Terrific Shooting!

[Guy Miner]

In my basic handgun class yesterday, I had five great people - one of whom turned out to be a ringer! Nice lady who told me she hadn't shot a handgun in decades, and wanted a course to refresh her knowledge as she wanted to start carrying a .38 for protection.

Okay - sounds good to me. She listened, soaked it all in, did pretty well with all our unloaded pistol drills.

We went out to do the live fire portion and she struggled a bit with the recoil from her lightweight .38 revolver, but managed to hit the targets every time. Then, when she was obviously becoming uncomfortable with the recoil, I urged her to switch to a .22 target pistol...

Seldom have I seen such shooting!

Turns out that as a kid, she had been on a pistol shooting team - and even after several decades, that skill and knowledge had not vanished. Some of the tightest pistol groups I've ever seen... Watching her shoot was a lesson in trigger control. Several times she brought the pistol down instead of shooting, because the sights weren't aligned perfectly, or her breathing wasn't perfectly timed. Then she'd raise the pistol again, and put more bullets into the same tiny group.

She told me later than she and her sister had trained together as children, and that her sister had gone on to the Olympics. Yes, there are shooters among us, and we don't even know them. She was amazing with that .22 pistol!

Wow! Much respect.

Guy

 

[DrMike]

She is to be commended. What do you recommend to handle the recoil, Guy? I have more than a sneaking suspicion that you had a reasonable recommendation for her.

 

[Vince]

Outstanding!

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[JD338]

Outstanding!
Guess shooting is like riding a bike.

JD338

 

[Guy Miner]

She is to be commended. What do you recommend to handle the recoil, Guy? I have more than a sneaking suspicion that you had a reasonable recommendation for her.

The lightweight snubby .38 revolvers can be very difficult to shoot well. Hers happened to be a Ruger LCR - which I'm not impressed with:

http://www.ruger.com/products/lcr/models.html

And the grip simply doesn't fit her hand well. With the ill fitting grip and the mere 13.5 ounce handgun, she was having a tough time, no matter what we did with the way she was gripping the revolver. She also wasn't particularly pleased with the double-action-only trigger pull.

I recommended that at a minimum she should get new grips for the revolver. And I urged her to consider swapping the gun on something with less recoil.

BTW - her pistol skills were originally developed as a youth in one of the eastern European nations, under the old Soviet model. No wonder they have so many good marksmen in international competition!

Regards, Guy

 

[DrMike]

Appreciate the insight, Guy. My daughter is asking for help in selecting a handgun. I advised speaking with a professional shooter. The policeman who trained her was recently killed in an auto crash. She is uncertain where to turn next, so she asked me to come down and give her some guidance. I was advising a handgun with recoil only as heavy as she could tolerate comfortably for practice.

 

[Vince]

The good thing about resolvers, so called because they've solved a lot of problems over the years, is the ability to change the stocks to better fit the hand shooting them.
My J Frame came with a nice pair of boot grips. Great idea, and very compact, but more recoil than I want to deal with. Most of my revolvers wear Pacmeyer. The J Frame wears a set of Compacs while the model 58 wears the Presentation grip.
Another tool to help with the fit, if staying with the original stocks, is the Tyler T Grip. I have one on another N Frame and it works wonders.

Vince

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[Darkhorse]

I took my wife to the LGS to let her pick out her own pistol. Guess what she picked? A Ruger LCR in .38 special. I did my best to talk her into a .380 or 9mm auto but once she held the LCR the choice was made.
Keeping in mind the weight of the pistol I bought some reduced recoil loads. She shot it fair as long as they were within 6 yards she'd likely get hits. Somewhere.
I bought a LH holster and have carried the pistol myself a good bit but I don't like it. The grip is too large. While it fits the hand good that big grip just prints like a sore thumb under any kind of pullover shirt.
The sights are terrible. All you can replace is the front site.
It only holds 5 shots. I do have quickloaders but for all practical purposes it's a 5 shot pistol.
I felt really undergunned with it so I went back to my .40 M&Pc.

 

[Vince]

Smart man letting the shooter pick the weapon.

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[Darkhorse]

Smart man letting the shooter pick the weapon.

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Yeah. If I expect her to shoot it then she's got to pick it out. For instance when we were discussing a deer rifle for her at camp one day someone handed her a Ruger .44 Auto carbine. Once she shouldered it nothing else would do. We still have that little ruger.
When we were looking at elk rifles I insisted on a Ruger in 7X57 and she shot it very well. She shoots rifles pretty good for a (trained by me) girl.
But when deer hunting she still preferred the .44 Carbine. She finally decided to take the 7X57 deer hunting and killed several deer with it.
When we first got that .44 she couldn't hit a cardboard box at 50 yards. The trigger was too gritty and hard to pull. I called around looking for a smith to improve it but got no takers. "It's like a watch" one told me, "and I won't touch it". So I took the exploded parts diagram and tore it down and managed to smooth out the grit and make it shootable. A couple of years ago I was sighting it in and that trigger was getting under my skin so I decided to work it a little more. When I looked at that exploded diagram I immediately decided it was good enough like it was. I don't know how I ever worked on that trigger in first place.

 

[Dwh7271]

Guy,
You got to try the SP101 in 327 Fed.
Six shot. More ponies than a 38 Spec or 9 with full bore loads but manageable.
Stick 32 Longs (or 32 H &R Mag) for practice. No jump at all with the Longs.
Bought one for my wife after several tries with others. She loves it. Purse carry for her.
I have to admit though, I really enjoy shooting it. :grin: