Forgotten revolver tips and tricks.

[Aim1]

I love this short video.

Cool.

 

[The Hand Gunner]

I personally try to practice with my single action every day when I can. Draw it from my holster, cock the hammer as I do so, aim down the sights finding my target, and finally pull the trigger. And I even do hip firing drills which have really helped out my hand/eye coordination.

 

[2ndamd]

I love reading this thread!

Some tips:
We used a dime on the barrel of our 64's also. Taught me trigger control. I like the idea of taping a laser pointer under the barrel as a modern day option.

We use to put cut up bicycle intertube around grip to keep the gun from falling down our pants when we were incognito. Only cops carried holsters! Lol. That was old school street cred right there.

One thing I did not see that is a tip. Safe storage of a revolver is easy and cheap. Get a pad lock and run it through the top strap with cylinder open. Even better, get a long neck padlock and put it through the cylinder hole, one of them.
On prisoner transports, while in the shower I would run handcuffs through the top strap to disable the gun from being used.

Love the post about 2x2x2 pouches. I still use speed strips. We trained and still do, shoot two, load two. Now that changed to shoot a few and load two. The idea was to not worry about how many you have shot, but to get those two rounds in as quickly as possible and finish the fight.

The original post said it best in my experience in gun fights, all gun fights no matter what equipment you have on you:

As the law abiding, responsible gun owner, you will be the last to know you are in a lethal force encounter. As such, a revolver in a coat pocket can be deployed from concealment to get you out of there and safe. This adds to the point about rubber grips. In my experience, the last to know means you have already been clubbed in the head, stabbed in the thigh, shot in the abdomen or shot at and they missed ( God willing). So, you are behind already, and blood, when fresh, is very slick! Rubber grips help for sure! Blood does not get tacky/sticky until it drys a little.

I will not discuss advanced shooting tactics and drills here. But, you can hone your shooting skills to where sight alignment is irrelevant. Watch your target not your sights. I could talk about that for hours. Enough for today.

 

[2ndamd]

Talk about being behind in a lethal force encounter, I was hit in the head with a tire iron. I was focused on the one guy and did not see the other sneak up on me until the very last second. Bam! Tire iron to the upper forehead, left side. Snubby j frame ended that fight immediately, without a shot having to be fired. Initially a forehead wound bleeds a lot then, clots up quick. Fresh blood is very slick.

 

[2ndamd]

I use the brightest florescent orange nail polish I can find to paint the front sight on all my fighting/edc guns. It is fun to watch the looks I get shopping the "Glam Things" section inside Walmart.

That bright orange stands out in your peripheral vision when combat/point shooting at the range. During a fight you have got to watch your targets, index your sights with your peripheral vision to guide your point shooting.

Nowadays, sight options exist. Just make sure you can index the sight with your lower peripheral vision while indexing the target.

Now, before ANY of that will work, you have to breath and stay focused or your adrenaline will corrupt your vision, awareness, and the ability to make effective decisions in a fight.

Experience training will help you maintain control. We use to run or do push-up's until our muscles were about to fail. Then, FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT. Sometimes multiple targets sometimes one target with a friendly thrown in to see if you could identify and make no shoot decisions. Shooter did not know until it was time to fight.

I should admonish us to remember that as the responsible gun carrying citizen we want to avoid a fight at any cost to our pride. After shooting investigations can be scarier than the actual lethal force encounter. Someone is going to judging your every move or non-move. If you have a chance to leave...leave, run! I don't care if the guy called you a f@×ING pu $$y coward or said your wife is fat and ugly. You back off and take the hit to your pride if given the opportunity.

Enough for today

 

[Jim Watson]

Now that changed to shoot a few and load two. The idea was to not worry about how many you have shot, but to get those two rounds in as quickly as possible and finish the fight.

And part of the training was being well aware of whether you were shooting a Colt or Smith and Wesson in case you could only get in one or two rounds.

 

[2ndamd]

Hell yes! You have got to know where to close those rounds into the cylinder upon it''s rotation.

I always count rounds when shooting and even watching videos. I do not know how Hickok and Sootch go click. Even watching videos I am saying "That''s six brother:" (or five). Just years and years of shooting, it is like second nature. Just count. Love watching your videos and I do not intend on casting a dispersion to anyone.

 

[shoebox1.1]

I need to work on my counting

 

[Gunsquirrel]

Does anyone remember placing a coin up by the front sight and dry firing? We did it with a lot of "trigger jockey's" to learn the practice of a steady trigger pull. I started my LE career in '78 so there was a time period before the transition over to the autos, I still take my revolvers to the range and get them dirty. After I retired I got a call from one of the guys because " I'm a dinosaur" and none of the new guys like revolvers, someone was cleaning out a collection (they didn't like guns, "just get rid of them") and I obtained a beautiful S&W model 38/44 for a price that I can't mention. Also got a model 10 out of the deal..

 

[2ndamd]

Yes! I remember using the coin on barrel.

Here is a tip we have not discussed yet;
What if you cock the hammer on a live round? I had a newer officer bring in a bug model 36 with a cocked hammer, gun loaded and a sock tied around the space between the hammer and the transfer bar. EEK! No one trained him how to decock a hammer in a loaded gun.

So, here it goes: hold the hammer with your shooting thumb or use your weak hand thumb and index finger to grab the hammer. Get a firm hold so as the hammer will not drop. Press the trigger while not letting the hammer fall. Release your trigger finger immed6after pressing trigger. The trigger will move forward as you slowly allow hammer to move forward. You can see the transfer bar dropping out of sight as trigger is moving forward. If not? Pull hammer back just a tad but not to cock it, just far enough to allow transfer bar to become free a drop. The hammer will not strike the firing pin without the transfer bar and the transfer bar will not stay in position unless the trigger is held to the rear.

So, let''s recap:
Cocked hammer on loaded da revolver,
1. Hold hammer firmly in position while pressing trigger.
2. Release trigger to let it move forward while holding hammer in position (allow hammer move ever so slightly forward so it does not cock again.
3. Slowly control hammer to move forward towards frame of the gun while watching transfer bar moving downward as trigger moves forward.
The top of the hammer will rest against the frame.

When you dry fire an unloaded da revolver look at it from the side. The hammer drops, hold trigger to the rear. You can see from the side view the firing pin protruding on the top cylinder hole (unless you have recessed cylinder). As you release the trigger you will see the firing pin retreat into its hole and the hammer will slightly move to the rear. That is because as you release the trigger the transfer bar drops and causes the hammer to no longer be in contact with the firing pin. The hammer is now safely at rest on the frame. A da revolver needs the transfer bar to be engaged to fire rounds. This is true even if your gun has a hammer mounted firing pin.

I know many here did not need this discussion but, this is for new revolver owners.

 

[Jim Watson]

When you dry fire an unloaded da revolver look at it from the side. The hammer drops, hold trigger to the rear. You can see from the side view the firing pin protruding on the top cylinder hole (unless you have recessed cylinder). As you release the trigger you will see the firing pin retreat into its hole and the hammer will slightly move to the rear. That is because as you release the trigger the transfer bar drops and causes the hammer to no longer be in contact with the firing pin. The hammer is now safely at rest on the frame. A da revolver needs the transfer bar to be engaged to fire rounds. This is true even if your gun has a hammer mounted firing pin.

I know many here did not need this discussion but, this is for new revolver owners.

Misleading, this is not what is going on.
A Smith & Wesson (or an older Colt) does not have a transfer bar. The part you can see in there is a hammer block that clears to let the hammer hit directly. Take it out and the gun will still fire. Early days, the rebounding hammer was the only safety, there was no hammer block. Driftwood Johnson has posted large clear pictures of the workings of those guns.

The only transfer bar gun I have to look at is a Charter Arms, a Ruger or Trooper Mk III shooter will have to confirm or deny what happens in those more common revolvers.
Pulling the trigger lifts the transfer bar in line between hammer and firing pin. When the shot is gone and you let off the trigger, the transfer bar moves away from the firing pin which retracts on its own spring. The hammer does not rebound like a S&W.

 

[Speedo66]

If you're worried about releasing the hammer as you decock a gun, revolver or semi auto, put a finger from your other hand in the gap in front of the hammer until the hammer is almost completely down.

If your thumb releases the hammer by accident, your finger will stop it from hitting the firing pin. This is a very simplified explanation and action for guns with built in safety mechanisms, but it might make less experienced shooters a little less nervous about bringing the hammer down.

 

[Sistema1927]

I use the brightest florescent orange nail polish I can find to paint the front sight on all my fighting/edc guns. It is fun to watch the looks I get shopping the "Glam Things" section inside Walmart.

I have my wife purchase my "Traffic Cone Orange" nail polish at Wally World. I put two coats of white and then three coats of orange. The front sight now "pops", and the nail polish lasts quite some time prior to being stripped off and replaced.

 

[2ndamd]

What if someone hands you a revolver you are not familiar with? How can you tell what direction the cylinder turns?

If you look at the cylinder from the side, towards the back there are notches. On one side of the notch there is a ramp cutting into the lead of the notch. These ramps almost look like an arrow. Did you know those arrows point in the direction the cylinder rotates?

 

[Ernie Bass]

Many tips and tricks, drills and just enjoyable reading.

 

[MTNSTRYDER]

Every time I try to leave my house with a wonder 9 17 shot something nags me until I return and put a real firearm in it’s place.The number one thing with a revolver is the first shot make it count.that should be with all firearms.I hear so many people saying its ok to miss I’v got 16 more.Thats a good way to die from 2 legged or 4 leged.A revolver does have a steeper learning curve but it is easy to get over confident with any handgun.17 shots seem to give too much confidence in the gun and not the control.practice until you can always pull and put one shot where it’s needed.then go on too double taps.master that before moving on to reloads.

 

[dbluefish]

Having read through another thread on this board, I see that there are some young revolver afficianados present here. In that thread I became aware that certain things I was taught as a young LEO, pertaining to fighting and prevailing with a six shot revolver, are evidently lost to the dustbin of history.

While I regarded these revolver "tips and tricks" as common knowledge by those carrying a revolver, they are evidently no longer taught or are unknown to young revolver users. I will attempt in this thread, to share with those who might be interested, the tips and tricks that I still recall.

I would like to request two things for this thread. One, I am no expert. I'm simply trying to pass on what little I recall (due to the onset of oldtimers) if you are an old revolver mossback like me, please relate to us any training tips or revolver techniques you may still recall or use. Two, if you are one of the many who find it impossible to feel "well armed" without seventeen rounds in your handgun and a belt festooned with spare magazines, please refrain from posting in my thread. This thread is not for rehashing the age old "revolver vs semi auto" or six rounds vs abizzilion rounds arguments. That is currently being done a few doors down. Please hit your back button now or go and start your own thread. Thanks!

Well, let us start at the beginning. Loading your revolver. When is your revolver "loaded"? An old range SGT pounded into my head, sometimes literally, that your revolver is loaded when there is one round in it. Think about it.

He would march back and forth behind the line, frothing at the mouth, screaming "WHEN IS YOUR GUN LOADED??!! WHEN THERE IS ONE ROUND IN IT!!" This was a reminder that, in extremis, it was well to remember that you could simply drop one round into the cylinder and possibly save your life. You might not always need to try, or more likely under the extreme duress of close combat, fumble trying to load six. We had speedloaders then, but in the not to distant past, at that point in time, dump pouches had been used. In fact some of the older and less dexterous officers still used them at the time. One NYPD officer had been killed while using those dump pouches and trying to reload six rounds in his revolver.

We were also taught to use a 2X2X2 pouch. Much better than a dump pouch. This 2X2X2 pouch held six rounds close together in pairs. You carried it on your belt (it wrapped around) and learned to pull the rounds out in pairs and drop/feed them into the charge holes. With some extensive practice at this it becomes a rather fast way to get back in the fight, in the unlikely event you should ever need to reload during a "gunfight".

A word about "gunfighting" here as I see the term, and opinions of same, cast about rather willy nilly with many opinions presented as facts. The only "fact" I know about "gunfights" is that no two are ever exactly the same.

We were always taught that there were two LIKELY constants in any armed conflict we might engage in as law enforcement officers. One, we would likely be the second person to know we were in a gunfight. Two, we would likely be out of time well before we were out of ammunition. These adages still prove true today as well and may have some value for those armed citizens using a revolver to protect themselves. BUT - one should always train for the worst and hope for the best.

When using a revolver for fighting, be aware that you need not dump unfired rounds in order to reload your sixgun to full capacity. I you fire two or three shots and obtain cover (COVER not concealment, there is a difference! ) open your revolvers cylinder and slightly tap up on the ejector rod. Your fired casings will remain up and your remaining unfired cartridges will fall back down into their charge holes. Pick out the emptys and drop in your fresh rounds from your 2X2X2 or loose cartridges carried in a pocket. I always carried two speedloaders, and a 2X2X2 pouch, plus the six I started out with in the gun. 24 rounds. I was proficient and fast with all the reload methods due to endless repititions. Muscle memory is real and you WILL fight like you train.

Well, I'm tired now and hungry so I will stop for now and if there is any interest I will try to return as I'm able and relate what little I still know. Best, TJ

As a brand new revolver owner, this helped get me past the Semi vs Revolver mind set. Thanks

 

[shoebox1.1]

Little something I’ve been doing that might be of interest. I carry one of three revolvers I have and always carry a speedloader in my right front pocket. I use hks due to availability for all models and same technique used. I color code the speedloaders so I know which is which at a glance. Blue for colt, red for Ruger and black for the charter arms. Sharpies are used and are holding up to daily use very well! I haven’t had to touch any up. Note the colors don’t look great in this light but stand out nicely

 

[aaaaa]

1911 Magazines make dandy speed loaders for .45 ACP Blackhawk convertibles.

Fascinating! So basically you empty the magazine by pushing the rounds into the revolver cylinder? That is awesome. Can I rig one up to reload 38 Special? Why don't they make such loaders for revolvers?

 

[aaaaa]

I seem to remember that squib loads are less dangerous because of the gap, and that most of the sound comes out of the gap.

Interesting thought. Of course, it depends where the squip bullet lodged. If far enough into the barrel to allow the next bullet to nest behind it and still leave the gap open, it may save you a nasty if not fatal gun grenade.

I read somewhere that hangfire is not so bad in a revolver as the rotated chamber can exit out the side of the gun so long as it is not the type of gun that has an ejector rod in that location, or the hangfire does not go off while the cylinder is halfway to the next chamber.

 

[aaaaa]

A Zombie thread that didn't disappoint. I've never felt under-armed with 6 rounds, be it a single action revolver or any of the current offerings in plastic fantastic. Train as you fight.

That is what many end up doing, but could result in die as you train.

 

[jruppert2]

I’m going to revive this thread because it is so informative and I hope there are others who can add to it. I own three revolvers. GP-100, SP-101 and the LCR. Yes, I like Rugers and even my dog’s name is Ruger. The information in this thread is so good that I have read through the thread two or three times over the years. I have taken several of the tips here and put them into my practice routine. Here is the thread once more. Enjoy!

 

[Thomasss]

Three books for you that are a must: 1) "No Second Chance", Bill Jordan; 2) "The Secrets of Shooting a Double Action Revolver", Bob Nichols; 3) "Fast and Fancy Shooting", Ed McGiveran.
Book 2 and 3 has a lot of b.s. but look past that and get into the meat of the books. Lots of useful info.

 

[rld405]

Did you guys know that the OP of this thread passed away in March of 2022? How sad. He was only 60.

 

[shoebox1.1]

That’s too bad. God rest his soul