Poll: What brace of revolvers for Cirillo class

[Gordon]

I am gonna take a Jim Cirrillo 5 day class in April! I want to use revolvers as I have over 600 hours of Auto pistol instruction and haven't taken revolver instruction since the mid 70's Academy.
I thought about a 4" Python on right hip and a 2.5" Python on left , with an open top 3 speedloader pouch or two. I can't find any body except Ted Blocker to make such a rig.
I am leaning, however , toward a tooled leather rig by Saguaro Leather with my engraved custom Cylinder and Slide gunfighting .45acp 4" bull barrel New Service Colt on my right in a Fitz Special rig and a 2.5 Python on my left as a back up. I will get a custom carrier for 1/2 a dozen moon clips (a 2x2 loop slide for 12 rounds) .
Being I have to practice maybe I should use S&Ws so the guns are not out of time like the Colts maybe after 3 months of hard and fast DA work! I hate to waste $ on a one of a kind custom leather belt rig for a 4" and 2.5" K frame, but prolly be more practical with 3 or 4 Jet loaders!
Anyway rule #1 of gunfighting applies: LOOK GOOD!

 

[Dienekes]

Well, he did pretty well with a Model 10 S&W...

 

[Kor]

I voted for a brace of Smiths, but I'd suggest you keep both guns the same brand to minimize the chances of a catastrophic brain fart if/when you start doing partial-reload drills, or anything similar.

Now, if you wanted to be a dirty little apple-polisher, you could replicate Cirillo's Stakeout Squad carry with a Dick Special and a Smith Model 10(IIRC).

 

[Jim March]

Ummmm...

Wouldn't you want to take the training with your carry holsters!?

Lookit...my view is, I want two guns available. One is a small "everyday" and it's always carried in the same place, same holster. It is ALWAYS there.

When I want to (or feel the need), I want to strap on a second bigger piece in a different place, NOT "replacing" the little guy but supplementing it.

My personal choice for "always" is a 38snubbie. And there are times when I might draw that first even if the bigger gun is available too - in a close-range mess the snub is a fine choice.

Where these are is your choice. IWB strong on the snub, shoulder rig on the big would be one common setup.

Once you've decided this, THEN take it all to class.

"Look good"? Sounds like a waste of good training time to me.

 

[Gordon]

i AM a dirty apple polisher! Would a Combat Masterpiece and Dick Special work? They do take the same speed loader!

 

[Kor]

Actually, Cirillo's Stakeout Squad carry was even worse(or better, depending on your mindset)...

Found a Massad Ayoob article in Harris Publications' 1992 The Complete Book of Pocket Pistols(p. 49) which states:

On stakeout duty - which I confirmed when I visited him in his natural habitat in the early 1970s - Jim carried two four-inch Smith & Wesson model 10 .38 Specials, a hammer-shrouded Colt Cobra lightweight .38 snub in a hip pocket, and a 14" Emergency Services Unit issue Ithaca 12-gauge pump shotgun loaded with 12-gauge rifled slugs. On occasion he would supplement this list of hardware with a Walther PPK .380 as a last-ditch hideout.

I'm still researching my reference library, but IIRC one M10 was carried strong-side hip, the second carried in a vertical shoulder holster, and the PPK in an ankle holster.

You MAY want to start shopping now...

 

[Gordon]

I took a BUNCH of guns to the range yesterday to help the selection process. I wasn't interested in 1" at 25 yard groups. What I was interested in was which guns quickly raised up to sightline would produce the tightest WELL CENTERED DA group firing to empty in 5 seconds at 15 yards on a 1/2 scale white sillo. .
Not surprisingly the 4" and 2.5" pythons did the best The 4" kept most hits touching in a 2" group and the 2.5" kept them within 4" group.
All .38 special shooting was done with my own reload of 158 hard cast bullet over enough Win. 231 to reach 900fps in a 4" gun-(4.7 grains). I have 3k of these loads left from the time I had knee surgery 6 years ago and put up twice that amount.
Next up were my 5 screw 4" S&W Combat Master pieces in 4" and 2" . the 4" gun put them a little high and left as did the 2" , funny I had sighted these guns in long ago with these loads, and sure enough they hit center in single action! Must be the DA trigger is much harder than the Pythons. The groups DA were not as good either- almost twice the size of the pythons, Say 4" and 6" and I could move the sights down and right a little... . I guess that barrel weight DOES help rapid DA work!
I tried my M-19 nickle Mod. 19, it has a trigger job and it was almost as good as the Python with nicely centered 3" groups.! Go figure!
Moving on to .45acp , My 1950 S&W .45acp was not that great with 8" groups well centered , but the PMC ball ammo was harder to bring back to sight line than the .38s. The 4" Douglas bull barreled Colt 1917 , which was sighted in to 15 yards with ball ammo by Cylinder and Slide, was a different story, it felt at least as good as the 4" Python and produced groups perfectly centered and in the x ring-say 3". Once you get that big flywheel of a cylinder moving it feels like a full auto! I am worried about the bolt stop on this gun doing alot of this! The full moon clips are much faster to load for me than a speed loader.
Just for grins, I took out the S&W 242 (7 shot .38) and 296 (5 shot .44 spl.) snubs. The 242 wasn't bad with well centered hits in 5-6" , but the .44spl was barely contained on the 1/2 scale sillo, which represents the vital zone pretty well, maybe it was those thundering 180 grain XTPs at 900+fps?
Anyway the K frames would work, and I don't fear getting some practice with these old safe queens, however the Pythons do have the advantage-maybe I could practice less? But there is something about the New Service gunfighting .45- maybe it's the Fishpaw gunfighter grips