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New-ish Revolver Shooter Looking for Tips


Tophernj

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Howdy all.

I'm gonna start running my 625 in local matches a bit more regularly.  Mostly just to keep shooting as I'm mostly a FTR guy but my "season" doesn't start until April.  So, out of boredom...

 

Anyway, here I am.  I've replaced/upgraded some parts on the revolver already, with a couple of more on the way.  I have a couple of moon clips set up to practice reloads.  But I'm looking for more advice/tips/tricks to get a little faster.  I pretty much suck.  Which is fine as this is not a source of income for me (thank God).  It is just a part of the firearms hobby I enjoy.  

 

So, how does one that sucks get to being one that does not?  

I won't be going to the range 5 times a week.  Right now, I'm lucky if I can get there for matches.  So, I'm looking for dry fire exercises I can do for 10-15 minutes a day.  Also, I'm looking for holster recommendations.  I'd much prefer to keep it to a standard style holster as opposed to a Double Alpha set-up in case I have to carry around the yard for a quick trip to the garage or something.  

 

My current set up:

625JM 4"

Hi-Viz F.O. front sight/stock rear

TK Customs extended cylinder release

JM grips (these could change)

I have a WC spring kit in hand and a Miculek spring kit on the way.  I'll be very lightly stoning my action, bobbing my hammer and most likely smoothing the face of my trigger.

 

Equipment aside, I really want practice tips.  Books/videos/YouTube links are welcome.  Thanks a bunch.

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I'm still in the "sucks" category but working into "sucks a little less". One pointer I have is spend some of your precious dry fire time just working on reloads. At our house, I'm the first one home so I have about a half hour that I spend in the hobby room. Almost 10 minutes of that is just going from on target, reload, back on target.

 

If you're looking for ideas on dry fire drills, Steve Anderson's book is fantastic. http://www.andersonshooting.com/products/refinement-and-repetition/

Edited by Mcfoto
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the real question is what do you "suck" at most? figure that out and work on it, you are not going to solve all you issues in one go.

 

Here are the big issues I see most often with revo shooters.

 

How is your accuracy, can you hit all the targets? what happens to your hits when you shoot fast?

Trigger control on revos can be a big challenge because in the games we are playing it tends to be backwards from every other type of shooting, most guys pull the trigger straight through without staging it so you have to start pulling the trigger before your sights are settled and work to make sure the sights are lined up before the gun fires.  With you coming from a target rifle background you may need to keep in mind that all A zone hits are equal there is no bonus for hitting it in the letter A (my Wife struggles with this) 

 

How are your reloads?

there are several ways to reload a revo quickly, do you load strong or weak hand? watch some you-tube videos and play with both methods and see what feels best to you, then practice the crap out of it with some dummy rounds in you moonclips.  you will be amazed how much faster you can reload with a little practice, also practice reloading while you are moving because you should be reloading during movement on most stages.

 

Non Revo specific but a huge time suck for many

How is your movement?

Are you ready to shoot the instant you get where you are going? Are you leaving the instant you  fire the last shot? lots of time to be made here

 

 

 

 

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For your reloads, go to You Tube and look at Jerry Miculek's videos.
 
 
That assumes you're right handed and load with your strong hand. Many of us do, but a weak hand or left hand reload is different than Jerry. If I gave you a 38 special and loose ammo, what hand would you put it into the cylinder with?

A fast reload happens from doing everything sooner. Ejecting brass? Get your other hand to the moonclip before you're done ejecting, the moonclip should be up and waiting on the gun. Release the moonclip already? Start moving your hand to the grip even before the moonclip has settled.

Try not to stage the trigger. It's hard not to on a 50 yard target, but it's not a good habit. It leads to turning past a chamber without dropping the hammer. Just pull smoothly thru.
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Oh, and the biggest mistake new revo shooters make is snapping the trigger all at once when they see the sight picture they want. The trigger moves forward and back at the same speed like a metronome. You will be starting the pull before the sight picture is finalized, but you'll have time to pull it in.

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I shot the 625 pro for 2-3 years and it was the best decision I ever made.  learning to shoot this pistol in competition will make you a better shooter overall.  Trigger control, stage breakdown, and round count as a whole.

 

I did watch many Jerry Miculek videos and practiced reloading and dry firing ALOT!  alot alot alot alot.  Did I mention i dry fired and practiced reloading alot?

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3 hours ago, PatJones said:

 If I gave you a 38 special and loose ammo, what hand would you put it into the cylinder with?

 

 

The same way I always do, gun in left hand and ammo in the right.  It's all about muscle memory.  I've been loading a revolver that way for 35+ years.

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The same way I always do, gun in left hand and ammo in the right.  It's all about muscle memory.  I've been loading a revolver that way for 35+ years.
That's my standard procedure with new revo shooters. I give them the 627 and loose ammo. Depending on what they do the reload conversation starts from there.
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I started with strong hand reload but almost swept myself a couple times during the heat of a competition. Spent last winter training myself to weak hand. Better muzzle control and I don't have to re-grip. You can retrain the muscle memory. Now when I'm loading loose ammo at practice, I'm more comfortable grabbing the ammo with the weak side. Of course, I like to joke: I have two weak hands so it doesn't make a difference...

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14 minutes ago, BadShot said:

Just curious.  If you are shooting IDPA, where you have to retain unfired rounds/moon clips, can you keep the revolver in your right hand to do the reloads?

 

Any way you want - safely.

 

If you usually perform a right hand reload, don't change anything, you will slow down otherwise.

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I dunno if I put a ton of information in my journal/range diary on here, but I went from never shooting USPSA to GM less than a year, so check here and maybe I've written something. Ben Stoeger's Dryfire book and Skills and Drills book are a must, even if you don't work through everything or even in order.

 

There's more than one way to skin a cat, especially with reloads. I can think of 3 or 4 super quick ways to reload that are totally different. Figure out what works best, and don't be afraid to change stuff if you think it will give you an edge.

 

Practice all the time. But you have to know HOW to practice to be able to get anything out of it. Ben's books will help a lot. Also watching videos of other good revolver shooters will help, either match videos or Jerry has some stuff on YouTube and DVD.

 

Honestly you're probably not going to be super competitive with a 6 shot, but I can't say for certain because no one shoots them anymore. But don't let it discourage you. Revo is a hella discouraging division because no one shoots it. You rarely get a trophy if you win a match because there aren't enough competitors. It's probably the hardest division to learn because it's nothing but SOLID FUNDAMENTALS with how our triggers are set up. We do nothing but reload constantly, which takes forever, so our overall scores are going to be s#!t compared to everyone else at the match, and since we have nothing but overall to compare ourselves to, it gets hard sometimes. Recruiting and convincing others to shoot helps a lot though. Then there's at least two retards running around.

 

Also, good solid gear is going to help in the long run. I'd rather have 10 TK moonclips than 100 of any other brand just so I can not get frustrated trying to reload the gun, which is all we do anyway. We don't shoot, we barely move, all we do is reload. So you wanna make sure that goes as well as possible. I don't have any experience with the 45s, but for 9/38 it's basically required. Holsters aren't such a huge deal, I went with a super expensive one but I see now it's unnecessary.

 

There are also podcasts out there that could help. My friend listens to Shoot Fast Podcast. I've never listened to it but he loves it. Not sure if it's helped him, but I think they sometimes talk about drills and stuff if you're just getting into shooting.

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7 hours ago, swordfish said:

I dunno if I put a ton of information in my journal/range diary on here, but I went from never shooting USPSA to GM less than a year, so check here and maybe I've written something. Ben Stoeger's Dryfire book and Skills and Drills book are a must, even if you don't work through everything or even in order.

 

There's more than one way to skin a cat, especially with reloads. I can think of 3 or 4 super quick ways to reload that are totally different. Figure out what works best, and don't be afraid to change stuff if you think it will give you an edge.

 

Practice all the time. But you have to know HOW to practice to be able to get anything out of it. Ben's books will help a lot. Also watching videos of other good revolver shooters will help, either match videos or Jerry has some stuff on YouTube and DVD.

 

Honestly you're probably not going to be super competitive with a 6 shot, but I can't say for certain because no one shoots them anymore. But don't let it discourage you. Revo is a hella discouraging division because no one shoots it. You rarely get a trophy if you win a match because there aren't enough competitors. It's probably the hardest division to learn because it's nothing but SOLID FUNDAMENTALS with how our triggers are set up. We do nothing but reload constantly, which takes forever, so our overall scores are going to be s#!t compared to everyone else at the match, and since we have nothing but overall to compare ourselves to, it gets hard sometimes. Recruiting and convincing others to shoot helps a lot though. Then there's at least two retards running around.

 

Also, good solid gear is going to help in the long run. I'd rather have 10 TK moonclips than 100 of any other brand just so I can not get frustrated trying to reload the gun, which is all we do anyway. We don't shoot, we barely move, all we do is reload. So you wanna make sure that goes as well as possible. I don't have any experience with the 45s, but for 9/38 it's basically required. Holsters aren't such a huge deal, I went with a super expensive one but I see now it's unnecessary.

 

There are also podcasts out there that could help. My friend listens to Shoot Fast Podcast. I've never listened to it but he loves it. Not sure if it's helped him, but I think they sometimes talk about drills and stuff if you're just getting into shooting.

I don't plan on getting super competitive.  Just competitive enough that I can bust a couple of balls along the way.  I was the only wheel gunner at the last club match that I shot.  I'd like to keep it that way, actually.  More funnerer.

5 hours ago, GMM50 said:

Shoot an ICORE match

Whatever that is, I don't think they exist around me.

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Swordfish is right IF you compete with a 6 shot revolver in USPSA, it's the requirement in IDPA though.  But with an 8 shot  revolver it's not much different than single stack or even L10 and Production, except you don't have 2-3 rounds to throw away.  Most times when I shoot Production I drop a mag with those extra rounds in them vs in Revolver it's an empty moon clip.

The positive with a 6 shot is the fun in gaming out the COF.  We could get pretty creative at times using 6 shots. 

With 8 shot revolvers you don't have the luxury of missing but in USPSA the rule is supposed to limit the COF to 8 rounds from a given position kinda, meaning a COF may be able to be shot with more rounds from a given position but the days of 9 or more required from a position are pretty much eliminated, local matches may vary.

I've found that the actual shooting times with a revolver isn't a great deal different for me from a production or single stack semi-auto, reloads tend to be a bit under 2x's the time between the two.

ICORE has a division for about any revolver to be competitive, IDPA is pretty revolver neutral (18 rounds max and can't just dump loaded mags, moon clips which helps but you still have the increase time in reloads), USPSA is not 6 shot revolver friendly though but it still is fun.

The plus with practicing with revolver vs semi-autos is you get the same trigger stroke each time, can go through a drill of multiple rounds and reloads fluidly (with a semi you have 1 trigger break reload and nothing or vice versa.

Keep showing up and be upbeat and you might find a few hearty souls who will follow you.  And after a while you can get the satisfaction of beating a few, or a lot, of the semi-auto higher cap guys. 

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55 minutes ago, pskys2 said:

Swordfish is right IF you compete with a 6 shot revolver in USPSA, it's the requirement in IDPA though.  But with an 8 shot  revolver it's not much different than single stack or even L10 and Production, except you don't have 2-3 rounds to throw away.  Most times when I shoot Production I drop a mag with those extra rounds in them vs in Revolver it's an empty moon clip.

The positive with a 6 shot is the fun in gaming out the COF.  We could get pretty creative at times using 6 shots. 

With 8 shot revolvers you don't have the luxury of missing but in USPSA the rule is supposed to limit the COF to 8 rounds from a given position kinda, meaning a COF may be able to be shot with more rounds from a given position but the days of 9 or more required from a position are pretty much eliminated, local matches may vary.

I've found that the actual shooting times with a revolver isn't a great deal different for me from a production or single stack semi-auto, reloads tend to be a bit under 2x's the time between the two.

ICORE has a division for about any revolver to be competitive, IDPA is pretty revolver neutral (18 rounds max and can't just dump loaded mags, moon clips which helps but you still have the increase time in reloads), USPSA is not 6 shot revolver friendly though but it still is fun.

The plus with practicing with revolver vs semi-autos is you get the same trigger stroke each time, can go through a drill of multiple rounds and reloads fluidly (with a semi you have 1 trigger break reload and nothing or vice versa.

Keep showing up and be upbeat and you might find a few hearty souls who will follow you.  And after a while you can get the satisfaction of beating a few, or a lot, of the semi-auto higher cap guys. 

What is COF?

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