized he remains in the hills outside Tehran, holed-up, picking off the baddies one-by-one, with his revolver. And, reloading as needed.
Funny thing: Last night on Personnel Defense TV, Clint was doing a Reload Drill with Revolvers and Loose Rounds. He made a couple of Helpful Hints that can be useful to this discussion. 1) All revolvers that are to be used for Defense need to have the Flutes in the cylinder. The solid Cylinders should be reserved for Hunting. His Logic?: the Flutes aid in Cylinder Rotation during stress and cartridge location. B) When you reload by hand the Big Fat End of the Cylinder that Doesn't have the Flutes is where the Cartridges need to be inserted. This is useful in case of Low Light and/or vision problems. C) Clint recommended starting the reloads when you have the spent chamber at the 9:00 o'clock position, because this gives you the Maximum room to work w/o hitting the frame.
Hope this helps.
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