Posted on by Sherman A. House DDS

HIP GRIPS, CLIPDRAW and NPE CARRY, WITH THE DARRYL BOLKE MOUSEGUN MINDSET

Clip grips aren’t new…this idea goes back probably fifty years at this point, and always had the same idea in mind. Carry as little gun as possible, as minimally as possible, with the least bulk. These guns are great for deep concealment in light clothing. They’re also likely to be missed by most casual observers, the criminal element included. They do take some work to become accustomed to the modified draw stroke, and achieving accessibility though.
This was a patient of mine who was a VICTIM of violent crime…a parking lot robbery. As he attempted to make his escape, his assailant fired several rounds from a small .22 revolver. One went through the windshield, strike him squarely in the nose, and traversing his face, lodging in the posterior wall of his maxillary sinus. You can see the deformed projectile on the above panoramic radiograph. The white thing that looks like a cursor flipping you the bird is the bullet. It was so firmly lodged, and close to vital structures, that it was left in place.

At the last TacCon event, in March of 2023, I attended a lecture by my friend Darryl Bolke (herein abbreviated as DB) entitled, “The MOUSEGUN MINDSET.” It was a great talk about the rationale behind using small caliber guns in NPE scenarios, and the alterations necessary to the philosophy of the prepared Civilian Defender to make these small guns work for them. It takes some adaptation and effort! There is a good amount of study going into this line of thinking, and DB is one of the great minds leading the charge on this. Rhett Nuemayer is another fantastic practitioner and instructor who has the skills and the background to demonstrate and teach these same concepts that are needed to make the MOUSEGUN work for you. I will break down the big takeaways from DB’s lecture, and also spin some of my own experience into it. It really dovetails nicely into the mission of the Civilian Defender…we aren’t raiding the castle or hunting escaped fugitives…we are just trying to live our lives and go home safely at the end of the day. Lots of people forget this! Your local police might carry a Glock 45 with a RDS, and three spare magazines on their belt. They carry that pistol and that much spare ammunition because they are ACTIVELY moving towards the sound of gunfire, and they are charged with the duty of (hopefully) opting to effect an arrest or seizure of bad guys. We aren’t doing that! And military special operations personnel are responsible for directly engaging the enemy to complete some sort of tactical objective. Thus, they carry box magazine fed weapons that allow them to achieve that goal and they don’t have to care about the same things that the Civilian Defender does. We, as responsible Civilian Defenders are charged with avoiding trouble at all costs, but when it comes to us, we launch some sort of definitive counter ambush to force the bad guys to break contact with us. We aren’t trying to apprehend them like the police do, and we aren’t trying to destroy them with overwhelming firepower like the military does. We win 100% of the fights we don’t get into, and thus it is incumbent on us to keep our eyes and ears up and open and stay one step ahead of the opposition. Our mission is different…and the MOUSEGUN MINDSET fits right into that.

“No professional would ever carry a mouse gun.”-says the internet gun experts

As I’ve said many times before, many people in our circle believe that you have to carry a full-size, compensated service pistol with a red dot sight, a 1000 lumen weapon light and a 20 round extended magazine to be ready for any kind of danger that will come your way, up to and including a violent takeover of a mall or a professional sporting event, orchestrated by Islamofascist terrorists. This is a low probability event, and MOST regular Civilian Defenders are far more likely to encounter street (or more apropos, according to Tom Givens, “Parking Lot,” level violence) in the form of an armed robbery. You don’t need a full size Mark 23 to defend yourself from this type of attack, and the concealment infrastructure around a gun of that size is outside the realm of realistic practicality for 99% of the population, the people living in Wyoming or Alaska excepted. For everyone else, this kind of look will be noticed even by the blissfully unaware phone monsters that most of us work and live around. Thus, something more discreet, practical and concealable is called for. The limits of concealability these days are really in flux; on the Phlster Facebook group, there was recently a picture posted of a fit woman wearing a g-string and a sports bra, with the caption that in that same photo was a Phlster Enigma carrying a Glock 19. How she did it, I don’t know, but it was there, apparently. I kid, but only slightly. People can hide large guns, on small frame bodies, with the Phlster Enigma. It is truly a game changer and a practical option for the average Civilian Defender.

A FEW BULLET POINTS OF DB’S SALIENT THOUGHTS RELATED TO THE MOUSEGUN MINDSET

◦ (MOUSEGUNS) ARE Really good guns when you can’t have a gun or you don’t want to look like a cop; if you get made you are getting killed

◦ Your Bill Drill times will suck with them

◦ “When you carry a .22 revolver you don’t do stupid stuff. It completely changes everything about your mindset to NOT being about the gun.”

◦ He rationalized it by saying that if he had operatives overseas, he put them there with a .22, and it was concealable, wouldn’t make them want to be in a gunfight, and left no casings behind

◦ If you were in any leftist owned city these days, you MIGHT want to carry a gun that leaves you in a situation where the PROBLEM HAS TO COME TO YOU (get out of trouble guns)

◦ How many people do we know break the rule of stupids BECAUSE they have a gun (gas station at 1230am)

◦ All DB’s cop friends are now carrying J frames so that they DON’T get in trouble by accidentally interfering in dangerous situations

◦ What is the more tactically correct thing to do? Don’t be a big damn hero

◦ When you don’t shoot people through the heart or the brain, they don’t become incapacitated; most pistol bullets don’t work unless you shoot people in the right places

◦ John Helms Mindset; greatest extant gunfighter today: sights I can see, trigger I can manage and it should be reliable. The rest is fairly irrelevant

KICKING THE CAN DOWN THE ROAD

I would take DB’s MOUSEGUN MINDSET and further apply it to the Civilian Defender philosophy. As I said in the opening, we aren’t going out looking for trouble. We are out looking for used cars, good samples of granola at Costco, a tasty burrito at Chipotle, or a quiet walk on the beach with our friends and/or family. If the criminal element decides to victimize us, they have to be nearly at arm’s reach. Inside that space, a small caliber gun will work! See the above anecdotal stories… Furthermore, the .22 S&W revolver in the Phlster Enigma that is worn at the time of the robbery beats the Roland Special that is left in the safe at home. Yes…shot placement with MOUSEGUNS is paramount, but isn’t it also paramount with full sized, or compact sized service pistols (the answer is YES)? So what is the difference? The difference is in the practice required to achieve proficiency. With purpose built defensive rounds like the Federal PUNCH in .22LR, there is now a predictable, penetrating, nearly hardcast type bullet that works well in both pistols and a revolvers, and works well in both ballistic gelatin and in anecdotal reports. And, despite what you may believe, I don’t put much stock in compilations of shooting reports under the guise of, “scientific research.” What you’re reading is largely a literature review of the field reports and studies about what is out there, and what works. There is enough variation in individual human anatomy that even if you could rig up an experiment where all other variables were controlled, down to the distance from the muzzle, the clothing worn, and the angle and point of impact, unless you were shooting identical twins (and that’s not ethical) then you are going to have skewed results. So yes…we can look at ballistic gelatin and clear gel tests to get comparative testing, but those are also not a panacea. They’re merely a good test medium to use to compare the performance of projectiles against other projectiles. So stop worrying about the performance of the rounds…worry more about where you are putting them, and be able to deliver tennis ball sized groups, as fast as possible, out to the distance of two car lengths (about ten yards). This will prepare you for probably 90% of all violent confrontations. Like we’ve all said, civilian interpersonal violence takes place at conversational distances…nobody is going to rob you or carjack you from across the parking lot at the Super Walmart.

Go into thinking through the problem with the underlying motive of, “How will I extricate myself from this situation?” Pulling out a gun and just start blasting is only a piece of the algorithm. It’s not THE solution…there is far more to it than that. The gun is a small piece of the overall pie.

This is a newer variation of the clip grip, by Hamre Forge (hamreforge.com) and it is digitally printed from a semi abrasive type of polymer that does a good job of holding onto light fabric, but not providing so much drag that it snags the cover garment like some rubber grips are prone to doing. The hook is tall and angled in a comfortable way that it doesn’t interfere with shooting, and it makes it easy to get a full firing grip with the gun, for at least two fingers, even for large mitted individuals like myself. These are available for the J frame (pictured here on a Smith 442) and also the Ruger LCR and the Taurus 856 (coming soon at the time of this writing they are in prototype phase). Loaded with wadcutters, this is a compact and controllable package, in the top end of the, “MOUSEGUN,” calibers.
This Shadow Systems CR 920, and other ten shot 9mm guns are a great choice for the active Civilian Defender. Whether in light clothing with a Phlster ENIGMA, or in scrubs or regular attire in a suitable concealment holster, you can carry a 10+1 pistol in a respectable caliber, that will get the job done, while being easy to manipulate and also deal with the eventuality of multiple attackers without having to reload quickly. The chances of getting to reload under the pressure of an armed confrontation are possible, but slim. This is more likely to occur with an easy to load semiautomatic pistol than a more complex (and technically more difficult) set of moments that a revolver requires. Even in ban states, 10 round magazines are available. And since guns like this and the SIG P365 are built around a ten round magazine from their inception, you could do a lot worse. Many capable Civilian Defenders are quite comfortable with a Glock 48 or 43X, loaded with a 10 round factory magazine, and live worry free about their choice of sidearm. The popularity of guns like this, as demonstrated by their presence among the cognoscenti at national events like the Rangemaster Tactical Conference isn’t coincidental…these compact size guns work!
This Beretta Bobcat 21A in .22LR in the, “Kale Slushy,” finish is a great pocket gun. I’ve seen a number of farmers, ranchers and loggers in my area who carry these guns in the pocket of their bib overalls, and they serve well in that function. For pocket carry, a long DA trigger pull is ideal for safety purposes. The sights on these suck, but in the conversational distance confrontations we are talking about here, they would probably work just fine. I would like this gun a little more if it had a set of miniaturized XS Big Dot sights on it. I carried a 21A in .25 ACP as a holdout piece during my time on the armored truck. As a 3rd gun, it rode in my uniform shirt pocket, underneath my external armor carrier, in an empty box of Marlboro 25 cigarettes. My partner new it was there, but everyone else just thought it was a box of cigarettes.
S&W 43C in .22LR. Ahrends (unfortunately now defunct) boot grips. I’ve used this gun extensively with the Federal PUNCH round and it shoots to the sights, has almost no recoil. The XS standard dot are OEM and easy to pick up quickly.
Posted on by Sherman A. House DDS

The Tom Givens ARMADA STANDARDS, Chemical Enhancement and the M&P 2.0 METAL

This was the first 100 rounds I fired through my M&P 2.0 Metal when I got it. I noticed that while it shot quite flat, and comfortably, I was sending my shots slightly left at 10 yards. I took the pistol to my smith and sure enough…the sights were slightly off-center in the dovetail, both front and rear! He straightened them out and now they both are centered and the gun shoots exactly to the sights now, with CCI Blazer brass 115 grain ball, or the Hornady CRITICAL DUTY 135 grain +P that I run in it for carry, off of Tom Givens’ recommendation. OH…and the FBI’s.

I tend to think a lot…some might say too much. I credit my philosophy degree with giving me a wider viewfinder on the world, but what I think it really did was make me feel comfortable with my pondering thoughts while doing other things, and giving me a creative outlet (like writing) to express them if I have a particularly good one (SPOILER ALERT…they aren’t all good). So I drive to and from work, often listening to a podcast or an audiobook, all whilst thinking about some of the stuff you read here. I scribble down notes, ideas or outlines and then, if they make the cut from the, “drafts,” folder to the, “published,” folder, you see them. Like I said, not all are published. I’ve got a few that have been swirling around the can for a couple years.

At the 2023 TacCon in Dallas this past March, while making the 11 hour drive from TN, I had a lot of alone time to think. I planned on competing in the annual shooting match, which I have had some limited success in the past, making it into the TOP 16, twice. My problem has always been nerves and competition. Like many of you, my wheels tend to fall off in competitive environments. Which is weird, because I’m a pretty secure person, I don’t have a fear of public speaking like most people do, and I actually enjoy public performance, thanks to my extensive experience in the music and as a college professor. And, in the few self-defense situations or law enforcement actions I’ve been in, I have always stayed cool. So I thought I’d try something a little different for this year’s competition…

THE TEST

First off, don’t try this at home. I decided that I would drink two, 20 ounce, four shot espressos, 30 minutes before my competition time. A mega dose of caffeine CAN make you sick, give you heart palpitations, or push you over the edge of sanity, so like I said, if you try this, proceed with caution. My thought was that if I could get a good enough buzz, I would get my baseline heart rate into the 110’s (my resting HR is usually around 65bpm) then once the competition started, and I got the competition anxiety, I would ramp up into the 150’s. I got into the 140’s, but my sight picture was a steady hum of vibration. Still controlled though. I made all of my shots except the headshot tie breaker, which split the line (with one shot). Aside from that, my shooting was solid and I placed 71 out of a couple hundred shooters. I thought it was an interesting exercise and required further investigation.

BUT WHY?

I don’t know anyone who has been in a life or death situation that didn’t experience at least some of the effects of epinephrine (AKA adrenaline) on their sympathetic nervous system, and had some kind of sympathetic nervous system activation. Even seasoned gunfight survivors STILL got a FIGHT/FLIGHT/FREEZE response. I’m sure that there have been tests done in the past by actually injecting shooters with epinephrine in controlled doses to illicit a sympathetic nervous system response, but I don’t have the controlled environment to be able to do that. So knowing what I do about humans, anxiety, the sympathetic nervous system, and human physiology, I deduced that a high dose of caffeine would kick me into enough of a sympathetic response that it would heighten my anxiety for competition, and allow me to objectively battle through it, since I was ultimately at the, “helm,” of the experiment, and only worried about competing against myself. It was interesting…those that came to my lecture as short time after, I hope you had a good time because when I am really energized, my lectures are the best version of my oratory work!

BACK TO THE OLD DRAWING BOARD

I’ve recently relocated to an area where I have ready access to a very nice indoor shooting range facility. I can now practice weekly, sometimes twice a week, in addition to shooting in a weekly revolver competition league. This allows me to test my skills against drills that guys like Greg Ellifritz and Tom Givens publish in their writing. I thought that it would be interesting to replicate a similar experience to the TacCon competition, but in a faster format. So I elected to do a similar test on Tom’s ARMADA STANDARDS. From Tom’s newsletter, the ARMADA STANDARDS are as follows:

I drive a Toyota Tacoma, and my vehicle is 19.5’ long, but the concept stands! Both are big vehicles, and like Tom wrote, it is quite plausible that a self defense shooting would take place within that 6-6.5 yard range. This set of standards has everything…shooting from the draw, offhand shooting, strong hand only shooting, and shooting to empty and reloading. I also thought it was most useful to shoot this drill cold, to get the best idea of what it was actually measuring. Of course, since I was trying to shoot it in a very heightened and agitated state, I consumed a 5-shot espresso, 30 minutes before executing the standards!

Tom set the PAR score for this set of standards at 8. A 10.5 is decent and gives me some room to tighten up too. I’d like to get all twenty into the black, in the future.

FINAL THOUGHTS ON SHOOTING UNDER MEGA DOSES OF CAFFEINE…

This was an interesting test for me to set ground work to get over the feelings of anxiety I have when shooting competitions. I’m getting better, but I still get agitated when that BEEP hits! I also am quite happy with my ability to press the trigger smoothly while aligning the sights, and also being able to manipulate loading process and run the slide. LOTS of people won’t be walking into their next gunfight in a completely sober state…hear me out. They will be under the influence of whatever they have on-board AND THEN THEY will also be under the effects of adrenaline on top of that. Whether that’s antidepressants, beta-blockers, anxiolytics, you name it. I’ve seen students in classes that take all of those things and more! Yet, while they are used to training and working while taking those medications, they aren’t used to fighting for their life while taking them! And that is difficult to replicate. Yes…you get a certain kind of buzz from Force on Force and competition, but that doesn’t happen to everyone. But a real fight…that’s a difficult stimulus to replicate.

BUT WAIT…THERE’S MORE

THIS is ten rounds of the non +P Critical Duty fired at 10 rounds, quickly (in terms of Tom’s reference to QUICKLY, CAREFULLY or PRECISELY). I fired these after the Armada Standards. This particular gun shoots these to the same POI, whether +P or not. The sights are stock, and they have been modified by blacking out the rear sight dots with black paint, and painting the face of the front post orange. I use Walgreen’s house brand nail polish for the front and the rear sights, with a base coat of flat white underneath. As an experienced M&P user for 15 years now, I really love the M&P METAL. The recoil impulse (which was already minimal) is even less in the metal frame. It is very easy to shoot the gun fast, and not have it get away from you. The trigger has a stop which prevents overtravel, and although it’s probably not necessary, it eliminates that nasty, “SNAP,” and wobble that is endemic to some polymer frame service pistols. It breaks cleanly and predictably. It fits all of the M&P holsters I have for my polymer guns.
60 rounds of CCI Blazer Brass 115 grain 9mm, using the BASELINE PERFORMANCE STANDARDS I adapted from Claude Werner a few years back. This is a good way to objectively evaluate how proficient you are with a particular gun, at 3, 5, 7, 10, 15 and 20 yards. I recently started wearing progressive lenses, and it’s been a challenge finding what phase of the lense to look through to see the front sight best. I have thought about wearing clear shooting glasses with non-prescription lenses, since I really only need glasses for reading or doing close up work with my hands, I have them on most of the time, so it makes sense to practice with them and get good with wearing them. If you’re on the fence about the M&P METAL, don’t be. It is a winner and Smith has really put out a good product with it. I have a pair…this one I use for training, and the one I use for carry. The training gun is denoted by the FDE grip back strap, and the carry gun has the OEM black back strap. I’ve got 300 flawless rounds through the carry gun and about 1400 through the training gun. They work well with new or older vintage (READ, GEN 1) M&P magazines, whether in standard capacity or in ban state neutered 10 rounds versions. If I was purchasing this gun in a ban state, unlike some neutered magazines of the past, I would feel good about using the factory 10 rounders if that’s all I had available.
Posted on by Sherman A. House DDS

ONLY ACCURATE (REVOLVERS) ARE INTERESTING…

281/300 on my first competition with a revolver, in years. Lots of room to improve! The target presented by turning for a specific time (about 5-8 seconds) depending on the ranges, that varied from 5-20 yards.

Townsend Whelen once said, “Only accurate rifles are interesting.” I would agree, but I would add that in my view, ONLY accurate firearms are interesting. I’ve had some well renowned guns that were duds, and even with a variety of ammunition, they were just not accurate. I recently had a well-known lever action rifle manufacturer service a gun that had a non-concentric bore. While it would print a group, at 25 yards, that group was about 4 feet HIGH, and three feet LEFT. They replaced the barrel and they zeroed the rifle with the ammunition that I was using, and returned the rifle to me with the rear Skinner Peep sight scooted ALL OF THE WAY to the right! I lost interest and ended up trading the gun for something else. I’ve had a few other guns in the past that were also just dogs, and they wouldn’t shoot to the sights or zero with an optic. The ability to deliver rounds accurately and have 100% accountability for every shot fired is essential to my requirements for a firearm and especially for a firearm that is used for self-defense. Thus, only accurate guns are interesting to me.

I’ve heard several well-known firearms instructors that specialize in the shotgun that each shotgun barrel is a unique individual and will have an ammunition preference. For some, this is cheap RIO brand or WOLF 00 buckshot, and for others, Federal Flite Control (or one of the big brand licensed copies that use the Flite Control wad). I’d go so far to say that this, “ammunition preference individuality,” applies to all guns, and not just shotguns! I have a number of revolvers of similar configuration, barrel length, frame size and some will shoot a particular loading to the sights, while others do not. You really have to check the loading with each gun you use, and make sure that there is coincidence between the sights and the point of impact of the projectiles. It CAN make a difference even in identical guns! I have two S&W M&P 2.0 METAL pistols that luckily, shoot and digest the same ammo, so I can use both with the same ammo, and use one for practice and training, and one for carry.

I recently entered a weekly pistol league at my local gun range. I decided to enter the revolver division, since I enjoy revolvers, and also because the competition is good, but the pool isn’t necessarily as deep as the more-common semi-automatic pistol division. I also believe that if you are a competent revolver shooter, you are probably competent with most any self-loading pistol, whether it is striker-fired, double action-single action or double action only of course. I shot the first week’s completion with a police surplus S&W M14 with a 6” barrel. In Southern California, up until the 1980’s, six inch duty guns in .38 Special and .357 Magnum were still on the streets. I’m sure there were probably a few holdout diehards that continued to use the 6” guns into the 1990’s as well. The guns had a fantastic reputation for accuracy, and many used them in PPC events with great effect. I will continue to use the Model 14 for the rest of the league this season. But the weirdo in me started to wonder how my other service size revolvers compared in terms of rapid fire accuracy (one shot per second) at ranges from 5-20 yards. So I set out to do a little testing to evaluate where I was with various service revolvers I have.

THE COURSE OF FIRE

In the semi-spirit of Claude Werner’s, “Baseline Evaluation,” I shot a variation of that drill, consisting of six rounds at each distance, for 24 rounds at 5 yards, 10 yards, 15 yards and 20 yards. I fired one round per second, starting at the ready, and then advanced the target out to the next distance. Throughout the evaluation of these seven revolvers, I experienced no malfunctions or stoppages of any kind. I used Federal 130 grain round nose ball for the entirety of the test. I scored the target that ANY round outside the 9 ring was regarded as a miss.

Test ammo…the ubiquitous 130 grain ball. I would prefer to use flat point ball, but the pro shop had this loading in abundance, so this will do. I have a stash of 130 grain flat point ball that I will use for the duration of the league.
Even Federal turns out a turd sometimes. This projectile was loaded backwards. The crimp still held it.
SCORE 24/24. The Colt Python .357 Magnum (NOT the new version). After the group that cast to the left at 15 and 20 yards, I adjusted the sight a bit and reshot a group at each distance (on another target) to make sure it was shooting straight. This gun is dear to me because it was a gift to me from my late friend, James Yeager. It shoots very straight and I love it. The double action is buttery smooth and the single action is crisp. The jeweled trigger and hammer are so 1980’s action hero. If I had someone around that worked on Pythons, I would probably use this for the league, and I MIGHT next season. We will see. Now that I live close to Grant Cunningham, worst case scenario, I could take it to him if it broke down.
SCORE 20/24. This is a 2” Smith Model 15. I like this gun, but it much prefers 148 grain wadcutters, especially the Georgia Arms Self-Defense wadcutter. I also didn’t fiddle with the sights at all, and if I was going to use this gun for anything, I’d be sure to zero it with whatever load I was going to use. I like the feel of the Uncle Mike’s boot grips, but they are NOT as comfortable nor as solid as a grip style that I can get my entire hand onto. With this style of grip, my pinkies curl underneath the gun, which results in much less leverage. I have a case of the GA wadcutters coming, and I will get this Model 15 dialed in perfectly with that load.
SCORE 24/24. The mighty S&W N-frame, in the guide of the service grade Model 28 HIGHWAY PATROLMAN. This is a big, heavy gun and the 130 grain ball in .38 Special is VERY easy to shoot quickly and accurately from this gun. The front sight is tall, and very visible. The action is smooth, and it practically shoots itself. If I wasn’t using my Model 14, this would be my next choice.
SCORE 24/24. The ORIGINAL Model 19, the favorite of Bill Jordan, and the Cadillac of service revolvers. Easy to shoot, very smooth and well balanced, I get why Bill loved this gun, as did many other gunmen from his time. I wouldn’t mind dialing the sights in a bit on this and get that 15 and 20 yard better accuracy centered.
SCORE 24/24. This is a Smith M64 4” with a pencil barrel. It has a BIG very visible front sight, and a decent action. This is one of two fixed-sight guns I used in this evaluation. I noticed that with this fixed sight gun, the groups at 15 and 20 yards were actually quite different from the closer points of impact at 5 and 10 yards. This is a surplus M64 that was carried a lot and shot very little. I bought it for $90 on a Saturday and used it in a defensive gun use the following Monday. No shot was fired, and although I failed the victim selection process of a desperate would-be carjacker, he immediately changed cardinal directions when he saw the stainless revolver and ran away quickly. I like this gun and it also shoots wadcutters very well and is controllable.
SCORE 23/24. Smith 681 4”. This was the service revolver I bought in the 90’s and used for years as my sidearm in the armored truck industry. I carried it on the job initially with Federal 125 grain semi-jacketed hollow points in .357 and practiced with 158 grain lead semi-wadcutters, which the company supplied to me in nearly unlimited quantities, as long as I returned the empties. After a horrible qualification where I shot a 300/300 with this gun, and a 300/300 with my Smith 649 ankle gun, using the same 125 grain SJHP’s and spent the ride home from the range picking metal and powder out of my left hand. The problem was that the blast was so terrible out of the J frame, I got unburnt powder and some shards of lead into my fingers. After that, I changed my carry load to 158 grain lead semi-wadcutters. If I was carrying the same two revolvers today, I would carry 148 grain wadcutters and worry about something else! The fliers that are lateral to the centered cluster of holes I think were due to fatigue on my part. Also, while I love the esthetics of the Ahrends grips, they do slip even with a crush grip on them. I would much rather have a set of textured VZ grips that give some traction.
SCORE 24/24. This is the league gun…the Smith Model 14 6”. I don’t know where this gun came from, or what department it was issued to. I will inquire to S&W and find out though! It is a smooth gun, and it shoots like a laser beam. It is a classic K frame, and like all classic guns, it earned its reputation. If I had to carry a six inch service revolver, I’d need a long IWB holster or some kind of shoulder holster (tall guy problems). I have painted the Patridge front sight of this gun with red/orange nail polish, and I noticed today that it has a slight gouge in it. I could fill it in, and touch it up, but it caught my eye so well I could draw you a picture of it from memory. I recall Jim Cirillo saying that he could describe the serrations on his front sight during his first gunfight on the stakeout squad. Front sight detail…who’d of thunk it?!?

FINAL THOUGHTS

I’ve been a fan of VZ revolver grips for a few years. I am now a TRUE BELIEVER in them on all the wheelguns they make them for! The hard material and aggressive texture makes controlling brisk recoil easy. They’re also rugged and withstand abuse well, and they’re relieved for speedloaders. They also don’t hang up empties on ejection like some grip panels do.

Shooting on poorly lit indoor ranges really highlights the need for high visibility front sights. Smith and Wesson adjustable sight revolvers have talk front sights that are easy to see…if you paint them with a bright contrasting color! I use a white fingernail Polish as a base layer (two coats) and then several (3-5 coats) of an obnoxious red/orange color. I bought the fingernail polishes at Walgreens. We’ve all gotten spoiled with the plethora of highly visible semi-automatic sights from places like XS, Night Fission, Trijicon and Ameriglo, but DIY is largely necessary for wheelguns! It’s ok…it adds to the fun!

Good gear is helpful. But squeezing performance out of anything requires practice. I dry-practice almost daily, and I live-fire practice once a week or more when time allows. Lately, time has allowed for more live fire! Which is good. I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about topics to write about here, that I think will be interesting and useful to my readers.

We are in a revolver renaissance right now…many people are discovering how fun and rewarding revolver use can be. Revolvers aren’t dead! Any skilled revolver shooter will see the revolvers strengths, and appreciate them for what they are. They’re not a panacea of course, but in their niche (guns staged for long term storage, guns used in grappling situations, guns used for fighting in confined spaces, carrying in deep cover/NPE’s, large caliber animal protection or for 50 state legal requirements) they excel. And if you’re an instructor, someone is going to show up to learn how to use a wheelgun. You better know how to use one, so you can teach them!

THANK YOU FOR READING! Like, subscribe to my feed and please share on social media! The internet is doing a fine job of suppressing pro-freedom content, but they can’t stop you from reading or sharing! Thanks again-Dr. House