Switching to Revolvers for 2019

TexasPrac

Amateur
Been a busy month, traveling, etc. Even my dry fire has been minimal. Getting back to it soon. But in the meantime, someone asked elsewhere if I could provide a comparison shot of all the wheel guns I'm using this year, so I'm copying it over here too to keep the thread alive until I can get to the range and do something actually interesting.

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From top to bottom:
S&W 627 (4 inch N frame, 8 shot cylinder)
S&W Model 10 (4 inch K frame, 6 shot)
S&W 586 L Comp (3" L frame, 7 shot)
Ruger LCRx (3", 5 shot)
S&W 637 (1.8" J frame, 5 shot)

Side shots don't tell the whole story with revolvers though. When you add capacity to a revolver, you add some bulk. The following paired guns have identical barrel lengths and similar grip lengths, but the cylinder size is dramatically different.

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On the left is the 8 shot 627, on the right is the 6 shot Model 10

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On the left is the 7 shot 586, on the right is the Ruger LCRx 5 shot.

Weights (all guns loaded to capacity with 158 gr ammo, 627 and 586 loaded with moon clips):
627: 46.7 oz
586: 39.9 oz
M10: 38 oz
LCRx: 18.2 oz
637: 17.8 oz

Just for fun, here's a similar size and weight gun to the 627:

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It only weighs 0.3 oz more than the 627. Is about the same size. Oh, but it has a red dot, light, magwell and 18 rounds of 9mm on board.

Just for some perspective.
 

TexasPrac

Amateur
I hope no one is bored enough to actually watch this. I hesitated to even post it, for several reasons.

1) It's just drills, not fun match video, and drills are boring to shoot, much less watch someone else shoot.
2) I cut it down and even sped up a few parts, and it's still 15 minutes long.
3) I haven't shot a match, practice, or even much dry fire in the last month. It shows. This is not "look at how awesome I am" video. This is "watch how much practice matters, kids, because if you don't practice you'll shoot this badly!" type video.

But I wanted to document where I'm starting from, and put numbers on drills so I could measure improvement or lack thereof.


5 second drill was shot several times, and I can clear 7 and 10 yards consistently with the 627. I failed both times at the 15 yard mark, once on the strong hand only portion, once with a two hand shot from the draw.

Reload drill was incredibly sloppy. I got to experience a new revolver shooting error I haven't committed before: not closing the cylinder fully on the reload. My fastest clean run was 12.89 seconds to draw, shoot 8, reload, shoot another 8. Slow.

500 point aggregate was an interesting one. On video, I mistakenly read a 238 as a 235 and deduct 3 points from my score in error. I also managed to miss a double in the 7 zone, and since I had two other shots off target completely assumed my missing shot was also a miss until I got home and was bringing targets into the house. Here's the double that looked like a single to me on the range, so my actual score on the 500 point aggregate was a 417. Not great, but better than the 407 I thought I had shot yesterday.

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Dry fire emphasis for the week: strong hand and weak hand only shooting. My mediocre one hand shooting kills my 500 point drill score and my chances of moving 5 second standards back to 20 yards. There are lots of things I need to improve on and my reloads were really bad this week too, but I'm going to work on the one handed dry fire for this week, and probably focus heavily on reloads next week.

Another thing I need to do better is take the opportunities during drills like this to practice my reloads. Yeah, the 10 shot strings on the 500 point drill aren't timed. No, I don't need to work on a fast reload during the 5 second drill. But I saw a lot of wasted opportunities to do so while watching this video. Given how limited my practice time has been lately, why on earth am I not taking every opportunity while at the range to work on something? Because I'm not a smart man, that's why. Goal for next range session where I'm shooting a lot of drills: take the opportunities given to work on ancillary skills.
 

TexasPrac

Amateur
Been a while. Sick kid, training for a half marathon. Lots of other stuff to occupy me.

I'll write a longer post with a full match video (hopefully later today), but in the meantime here is one stage.

Static steel with a series of three 8 shot arrays, with an 8 shot revolver. Perfect no fail drill. Well, I failed.

Missed one shot and had to do an entire reload for one make up shot.


A good gardener has what's called a green thumb. A bad revolver shooter?

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ZAMBONI

Newbie
Some things I noticed:

... Trying to "ride the reset" on a revolver is a really bad idea. Thankfully, it's the only time I did that all day.

This happens because you get inside the timing of the double action sear drop and the cylinder stop trigger pickup cycle. Its a mechanical issue, whose resolution is possible but not mandatory, since if you fully release the trigger forward on the rebound cycle it’s a non issue. Yet, for completeness here is how it could be addressed for double action maximum reliability/fastest double action speed.

The resolution is retiming of: double action sear, the cylinder stop trigger pickup surface and possible adjustment to the hammer and trigger double action engagement surfaces (hammer toe and trigger bevel).

When this is done properly the double action sear drops at the same time as the cylinder stop pickup engages the trigger and you will not have the problem you described. This tuning should only be done by a master revolver smith because if it is not done properly there can be a hammer release on a floating cylinder. I posted this to provide information on what is possible.
 

TexasPrac

Amateur
This happens because you get inside the timing of the double action sear drop and the cylinder stop trigger pickup cycle. Its a mechanical issue, whose resolution is possible but not mandatory, since if you fully release the trigger forward on the rebound cycle it’s a non issue. Yet, for completeness here is how it could be addressed for double action maximum reliability/fastest double action speed.
.

Thanks for the info. I think I'm going to work on just fixing the nut behind the trigger, but it's good to know there is a mechanical solution if I needed one.
 

TexasPrac

Amateur
So before I beat myself up criticizing all the things I did wrong in the full match video, a couple positives I took away from that stage I posted yesterday.

1) I'm not prepping the trigger as much. I staged the hell out of the trigger in my first revolver match of the year (IDPA with the M10) in February. I'm getting more comfortable with the DA pull. Less hesitation, more solid trigger pulling. Happy about that.

2) Because this was a stage with 8 shot arrays and an 8 shot revolver, I was shooting slower trying to make sure I didn't miss. After I missed, I failed quickly. No head shake or grunt after a miss(a bad habit I used to have), just picked up speed and made 5 more good hits at a faster pace, then had a pretty decent reload and a quick last shot. I'm pleased with my recovery from the missed shot, and to know that I can push the pace a little more than I am currently and still make good hits. It's a confidence issue more than anything at this point, since I haven't been practicing much.

Full match video next, with lots more failing.
 

TexasPrac

Amateur

So, let's break it down, starting with the bs excuses first. My 9 month old has had a cold, and so did my wife and I. He's not sleeping well, so neither are we. She wasn't particularly happy with my decision to try and shoot a match with all of us in that condition, so that was on my mind. A cold front blew in and rained on us right after the match started. I didn't have my jacket in the car, so I spent the morning standing outside in a t shirt, wet with a wind chill of about 40. My hands felt really slow. Reloads were hard, and it was frankly hard to even get my head into the match thanks to the cold and the unhappy wife at home. I also have been busy running preparing for a half marathon at the end of April, and haven't been shooting much. I wouldn't have shot the match at all, if my dad wasn't in town. I wanted to get him out to a match and let him try it out (his first one).

So, cold, tired, wet, mind elsewhere, and haven't been practicing. Great condition to shoot a match.

But then again, all of those things could be true for actually having to defend yourself, so also actually pretty great conditions to test yourself in a match.

If it was a test, I'd say I scored about a 60. I had some decent stages, but I also had some miserable stages. Worst of all, my worst stage was the very first stage I shot. My "cold bore" performance was really awful.

First stage: If this was baseball, I think we could call it 4 errors? Dropped the hammer on an empty cylinder twice, missed the rod once during a reload, didn't close cylinder fully after another reload. And 9 misses on top of that, so an almost 25% miss rate with the shots taken.

The rest of the stages were a mix of good and bad, but I'm really disappointed with just how bad my first stage was. That's pretty indicative (IMO) of not being prepared either mentally or physically. Just one more thing to work on, on top of all the other stuff.
 

TexasPrac

Amateur
Half marathon done! Less running, more range time coming up for the rest of the year.

I knocked 26 minutes off my time from my last half marathon, so the training time was worth it...and this was a much more challenging course than my last one too. But now that it is over, getting a little more range time again.

Did some work on Vice Presidente today using the 66 and my comp 3s.

Slowest times were in the 13s with some horrendously fumbled reloads. Took some knocking off of the cobwebs, but got down to sub 10 reliably, and broke into the high 8s once or twice.

Switching from my IWB leather holster on the hip at 3 o clock IDPA style to my kydex AIWB holster at 1 o clock was worth about .3 seconds from the beep to first shot, as a random observation.

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Also, the VZ61 is a stupid fun little gun. It's getting SBRd ASAP.
 

TexasPrac

Amateur
Shot a steel challenge match on Thursday night (5/16).

It was my first trip to the range since 5/1. Haven't been keeping up with my dry fire either.

I knew that was a bad sign, so I'm not shooting steel challenge with the J frame just yet. Going to get back into a practice routine and slowly easy down in size/capacity as I knock the rust off. So I started with the 8 shot gun. The good news is I only had to reload in the middle of a run once. /images/smilies/smiley_abused.gif

Finished 5th out of 11 centerfire pistol shooters. Got smoked (as always) by most of the PCC/22 crowd. It was a good turn out, lots of families out with wives and kiddos shooting. Part of the reason I love steel challenge, seeing so many families out shooting it together. My son turns one this June, so we have a few more years before we can join in on that.

Had a few clean runs, but lots of mental mistakes/sloppy shots. I sound like a broken record at this point, don't I? Don't practice, put in a mediocre match performance. Shouldn't surprise anyone at this point, myself included. We don't rise above the challenge, we perform at exactly the level we are prepared to perform at. I'm missing next weeks match due to other commitments, so the goal is lots of dry fire and at least one range trip between now and the next match. I'll be shooting the 627 again to see what a couple weeks of actual practice/preparation can do for me. Then I'll start going down and use the 7 shot L frame, then the 6 shot K frame...and finally try to end the year shooting steel challenge as a no fail drill with a 5 shot J frame.

Video note: edited down the first stage because we were dealing with some timer issues. No need to show all that on video. First steel match of the season, always have some teething problems.

 

Jake_Disty

Amateur
I picked up a S&W 586 last year for two reasons. One to learn the DA revolvers. Two so I can hunt with something other than a shotgun this year for whitetail. But mostly because I felt the need to learn and understand how to run a revolver better.
 

TexasPrac

Amateur
Adding some science to this year's steel challenge season.

I'll also be adding in the average time per stage, and keeping track of my fastest runs per stage with each gun. This way I'll be able to tell what stages and what guns I had the most clean runs with, fastest average times, etc. Getting some actual numbers on some standardized match stages should be helpful for comparing (for example), the 4" Model 10 with crappy old sights vs the new 2.75" 66 with actual sights.

If I can make it out often enough, I'm hoping to shoot steel challenge this year with every revolver. And if I get that done, I might dust off the semi autos and shoot the last match of the year with the Shadow 2, just to see if the old "if you can shoot a wheel gun you can shoot anything well" adage is true or just old claptrap.

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Runcibleman

Member
Who makes that Model 10's front sight blade and who had it installed? Or is this not that old a Model 10 that the old fixed blade needed to be milled off?
 

TexasPrac

Amateur
Who makes that Model 10's front sight blade and who had it installed? Or is this not that old a Model 10 that the old fixed blade needed to be milled off?

I bought it used, with the hammer slightly bobbed and that front sight. I have no idea what the origin is. Apparently yellow front sight inserts were a thing on Smiths for a while in the 80s? I'm not enough of a Smith nerd to know, but based on what little research I did it was both a factory and a popular aftermarket option back in the day.

It's better than a blacked out ramp and worse than a fiber optic, I can tell you that much...
 
I bought it used, with the hammer slightly bobbed and that front sight. I have no idea what the origin is. Apparently yellow front sight inserts were a thing on Smiths for a while in the 80s? I'm not enough of a Smith nerd to know, but based on what little research I did it was both a factory and a popular aftermarket option back in the day.

It's better than a blacked out ramp and worse than a fiber optic, I can tell you that much...
Hum, went to the factory twice in the 80s and 90s for armorer's school. Followed the S&W revolvers for a long time and don't recall seeing a yellow insert. But, in the grand scheme of things, that's neither here nor there. Those model 10s were great little guns. We build them (in stainless) at the armorer's school. I'm sure they used stainless since if we scratched them they could just be buffed out.
 

TexasPrac

Amateur
Hum, went to the factory twice in the 80s and 90s for armorer's school. Followed the S&W revolvers for a long time and don't recall seeing a yellow insert. But, in the grand scheme of things, that's neither here nor there. Those model 10s were great little guns. We build them (in stainless) at the armorer's school. I'm sure they used stainless since if we scratched them they could just be buffed out.

Here is one of several threads on yellow front sight inserts.

http://smith-wessonforum.com/s-w-revolvers-1961-1980/265720-yellow-front-sight-insert.html

Like I said, this 10 was well used before it ever got to me and had some other work done to it. Don’t know if it’s factory or not (and don’t really care for my purposes) but yellow insert was a S&W factory option at some point.

It hits POA/POI with AE 158 gr LRN, so beyond that my interest in its origins has been minimal.
 
Here is one of several threads on yellow front sight inserts.

http://smith-wessonforum.com/s-w-revolvers-1961-1980/265720-yellow-front-sight-insert.html

Like I said, this 10 was well used before it ever got to me and had some other work done to it. Don’t know if it’s factory or not (and don’t really care for my purposes) but yellow insert was a S&W factory option at some point.

It hits POA/POI with AE 158 gr LRN, so beyond that my interest in its origins has been minimal.
Good information. Thanks!
 

TexasPrac

Amateur
Confession time.

There was one more reason I decided to shoot wheel guns this year besides those listed in the original post. Because I can't make good hits with my J frame.

It's been that way since I inherited it from my grandfather. In the past I always chalked it up to a heavy trigger, crappy sights, and not being an experienced wheel gun shooter. So I preferred carrying something else (even my LCP) to a J frame I knew I couldn't shoot well.

Fast forward a few years, and I decide it's time to master how to shoot it. And since I'm struggling with trigger control/follow through in competitions anyway, the idea of shooting wheel guns for a year was born.

After a couple months of shooting the 627, Model 10, 586, 66....I went back to working a bit on shooting the J frame back in March. You'll notice I haven't put up any video of me doing that yet, and haven't talked much about my J frame experience.

It's because I still wasn't making good hits with it.

Back in December, I started this whole year off by sending the J frame off to a local smith I know to improve the trigger, and he did. So when I started shooting it again in March, I did so KNOWING that I am more than capable of making good hits with a revolver DA trigger, based on my experiences with my 627 and Model 10. Years ago before I had taken any classes, before I shot any competitions, before I even thought about things like dry fire practice, it was easy to attribute my inability to make hits with this gun to just being a bad shooter. But that excuse doesn't fly any more. So what gives? I thought maybe I was just a recoil wimp, and ordered some wadcutters.

And I still wasn't hitting worth a damn with the J frame, even with easy to shoot wadcutters.

So I've spent the last couple of months starting range sessions (admittedly, there have been far too few of them) by shooting the J frame with a different type of ammo every trip. 158 gr LRN, 130 gr JHP, 148 gr wadcutters. Every range trip, I have gotten the same results, no matter the load.

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Just to verify, this past weekend I went to the range with my J frame and a bunch of different ammo and experimented. Holding the front post flush against the left side of the rear notch, and aiming at the intersection of the C/D zones on the left shoulder of the target, I was finally able to get consistent center A zone hits with my J frame with every single type of ammo.

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I now suspect my 637 came out of the factory with a misaligned front sight/barrel. I've contacted S&W and will be sending the gun back.

In the meantime, given that I've had very good luck with my new production 66 and 627....I decided to be dumb, throw good money after bad, and order another J frame.

So this Performance Center 642 will be replacing the 637 for now. Hopefully it shoots POA/POI and I can shoot some steel challenge with it this summer.

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It is both a relief to discover I wasn't (all of) the problem, and disturbing to know there were times I was foolish enough to carry and trust my life to a gun that did not hit even remotely POA/POI...and I wasn't a good enough shooter to know that the gun was at fault, not me.

I wonder how many more people are out there still doing the same thing my idiotic self did.
 

TexasPrac

Amateur
So about that steel challenge match two weeks ago....the one where I had only 7 clean runs, with most of my bad runs (6 of the 9, to be exact) requiring 7 or more shots to clear the stage....

This look a little better to anyone else?

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15 runs, 11 clean. The 4 runs that weren't clean only required a single make up shot. Part of the goal of shooting revolvers this year was to make better hits. I'm finally doing that.

I wonder if the 4 days a week, 15 minutes worth of dry fire practice I did between match 1 and 2 had anything to do with it.....who knew that putting in actual work on dry fire paid off, right?

Heck, I might be able to skip the 7 shot L frame I was planning on shooting next and go straight to the 6 shot K frames...(let's not get cocky, I'll shoot the L frame first).

I was slightly tempted to shoot my vz 61 in the PCC division instead and skip the whole revolver schtick this week.....but we had too many shooters for me to shoot two guns and still finish before sundown, so I decided to be responsible and keep working on my revolver shooting. *grumble grumble*

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Heres the video of the match.


Looking forward to finally having some improvement to share again instead of "hey, didn't practice, sucked at a match, who knew?" on endless repeat.
 
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