More on reloading revolvers

I have never “had” to reload to revolvers fast.  As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I’m learning the new motor skills required to do this in hurry – however I’m taking advantage of a lot of expert advice I’ve acquired in the process.  The one thing I have learned though is that “fine motor skills” are the enemy of speed at least during the learning process.  When I was exclusively shooting semi-auto pistols, if I had to do a slide lock reload, the only “fine” motor skill that had to be used was my weak hand thumb hitting the slide release to chamber the round.  I didn’t use the “over the top” method, because it was about 0.02 seconds slower; but more importantly because a Bo-Mar sight will eat your hand up if you slip doing the “over-the-top” slide release.

But back to revolvers for the moment.  I spend about 10-20 minutes each evening just throwing a moon clip full of .45 ACP snap caps in the cylinder of my 625 and then bringing the gun back on line to shoot.  Of the three methods of reloading that I’ve tried, there isn’t one that is clearly “better”.  The Miculek method of thumbing out the empties with your weak hand, and then holding the gun in your weak hand while slinging a .45 ACP moon clip in the cylinder makes my hands get all tangled up, the “Classic” method is really slow, and The Ahab Reload I talked about yesterday doesn’t stabilize the cylinder as well as the Miculek method.

I did actually see the Ahab reload used in competition though – I was watching my DVR’d ShootingUSA from the USPSA Nationals (I know, it’s like 2 weeks old) and one of the revolver shooters they used in an establishing shot uses the method I’ve been practicing…although it looked like he tossed the moonclip in from about 100 feet away from the cylinder.  I guess I’ll just keep annoying my wife with the constant “clicking” of the cylinder locking in place for the time being.

One other thought to remember if you’re trying to learn a new skill is that only good practice helps – when I find myself starting to get frustrated and tired of the gun, or I start thinking about turning the moonclip into a satellite, it’s time to put the gun down and go read PJ O’Rouke or something.

2 Comments

  1. If you like reloading with the gun in your right hand and your fingers are long enough, try putting your right index finger through the window to stabilize the cylinder. That way you can get a good grip on the reload and the cylinder stays steady and indexed.

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