Advice on shooting a DA revolver

Coonhound and C98, great advice!

Also, for D/A shooting, you get a bit more strength placing your trigger finger on the trigger at the first joint rather than halfway on the pad. Strong grip helps.

Some describe a good D/A pull as "rolling-on" the trigger. Smoothly squeeze the trigger through the cylinder's rotation, then you have a short bit to go take up to get the hammer to fall.

A quick, rapid, jerky pull is harder on your pawl/hand and cylinder stop too. One of the purported issues with the Ruger Redhawks in .357 is the tiny cylinder stop halting all that mass on rapid fire. The same sized cylinder in .44 mag has a lot less moving weight for that cylinder stop to lock. "Rolling-on" allows a nice, smooth rotation (on any double-action revolver) and indexing the chamber, without excessive wear.

IMO, most D/As are fired single-action at the range, at paper (as are most guns of any type...fired at paper). With novice to intermediate students we have, it usually has to be suggested to them to try shooting D/A on d/a revolvers, as they automatically cock the hammer for each shot. We really need to get some DAO guns. "But it's for the business, Honey! Honestly!" ;D

D/As require a bit more training and practice, but the effort is worth it! Especially with a cool big-bore snub-nose revolver like that Charter!

Jon

Sir, You need to realize DAO mode should be exclusively for CQB less than five yards and leave it at that. I shoot a S&W DAO because they have the best triggers. The only way to get her tammed down is to hold one hand on the trigger gaurd holding the weapon steady and the trigger finger doing its job seperatley. I hope this figure helps but you may never correct the problem with said weapon or yourself. Five yards or less body hits should be your first goal. Goodluck.



Hammerless DAO's like my 13.3 oz "always carry" S&W M&P 342 with XS night sight are not for gunfights but are the absolute fastest, reliable, and most effective weapon within their range limitation for personal close range self defense.

I've taught a few people recently to shoot (not just DA or SA, but pistols in general) and I show them how they must separate their trigger finger ('divorce it' if you will) from the rest of their hand. What is the purpose of hand? ...to hold the pistol. You shouldn't have to put the death grip on the pistol to hold it, and once the hand is in place, holding the pistol, it's job is done. Now it's time for the trigger finger... and the trigger finger alone... to do it's job, pulling smoothly through the action to fire the pistol.

The problem I see (and I KNOW this was my problem when I started handgun shooting) was at The Moment of Truth... just before the hammer drops and the magic happens... new shooters tend to pull the trigger with their entire hand (all 4 fingers.) I learned to get past this by a fair amount of dry firing (both revolvers and autos) and learning to isolate my trigger finger from the rest of my hand. Once you get used to the occurance, the surprise and newness of the pistol firing and the recoil, you can get on with the business at hand... but it does require repetition and a familiarity with your weapon.

Well I managed to find time between raking the gravel in my yard left over from plowing snow this past winter and watching the Cincinnati Reds season opener to shoot my Charter a few rounds this evening. I took the advice to heart and was shooting DA style at about 10-12 feet and used 3 different bullet configurations. My groupings were what I was expecting, but not perfectly what I expected. There was no wind this evening and my best group was about 1 inch left of bull and 1 inch high in about a 2 inch group. This was with laser cast 240 grain swc bullets. I need to get some more speer gold dots to try them, the factory hornady xtp 180 grain ammo was left of bull and high just like the laser cast but had about a 3 to 3 1/2 inch group. I gripped the gun a little higher on the grip and support hand finger on front of trigger guard with slow deliberate shots. I shot 25 rounds and have a sore blister on my grip hand between first 2 fingers...lol. I was pleased with my shooting today. Thanks for the help, I know if I have any more problems I can ask here and get great advice. Dan

Here's my own two cents on an old topic... sorry I didn't see it sooner. First - I have to disagree with the posters that said you should be able to know or feel exactly when the trigger is going to break. Anticipating the trigger break is one of the biggest causes of inaccurate shooting. You develop a flinch and always end up pushing your shots off target. Here's a good way to see if you're flinching: Do some "ball and dummy" drills. Load one chamber, and skip one. Then load another and skip two. (This is for a five-shot revolver - for a six-shot revolver, you would load one, skip one, load two, and skip two.) Now close the cylinder without looking at the position of the live cylinders. The purpose of this drill is so that you never know if the next round up is going to be a live round, or an empty chamber. When your gun goes "click" on an empty, and you see whether or not you've pushed it off center, you'll know for sure if you're flinching or not.

Second, I have to disagree with the poster that said double-action shooting should only be practiced at distances of 5 yards or so. You'll find that with practice, accurate double-action shooting can be performed at any distance, although when the yardage gets out towards 50, it becomes a heckuva lot harder. I can tell you that I've qualified (with a perfect score) on a police pistol qualifications course using a ragged old shot-to-heck Model 19 shooting double-action, but the farthest shots on that course of fire were 25 yards.

Third - everything plays a part. Stance, grip, sight alignment, breathing, trigger squeeze, and follow-through. All the basics of shooting become that much more important when the trigger pull is long and stiff. Watching the Jerry Miculek tips is good advice. Jerry is a master at revolver shooting. If it seems that you're still having trouble, don't hesitate to seek out a professional and pay for a lesson or two. Or just find someone more experienced than you are and ask them to watch you and critique your stance and grip, etc. Above all else, have fun with it! 'Cause when you get right down to it, no matter what you're shooting, shooting stuff is fun!