A Way of the Wheelgun
#wheelgunwednesday
In 2022, I created a four month Patreon series for developing shooting and gunhandling skills with snub nosed revolvers. There are a total of 65 articles in the series and it is the online equivalent of a book. All the articles are now available as a Collection on my Patreon page. Unlike a book, you can read it at your leisure on your Smartphone.
The basis for the Series is the principles and techniques of the Snub Nose classes I taught for decades and the two DVDs I made about snubs. Also included are examples of what went right and wrong in several real life incidents involving snubs.
There is a great deal of emphasis in the Series on ‘dry practice,’ i.e., practice without ammunition. There is also periodic live fire (originally monthly) of no more than 50 rounds. The live fire is compatible with either indoor or outdoor ranges because the vast majority (999/1000 by my calculation) of gunowners only have access to indoor ranges.
The first three posts in the Collection are unlocked and available for anyone to read. These initial posts describe Safety Protocols during dry practice to avoid putting bullet holes in people, places, and things where they are undesirable. Tragedies can and do take place during dry practice and we want to avoid those at all costs.
For anyone who owns and/or carries a snub, this is a good program. Anyone who does any dry practice, whether with a revolver or autoloader, will benefit from at least reading the first three posts about Safety Protocols.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/snub-revolver-97045992
Subscribers to my Concealed Carry Skills Tier ($3/month) https://www.patreon.com/TacticalProfessor have access to all the articles in the Collection plus all the articles I write on Patreon about marksmanship and gunhandling. In the financial industry, we’d say the Return On Investment (ROI) is very high.
Organizing Your Shooting Practice – I
Start the new year off right with this easy to shoot, easy to practice drill.
The NRA online website Shooting Illustrated has published the first of my series of articles about using the framework of State Level CCW Qualification Courses as marksmanship drills. The series is geared toward the new gunowner audience but even experienced shooters can gain something from it.
https://www.shootingillustrated.com/content/organizing-your-shooting-practice/
The philosophy behind the series is to give new gunowners at least a small idea of what they can do to gain some degree of proficiency with their guns. While “Do the work” has become a mantra in the training community in the 21st Century; what trainers mean by that is simply unrealistic in the context of most people’s busy lives. The goal of the Organizing Your Practice series is ‘Do Something.’ As my late colleague Paul Gomez said, “Shoot Yor Guns.”
Each of the monthly sessions can be accomplished by going to an indoor range for an hour, buying one box of ammunition, and getting in a short but meaningful practice session. If a shooter doesn’t even shoot the whole Session of the article; that’s okay. At least they know what it’s like when the gun goes off and what the sound of gunfire and the feel of recoil are like. The majority of adults are visual learners. For them, there’s also a YouTube Short about the session at https://youtu.be/AV4HSnAj_rw?si=pSbB0lNG5jILyrmM.
The purpose of the video isn’t really to provide a guide to the session. It’s mostly to show what real shooting looks like as opposed to the foolishness that is usually seen on TV and movies. Although Jennifer Garner frequently looked great on Alias, the shooting was always utterly ridiculous.
As a guide for staying on task at the range, I created an Aide-mémoire (Cheat Sheet) that can be folded up and brought along in a pocket.
If you would like to download the Cheat Sheet and/or cool Upper and Middle Target Sheets, they’re attached.
Attachments
- MCOLES Cheat Sheet
- Upper Target Sheet
- Middle Target Sheet
Since gear is always of interest, the demonstration for this article was done with a Taurus 856 .38 Special snub nose revolver and Blazer ammunition. The laser wasn’t used during the shooting. Reloads were done using the Zeta6 K-Pak2 Speedloader https://zetasix.com/product/k-pak2/ equipped with a Retention ring https://retentionring.com/ .
Very Good Shooting and Enjoy!
Pocket Carry
Now that cold weather is upon us, pocket carry in an overcoat pocket has some advantages. Pocket carry has both upsides and downsides.
Upsides
- It’s far easier to access a gun in a coat pocket than to undo the coat and draw a holstered pistol. This is especially true when you’re seated in a vehicle with a seat belt on.
- You can put your hand on your gun as soon as you perceive trouble or even walk around with your hand on your gun in general.
- A draw from the pocket, starting with hand on gun, is faster for most people than drawing from a concealed holster.
Downsides
- Pocket carry usually requires a smaller and more compact handgun.
- A separate pocket holster is advisable.
- You may be wearing gloves.
- If you come in from outside and have to hang up your coat in an unsecured area, you’ll need to do something with the pocket pistol to secure it.
- The pocket draw is a little different than drawing from a belt holster.
- Said smaller and more compact handgun will probably become your primary tool in an incident.
Most people don’t practice as much with their smaller guns as they do larger ones. Pocketable pistols are usually both ego challenging and uncomfortable to shoot. Nonetheless, some familiarization is a good idea.
The CCW Practical Exercise from Switzerland is short and uncomplicated familiarization drill. The Swiss are a very practical people.
All shooting is done wearing a concealment garment with a holstered weapon.
- 2 shots at 7 meters in 4 seconds. 3 times.
- 2 shots at 5 meters in 3.5 seconds. 3 times
- 2 shots at 3 meters in 3.0 seconds. 3 times.
18 rounds total. 14 hits required to pass. The hit area (dark area) of their target is roughly equivalent to the IDPA -1 zone. Hits on the silhouette outside the hit area don’t count. They penalize 1 hit for any impacts outside the silhouette.
If you decide to pocket carry, it’s worth doing at least a short tuneup with your pocket pistol. A dry practice session for your draw is a must. A short live fire session to get the lint out of your gun and be sure it works is also in order.
Los Angeles Citizen’s CCW Taken Away
L.A. homeowner who fired on armed robbers has concealed carry permit suspended
https://news.yahoo.com/l-homeowner-fired-armed-robbers-055345708.html
It’s as plain as the nose on your face that this is retaliation. For what, you may ask?
Embarrassing the authorities on public media. Just that simple. His incident demonstrated that he was capable of protecting himself and his family at the moment of crisis and the authorities were not. By talking to the media, i.e., the local news and Colion Noir, he rubbed that fact in the faces of the Law Enforcement Agencies responsible for his and his family’s protection.
One of the benefits of belonging to a self-defense legal organization such as the Armed Citizens’ Legal Defense Network https://armedcitizensnetwork.org/ is getting to talk to someone about the incident in a confidential manner. Regardless of what organization or attorney you contact, they will undoubtedly advise against giving statements to the media. They are going to tell you to not make public statements.
After any such incident, it’s a natural desire to want to talk about it to decompress. Doing so is probably emotionally healthy. What we want to do is accomplish our decompression in a format that won’t hurt us. Talking to a lawyer is a non-harmful format. Talking to the media, even if they are neutral or well-intentioned, is fraught with hazard.
Couching your criticism with comments like “the LAPD is understaffed” or the like is equivalent to “Bless their hearts.” Then saying you’ve hired a private detective to investigate, which is tantamount to saying the authorities are incompetent, is only throwing more fuel on the fire of their future discontent. And please don’t publicly say that the investigation was sloppy, even if that’s true. NO BENEFIT. That’s just venting. Vent to your attorney not the local news.
As we can see in this incident, the authorities are not going to take kindly to a gunowner publicly proclaiming that it was the Second Amendment and not the authorities that protected them. In States that only issue Licenses To Carry because of Bruen, they’re going to look for some way to get even. Law Enforcement administrators in those States are not your friends. Don’t poke them in the eye by publicly exposing their inability to protect you.
Having to interact with the authorities after an incident is a Negative Outcome.
In its statement to KTLA, the sheriff’s department did say that Ricci’s CCW may immediately be reinstated as long as he has followed all the required policies, such as “proper notifications” and “use of [a] properly documented weapon.”
The Sheriff’s Office’s definition of “immediately” may be somewhat different than ours. Having to jump through a bunch of bureaucratic hoops to reinstate your Right to protect yourself is an undesirable interaction. Don’t put yourself in that situation, regardless of how righteous your incident was. In this case, his attackers are still out there and I wish he could carry his piece.
Attempted Home Invasion in LA
https://abc7.com/los-angeles-homeowner-fights-back-armed-robbery-home-invasion-ccw/14016199/
As reported in The Armed Citizen blog http://graphics.nra.org/armed_citizen/ac_136.html from the NRA, which is well worth subscribing to.
The surveillance video is instructive. Note the ‘chase instinct’ in play. After the homeowner gains the upper hand by pulling his gun and firing, he chases after the intruders instead of going inside, locking the door, establishing a blocking position, and then calling the POlice.
This incident demonstrates a worthy addition to Don’t Go Outside http://modernserviceweapons.com/?p=18502 to our Personal Protection pre-planning. Get Inside As Soon As Possible is the flip side tactic.
Empty Chamber Carry – I
#fridayfundamentals
Empty Chamber Carry is strongly opposed by the US private sector training community and the ‘cognoscenti’ of the firearms community. However, carrying with the chamber empty is still a very common practice by large swathes of gun owners. Regardless of opposition to the concept, it is what it is. Some discussion beyond “Don’t Do It” is in order.
This is the first in a series of Fridayfundamentals posts about carrying with an empty chamber. The series is intended neither to advocate nor oppose empty chamber carry but rather to discuss aspects of it not typically examined. A sidenote is that many aspects of the discussion also apply to hammer down carry (Condition Two) with 1911 pistols but that is for another time.
First consider the advocates of carrying with an empty chamber.
- Fairbairn/Sykes in Shooting To Live.
- Israeli military/POlice, although it’s reported that this has relaxed in the past decade.
- Many foreign militaries and POlice forces.
- The US Army until the publication of the May 2017 version of TC 3-23.35 Pistol.
As one commentator noted when the May 2017 TC was published:
Since many people do carry with an empty chamber, let’s work with what we’ve got from the standpoint of instruction.
The single biggest problem with the method is the technique that new gunowners usually employ to load the chamber. The most common technique seen is to hold the pistol in the shooter’s workspace and pull the slide inward toward the body and out of the workspace. Most often the slide is held during the entire operation, retarding the strength of the recoil spring.
This is exactly opposite of what needs to occur. Pulling the slide inward significantly increases the possibility of not fully loading the chamber. This could be a disaster. At least one surveillance video shows an armed robber whose pistol didn’t load completely, which led to his demise.
Here’s a graphic from TC 3-23.35 that illustrates the workspace and its relationship to pistol operation.
Both Shooting To Live and the classic Israeli technique advocate holding the pistol in the workspace and then pushing the pistol forward to the outer limit of the workspace. The slide is held in place while the pistol is pushed outward.
Here’s a series of updated sketches from Chapter 3 of the edited and annotated edition of Shooting To Live that I will be publishing this year. A number of the original Shooting To Live sketches had to be redone due to finger in the trigger guard violations.
Similarly, the classical Israeli technique is to hold the pistol parallel to the ground in the workspace. The slide is held stationary and the pistol is pushed forward toward the enemy and fired.
Note that both Shooting To Live and classic Israeli use the slingshot method of grasping the slide rather than hand over the top of the slide.
The discussions of Empty Chamber Carry rarely include any commentary about what to do after the pistol is loaded, regardless of whether it is fired or not. One of the few comments ever seen was “If I don’t have to shoot, I’ll immediately download the chamber when I get back to my car.” Downloading or unloading afterward is an important enough topic for Shooting To Live to include it as part of the initial 30 round Recruit Training Program. Chapter IV states:
“In all practices at surprise targets, opportunity must be found for the performance of two very essential operations. In order of importance, these are:—
1. Making safe after firing only a portion of the contents of the magazine.
2. Inserting a second magazine after totally expending the contents of the first and continuing to fire without delay.
In the first instance, after firing one or two shots from a fully charged magazine, the instructor should give the order to cease fire. The shooter should then come to the ‘ready,’ remove the magazine, eject the live round from the breech, work the slide back and forth several times and finally pull the trigger, all as described [in] (Figs. 9 and 10).”
Note the order of importance Shooting To Live placed on unloading and reloading. Making the pistol safe after an incident was considered of greater importance than reloading during an incident. It’s probable to assume this priority came from their observation of hundreds of gunfights. Concerns and technique for After Contact actions will be covered in the next post.
Taurus 856 Iron Sights v. Laser Comparison
#wheelgunwednesday
Taurus had a screaming deal for 856 revolvers on its website last month. The deal was a Viridian Laser Stock (Grip), Boltaron (Kydex) holster, and two HKS speedloaders for $139. I’m a believer in laser stocks for snub revolvers so I decided to take advantage of the deal and purchased it. I also purchased an Ameriglo front night sight but haven’t installed it yet. FTC note: I made this purchase with my own money, no manufacturer giveaway.
This Viridian laser has the activation button on the front of the stock so when the revolver is gripped, it comes on. This is a far superior system to having to manually press a button to turn the laser on. The stock is also slightly longer than the factory stock so it provides a full three finger grip.
Installing it requires driving out the roll pin that holds the factory stock in place. Once the pin is out, the laser stock is secured via three screws. Pro-Tip: put the bottom screw that goes through the roll pin hole in the frame first. It was relatively well zeroed as it arrived but I later zeroed it at 7 yards when I got to the range.
The UM Tactical Holster was much better than I had anticipated. I thought ‘UM’ meant it was an offshoot of Uncle Mike’s but that assumption is incorrect. It fits the 856 well and the clip holds it securely on the belt. I loosened the tension slightly so that when the holster is held upside down the gun doesn’t come out but it draws easily.
The HKS Speedloaders were the Model 10 developed for the K frame S&W revolver many years ago. Two were included.
To make a comparison of the capabilities of the laser vis-à-vis the iron sights, I did a range trip. The evaluation protocol was the Nevada Concealed Handgun Permit Qualification Course, which is one of my favorite practice structures. It consists of 30 rounds fired at 3 yards (6 rounds), 5 yards (12 rounds), and 7 yards (12 rounds). The evaluation consisted of splitting it in half, shooting one half (15 rounds) with the laser on and one half (15 rounds) with the laser off. I broke the course into several strings for each distance and timed each string.
3 yards – 1 shot from the Holster, 1 shot from Low Ready, and 1 shot from Retention. Three rounds for each sighting system.
5 yards – 2 shots from the Holster, 2 shots from Low Ready, 2 shots from the Holster Primary Hand Only. Six rounds for each sighting system.
7 yards – Repeat the 5 yard sequence at 7 yards.
It was a cloudy afternoon not bright sunlight. I had no trouble seeing the laser dot at 7 yards on the USPSA Metric targets I used. Each system had a separate target.
For scoring, I divided the A zone in half. This gave an A zone of 6 inches wide by 5.5 inches long. Hits in the lower part were counted as B hits. This is a scoring system the late Todd Louis Green https://pistol-forum.com/ suggested and I like it. It’s more rigorous than the IDPA -0 zone. The time for each string was recorded.
The results of both sighting systems were then overall Comstock scored. https://www.ssusa.org/content/understanding-uspsa-comstock-and-virginia-count/ This means points achieved divided by shooting time. The results were interesting. The Iron sights had a Comstock score of 4.33, while the Laser had a score of 4.29. Not a significant difference and the laser was not nearly the disadvantage in daylight that’s popularly assumed.
The next phase of my evaluation will be to shoot the same protocol in bright sunlight and at dusk. Those results should provide some interesting contrast.
With regard to the holster, I found it to be quite satisfactory. My only observation is that because the gun and holster is so short, the butt of the gun tends to droop forward and reduce my concealment. On the way home, I stopped at Arbol de Dolares to purchase La Chancla https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/11/04/361205792/la-chancla-flip-flops-as-a-tool-of-discipline . I’ll cut a piece of the flip-flop off to glue onto the back of the holster as a pad, a la Keepers Concealment. https://keepersconcealment.com/
Overall, I very pleased with the results. This makes about 700 rounds through the 856 with no issues. The laser worked well and the holster is satisfactory. A good EDC that I’m comfortable with.
Reliability Testing
A colleague asked me a few days ago:
“How many rounds would you say make up a legitimate ‘reliability test’ for a pistol?”
My response was 100 because that’s more than 99.9% of people will ever fire a pistol they buy. He was surprised about this answer because he thought it would be considerably more.
There’s a very detailed discussion about it in a post I wrote years ago. Most of the cognoscenti who were responded to the question then felt that 1000 rounds was the minimum desirable number. There were certain aspects of their analyses leading to that conclusion that I felt weren’t explored with enough depth.
https://thetacticalprofessor.net/2017/04/21/reliability/
Numerous justifications for 1000 round torture tests were presented to me by the cognoscenti. One of the mathematical analyses presented in the original Facebook discussion was that 5 malfunctions per 1000 meant more than one malfunction in a 17 round magazine (8.72%). My belief about that obtuse analysis remains the same.
“If I’m going to have at least one malfunction per magazine, I’ll just keep carrying a revolver.”
I’ll write a bit more about my latest revolver work for #wheelgunwednesday next week.
Hahaha. Alt Text autogenerated by Microsoft Word for the above picture:
“A board game with brown squares”
Revolver Handgun To the Rescue
From The Armed Citizen column of the May 2023 NRA Official Journals
#wheelgunwednesday
“A 71-year-old man was walking home from a takeout restaurant on March 2 when two men reportedly emerged from an alley and attempted to rob him at gunpoint. The man pulled out a revolver and exchanged fire with the suspects, who then fled. The armed citizen unfortunately sustained a wound to his ankle but was otherwise unhurt. The suspects had not yet been apprehended at the time of our reporting. (fox29.com, Philadelphia, Pa., 3/3/23)” https://www.fox29.com/news/victim-shoots-at-robbery-suspects-north-philadelphia
According to 6abc Philadelphia https://6abc.com/philadelphia-shootout-north-phillly-shooting-10th-street-cumberland/12907827/ , “The 71-year-old pulled out his revolver handgun and exchanged gunfire with the suspects”. The defender ‘emptied’ his revolver handgun at the robbers; one story indicated he had fired five shots. POlice spokesperson Chief Inspector Scott Small indicated that victim fired multiple shots and the perpetrators had fired two shots at the intended victim.
In an interview from his hospital bed with Fox News, the would-be victim said, “At night, I would keep my hand on my [revolver handgun] in my pocket in case I have to pull it out”. https://youtu.be/fs0RTJJTuOA He has a license to carry.
The Bottom Line was that he was armed and forced the robbers to Break Contact by shooting at them with his revolver handgun. Breaking Contact (Part I)
The Covert Draw
Someone in my Patreon Subcompact Autoloader Tier https://www.patreon.com/TacticalProfessor/membership asked the question,
“Could you offer some insight and technique to the surreptitious, covert, or stealth draw?”
That’s a question worth exploring because of the tradeoffs involved. As Thomas Sowell has said, everything involves comparisons and costs.
There are two aspects to the drawstroke; 1) Access and Grip and 2) Present to target. Access and Grip is the most time consuming part of the drawstroke but not the most difficult. Getting the gun well indexed on the target is the hardest part. Missing the first shot is far more common than not being able to get the gun out.
A covert draw facilitates Access and Grip but complicates Present. Once the draw is complete, the gun is positioned out of the path of your normal drawstroke. If shooting is required, the first shot might actually be slower if we Comstock a bad hit.
The gun is also probably pointing at your own body in the process. While holding it at a concealed Ready, you may have to engage in dialogue or movement and remember to not shoot yourself at the same time. Given the light triggers that many people favor, that’s an unpleasant prospect.
Even if the gun isn’t visible to a potential attacker, it may be noticeable to someone at a different angle. That person may not be a hostile. A covert draw could end up as an Aggravated Assault on an uninvolved party.
And if no shooting is required, a covert re-holstering will be necessary. Some deep concealment holsters can be difficult to re‑holster without making a big production out of it.
Being able to Access and Grip in a low profile way might be a more useful way of addressing the problem. With Access and Grip accomplished, if we get the ‘Go Signal,’ we have the most time consuming part of the drawstroke out of the way. We can then use our normal Presentation, at which we hopefully have many repetitions and can execute well.
Although the Covert Draw concept sounds appealing, the tradeoffs need to be considered. The costs may be found to outweigh any potential benefit.
tacticalprofessor 
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