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So what's the final call on load2/4 vs weak hand/strong hand reloa


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I've quad loaded both strong hand and weak hand....I personally don't see much difference in learning curves, but I'm a Chiropractor and work with both hands all day so YMMV.

What I've noticed is that your belt level shells are close when loading weakhand, but if you run a chest rig the shells are actually closer with stronghand loading. When strong hand loading with my chest rig, I don't feel the loading will lose me a match against anyone, the shooting and stage planning will. With that said, it may be a good idea to learn any and every technique you can with at least some proficiency.

At MarkCO's match last April we had to shoot shotgun arrays of buck, slugs, and shot from a single position that was either seated in an SUV through the windsheild or standing in an uncomfortable position through the back window. Strong hand loading was simple for me, even being relatively new to it at that time, and all I had to do was roll the gun a little, chuck a different type of shell in, and continue onto the next array with the correct ammo after burning a shot. I keep weakhand caddies in my range bag, because other positions and situations are better used there.

I think I'm going to continue practicing stronghand, traditional weakhand loading, and start practicing weakhand quad loading for an additional skill.

This was around a year ago, or at least uploaded about that time....traditional weakhand loading

This is was uploaded back in May, but I believe I took the video at home before the Noveske match in April.

This is more recent in my office after opening up the loading port at Jesse's suggestion...

Same person, three different loading techniques that have all been used in matches. Why not have more tools for your toolbelt?

Edited by EaZeNuTZ33
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Thought about something on my way home today about weak vs strong hand quad loading....or dual loading lot that matter.

Something you may want to consider is how you would maneuver or move from position to position while loading. When weak hand quad loading, I've found holding the gun at roughly 90 degrees to my body is where I load the best. If the gun is pointing out from my body like that, I am somewhat limited in tighter spaces on some stages. With strong hand loading, I tend to have the gun at a 20-60 degree downward angle from my body, allowing me to fold the gun in towards my body if I am walking or running around an angle while loading, or maneuvering near a close wall or barricade.

Where I've noticed this most, was when using a hallway in my office for loading practice, pretending to shoot 3-4 targets in each doorway, then loading as I move from doorway to doorway. Weakhand I tend to hit the barrel or tube against the doorframe, strong hand I am able to move thru easier.

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This is exactly why I practice all load styles. Wouldn't it be ideal to have all styles under your belt and readily accessed to make the most of the stage situation that you face? Whether it is loading close to or around a barricade, over a barrel, through a port, hauling butt, or even the occasional prone, no one load style is the easiest or fastest for all positions. Why not have more tools in your bag of tricks that you can use confidently when the time comes?

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  • 2 months later...

It took me about 6 hours of practice to feel confident enough to load quads strong hand in a match. I spent less than 3 hours to learn how to do it weak hand with enough consistency to use it In a match. If you're hands are too small to load quads drop the duece. It's almost as fast and the fumble factor is pretty much zero after you've done it just a little.

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Because of all the peer pressure from Jesse, I've started quad loading now. At first I had a lot of trouble and blamed it on small hands , but I've persisted and jm beginning to get the hang of it. I can still drop deuces just as fast as quads right now, so at the very least I've got a fail safe plan for a match.

I've also gone to using taccom 8 ups since they afford me the option of pulling quads or deuces depending on the situation.

All of these blow traditional weak hand loading away, even after just 15 minutes of practice.

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We had a big discussion on Facebook recently about the issue of having too small of hands to quad load. Turns out you can still do it with pretty small hands. The key dimension appears to be the length of the middle finger. Mine measures 3.5" roughly. One female shooter had a 3" long middle finger and she could quad load.

I'd be curious how short some of those middle fingers are on guys or gals that can't QL because of having small hands.

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My middle fingers are right at 3". I've found that in my situation it was really important to set up the gun for quads (loading port, handguard, lifter) and to really concentrate on ripping the shells out from top to bottom with the wrist cocked. Every time I have a bad load I can almost directly attribute it to pulling the shells out incorrectly.

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Doing Quads out of the FSL8 or FSL12 does benefit from a longer set of fingers. If you are doing a grip and rip from our SSL clips or Taccoms Qualoads, the finger length is insignificant.

Blake can not Quad-load out of the FSL8, but he can from the SSL clips. The length of his middle finger...2-3/8". Using these, keeping the wrist straight and rotating the lower shell out first gives the best release and the best speed.

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2 3/8" is the shortest I've heard that is quad loading. I'm orrery much convinced that dexterity and have size has very little to do with being able to QL or not. I think it really books down to who wants to go practice long enough to learn it. Where there is a will there is a way.

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Quad loading is so old school. I have pretty large hands so I have been Hex loading for days now and I slowed down for the video so that you can see what I am doing but I figure that as soon as someone makes adequate carriers the rest of the 3 gun nation will be taking notice.

^^^^Joking above^^^^

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Ah the hex load. The problem I had with the Hex was keeping the magnetic induction on the lead pellets over time and matches don't allow steel. Anyway, I was consistently loading 12 (2 grabs) in 3 seconds. :roflol:

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3 5/8"

I just gave six a try tonight because I was curious if it was even possible. Needless to say the fumble factor is ridiculous but then again before getting the TacCom quads it was pretty hard loading quads off of this same table. Like someone else here said the success of a load has a lot to do with having a consistent shell grab so it's hard to say whether this could fly or not without some type of carriers.

3x2 lined up didn't work at all but grabbing them with three in a triangle pattern and loading the middle one seemed to work okay.

On quad loads I have been noticing that for me the hardest part of the load is keeping my second pair out of the way while loading my first. Many have mentioned putting a thumb on the back of the shell stack being loaded but it seems that pushing them a little forward using your thumb before you get into the port had helped me a bit as well.

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But where does it end? Will techniques soon dictate that practical movement cease and stages e fired from a single shooting station? I have watched it happen in other shooting disciplines, products start determining the game instead of the other way around. "This can and will work if we just stop having to -------- while using the shotgun."

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But where does it end? Will techniques soon dictate that practical movement cease and stages e fired from a single shooting station? I have watched it happen in other shooting disciplines, products start determining the game instead of the other way around. "This can and will work if we just stop having to -------- while using the shotgun."

As long as it is a tube fed shotgun you have to load with only your hand, there is a definite wall. If I were to imagine a KellyN quote..."I hope all my competitors use the Hex load."

The Hex is kind of an inside joke thing for a few of us, so don't get to scared of it.

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What is ending is that overplayed line "3 gun matches are won and lost by who can load the shotgun fastest".

Thanks to Carbon Arms, TACCOM, AP Customs, and Mark Otto anybody can load a shotgun. Now we can go back to losing matches by missing and screwing the pooch! :sick:

All true, and it looks like now a lot of matches are even taking that away by making most of the shotgun portions into 9-10 rounds total or if there are more than that there is a huge gap between the arrays to even a 1 at a time guy could probably make it without too much of a hit.

And here I moved to open and 10+ round mags... Damn

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What is ending is that overplayed line "3 gun matches are won and lost by who can load the shotgun fastest".

Thanks to Carbon Arms, TACCOM, AP Customs, and Mark Otto anybody can load a shotgun. Now we can go back to losing matches by missing and screwing the pooch! :sick:

All true, and it looks like now a lot of matches are even taking that away by making most of the shotgun portions into 9-10 rounds total or if there are more than that there is a huge gap between the arrays to even a 1 at a time guy could probably make it without too much of a hit.

And here I moved to open and 10+ round mags... Damn

At least we will always have MGM IronMan for SG reloading practice

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What is ending is that overplayed line "3 gun matches are won and lost by who can load the shotgun fastest".

Thanks to Carbon Arms, TACCOM, AP Customs, and Mark Otto anybody can load a shotgun. Now we can go back to losing matches by missing and screwing the pooch! :sick:

All true, and it looks like now a lot of matches are even taking that away by making most of the shotgun portions into 9-10 rounds total or if there are more than that there is a huge gap between the arrays to even a 1 at a time guy could probably make it without too much of a hit.

And here I moved to open and 10+ round mags... Damn

At least we will always have MGM IronMan for SG reloading practice
And then hex loading might be worthwhile. Haha
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It's amazing how much the load 2 set up changed the game. I practiced my ass off to be decent at weak hand reloading only to go to my first big shotgun match and watch these guys blow me away throwing deuces, needless to say I bought some load 2 setups that day and started practicing and I am glad I did. Now just need to get quads down, but I still work on weak hand and deuces as you can never have too many tools in the tool box -

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