Evolving with Revolving
Happy New Year 2015!
I made an early resolution this fall to learn about revolvers, and you may recall my original post about that here http://boostershotsblog.blogspot.com/2014/10/it-disease-i-tell-you.html
Well, that initial interest has morphed into a determination to learn to shoot revolver in IDPA in 2015. Yes, I know, I haven’t even mastered SSP, Production or 3-Gun yet, but I’m tackling ANOTHER something new. I’m kind of a novelty-junkie that way LOL! It may also be a defense-mechanism. “Of course I’m not ‘good’ – this is still new to me”, is my excuse for making mistakes, and it works well for me!
This being New Year’s, I thought I’d post a bit about my progress – my evolving with revolving, if you will LOL.
I purchased my new-to-me used S&W 686SSR in October. Then as part of my swag bag for Brownell’s Lady 3-Gun, I received a 50% off card from www.Safariland.com , which gave me the opportunity to properly outfit myself for revolver competition. There was a small hitch with the type of speedloader I needed, but that was quickly and ably taken care of by Hope and Courtney. Thank you very much, Safariland!
The biggest thing for me is that speedloader reloads with revolver are “backwards” from reloads of all of my other firearms. Pistol and rifle are weak-hand reloads for me, and I even do weak-hand twin-loads on shotgun. So, I’ve been working on basement dry fire with the revolver to build-up the repetitive motion of reloads and start to make it less awkward.
I have twelve dummy rounds, and I’ve also been using six empty brass rounds that I can eject at the start. I painted the bases of those with nail polish, just so if they were in the gun, I could see at a glance that they were my dummy/empties. I didn’t want to get used to seeing real brass in my chambers when I was dry-firing in the house. I’m just paranoid like that.
One of the other pieces of equipment I got from Safariland besides a holster and speedloaders is a loading block. When I’m loading up 6 or 7 speedloaders at a match, this should make my life a whole lot easier. I also got a belt holder for the speedloaders – the revolver equivalent of a mag pouch. It’s still weird to mount that on the right side of my belt though.
With all of this stuff to keep track of, I also made use of a bedding bag I had lying around. You know – the kind that new sheet sets come in? I can never bring myself to throw out a nice zippered bag – Reduce/Reuse/Recycle – LOL. It should help me keep track of the revolver gear and keep it separate from the pistol gear.
Finally, I had the brilliant idea of using a scrap of fleece I had in my fabric stash as a pad to catch the ejected dummies. They didn’t bounce or roll off the table that way, and I didn’t have to keep bending and chasing them all over the floor. My 51 year old joints thanked me.
My next project is to cut out some full-size IDPA targets for dry-fire, to replace the 8.5 x 11″ printed substitute I’m using now. Remember that box that my Patriot case came in? That’s not going to waste either – LOL!
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