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 want to 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 the web in 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 semiautomatic shooter are you going to recommend that they have an inconsistent grip too, for the revolver? What's the advantage of crossing over? In shooting revolvers, it's not so much an advantage. It's avoiding problems. For instance, when I shoot an auto-loading pistol, 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 it could actually be a safety issue that we want to go ahead and tuck the thumb, especially if it ends up anywhere near any of the devices that are going to 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. 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 semiautomatic gun. On the revolver we need to also worry about the release. 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. 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, trigger never stops. A 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 going to 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 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've 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 pounds 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't 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... 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 going to constantly switch back to dry fire all the time? 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. 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 try and 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, 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 pull, and more importantly, the release. As you get back to your autoloader shooting, your release gets smoother, 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 re-familiarize 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.