Getting Started Shooting a Revolver

Okay Grant we're here on the range. Obviously I've fired a double-action revolver before but if I hadn't fired one before, especially if I was someone who was already a shooter, somebody coming from a semi-automatic pistol background. What would you want me to do? How would you get me started as a defensive double-action revolver shooter? Well Rob, there are two things we concentrate on. The first of course is mastering that long heavy double-action trigger pull. The second one is reloading the revolver. So let's start with the trigger. Okay, so I've got a pretty standard, double-action gun to begin with. It's one that obviously you've customized. And when we start with this gun, what is it that I wanna think about first in terms of position on the gun, my hands, my body? What we want is we want the shooting hand of course to be as high on the gun as possible without going over the back shoulder. If your, the web of your hand goes over the back shoulder, it's going to be more painful. So, keep it just right at the top of the shoulder but not going over it. Okay, check. We want the shooting hand position so that the trigger finger touches the trigger at that first distal joint. That's where the most power and the most control over the trigger is going to occur. Once we do that, the support hand wraps around the shooting hand in a tight grip right up to the trigger guard, fingers, thumbs like this overlapping each other. Okay, so even if someone's a semi-automatic shooter are you gonna recommend that they have an inconsistent grip for the revolver? What's the advantage of crossing over? The, in shooting a revolver it's not so much an advantage, it's avoiding problems. For instance when I shoot an autoloading pistol, I have, I have a thumbs forward grip. On the revolver if you were to do that you run the risk of activating the cylinder release. Or if you've got extremely long thumbs you run the risk of getting up to the cylinder gap and getting the thumb burnt by hot exhaust gases. Okay, so could actually be a safety issue that we wanna go ahead and tuck the thumb. Especially if it ends up anywhere near any of the devices that are gonna release the cylinder or ends up in a place where we could have a problem and actually get burned. Exactly. Okay, great. All right, once we got a proper grip, get into your normal standard shooting stance, neutral shooting stance. Okay. And what we're going to do, is we're going to practice the trigger stroke. The trigger stroke is named that specifically because it has two parts to it, just like a golf stroke. Trigger stroke has a compression and a release. The important thing to remember is that once the trigger starts moving, it keeps moving. On compression, smooth compression back until the hammer drops and then smooth release forward. What I tell people to do, is to watch their sights as they do this. Of course we're used to watching the sights when we try a trigger pull on a semi-automatic gun. On the revolver, we need to also worry about the release. Okay. So what I tell you to do, is to watch your sights on target as you stroke the trigger compression and then watch them especially on the release. If you could get to the point where the release is just as smooth and keeps the sights just as steady as it is on the compression, you've arrived. Okay. So let's try that now. Extend and get into your normal shooting stance and stroke the trigger compression back, one smooth compression back. And smooth release forward. Perfect, now do that one continuous motion the trigger never stops. Little faster. Exactly. Perfect. That's all there is to it. And now we're actually ready to go to live fire so we can try it out and see how it works. Okay. One of the hard things to remember when you switch to the revolver, is that you're actually gonna be reloading with your strong hand. Guess I should be keeping my extra rounds on the right side of my body when I'm standing on the range. All right, when you're ready extend and fire one round keeping in mind, continuous trigger motion, smooth compression, smooth release. Excellent, again. Perfect, again. Good, again. Remember to, to keep the trigger moving all the time, release the trigger as soon as the hammer drops. Okay. Excellent, that's the key to mastering the double action trigger, perfect. Okay Grant, what's the next step? We fired some rounds, I have a pretty good feel for what the double-action trigger feels like. What do we do next? Okay, let's refine the double action manipulation just a little bit. On the double action revolver, you've got a trigger that's moving in this particular case about a half an inch with about nine tons of pressure. In the time that it takes you to manipulate that trigger a lot of things can happen with the gun, some of them caused by your trigger finger. So let's see if we can eliminate those variables. When you're stroking the trigger, remember that your finger on the trigger is going to be moving across the face of the trigger. As the trigger comes back, your finger is going to slide across it like this. And it's also going to slide up and down, allow it to do so. What we want to do is to have the trigger finger come straight back. I envision it coming back and actually touching my nose. That keeps me on track and makes sure that I'm not steering the gun one way or the other. At the same time, watch your sights. The sights will tell you which direction you're moving and give you feedback as to whether you're moving the trigger correctly or not. Now when it comes to doing a drill like this, is this something, you know, we started with dry fire and then we went quickly to live fire. We've been doing live fire. Is that something where we're gonna constantly switch back to dry fire all the time? You know, dry fire is a great tool to help you remember the basics. And also to help you remember some of the refinements. The issue with dry fire is that because the gun is not actually firing, sometimes people who dry fire a lot get to live fire and forget to do things like the smooth trigger release. Because trigger release happens when the gun is recoiling. So, dry fire just to get the basics down so you know what you need to do and then immediately go to live fire, so that you can actually practice doing it. I think that's a great point, you know, I'm not a huge fan of dry fire and especially something you said about using the dry fire sometimes to remind us of what it is we already know how to do. And not trying to develop skills in dry fire when we don't have that actual recoil, we don't have the context. But we can use it to remind us in many cases I think that's a great point Grant. Exactly, the one thing about this is that this will also help your autoloader shooting. Because as you get to learn to manipulate this long heavy trigger pole, and more importantly the release. As you get back to your autoloader shooting, your release gets smoother, it gets easier and you'll find your autoloader shooting improving as well. Okay great, I'm always up for some improvement. So, let's try this again remembering as we fire, smooth compression, immediate release, smooth release. And let your finger travel over the trigger both sideways and up and down. So, whenever you're ready extend and fire one round. Excellent, again. Let the trigger release at the same speed that you compress the trigger. Okay. Excellent. A few rounds like this, doing a few rounds dry fire just to refamiliarize yourself with actually what is actually supposed to happen. And then immediately go to live fire so you can put it into practice. Makes sense to me.