Different disciplines and revolver...Part 1

Different disciplines obviously change the game for every shooter, but can affect the revolver shooter more so due to various equipment requirements, and course design.

In IDPA,where I started, the equipment requirements are more restrictive than any other discipline.
  The rules regulate the placement of the holster so the trigger pad is behind the centerline of the shooter...this gives you a slight advantage over the auto in having the gun a bit more forward. Cant must be vertical or muzzle rearward...the latter of which I have no preference for because it necessitates the gun being further from the opening in my concealment garment and a point about the ammunition carriers. I run a safariland custom fit 568 and it does just fine for me. When I get better...I'll go for a kydex speed demon.

 The ammo carriers are specified to be 3 on the weakside behind the centerline or two in front of the holster and one behind the holster. Being a swap reloader I prefer the ammo carriers clustered around my holster. I currently run the california competition with the compliance devices. I recently got to try the North Mountain IDPA model and I like it a lot and am going to order one. 

Be prepared to be highly handicapped by some stages especially poorly designed ones that run you almost to twelve before reaching a reload point. Learn how to shoot accurately early in this sport. In indoor the shots are shorter and more rapid combined with the tightness of the stage. You should be close to the autos in getting to twelve here. Outdoor is a little more difficult because they can back the shots up more and cover can be widespread.

Why I chose revolver....and stuck with it thus far.

  So I've been competing with a revolver mostly for about a year now and I am really just starting to feel like I have the hang of it. My shots are mostly going where I want them to when I do my part and the reload is not an all day event any longer. Head shots happen not by divine concession, but practice and execution. Transitions aren't a perilous journey to rediscover the sights but a seamless segue to the next shot/array. Life is good and I'm having fun.

  I realized tonight that Revolver is a tough division to compete in when I picked up my limited gun and was just fooling around with some reloads and they were fast and easy. New mag in before the old mag hits the ground...no problem and I haven't shot this gun in a year more or less. All this and more rounds to shoot before the reload? Where do I sign up? Oh yeah Revolver division. Sorry Limited gun, you're really cool and all but I'm getting good at counting to six.

  I do find my my revolvers to be more noble. I just feel right when I strap on the Revo gear and get set to dry fire, practice or compete. There is just something comfortable about it to me. I am over the fact that it's not the fastest platform out there, nor the most efficient. I realize and embrace it's limitations. To me it's a great challenge and I love the puzzle the COF poses trying to find the sixes or the reload to make it happen. I'm not here to stitch up the course and have streams of brass arcing through the air, I'd rather laugh at myself for chasing the 7th shot or celebrate a smokin' series of reloads in a run.
 
I feel that I can learn something from every competitor in my division at a given match. The speed demon, the accurate one, the planner all have something to share with me. Most of all I really enjoy the fellowship of the Revolver division. I have lost count of the stages I have just walked up to shoot because I was off helping another shooter with something or vice versa. Nobody is too good to talk to you or so caught up in their equipment that it would take a house payment to catch up to them. It's just black fingered fun.

How I got started in competitions...

My Dad was a shotgun guy...if you ask him what he could have for the one gun....it'd be a 12 gauge Remington. When he was younger he shot the the 870 and as he aged he moved to the lighter recoiling 1187. Bottom line was the man could shoot and that only got better as he got older. We would go out bird hunting and he'd pull off some ridiculous shot like doves on the wing at 60 yards while I would eat through boxes of shells....single shot by painful single shot and come up with nothing. So I was introduced to sporting clays as my Dad couldn't bear the sight of sky blasters 'r' us. Somewhere in the first 5000 rounds I discovered that this was not for me. I would go and put in a round of 100 or two every Sunday and pray to go to the pistol range afterward. It didn't stop there as we soon started shooting competitions to hone our skills further and I was winning. I switched over to an 1100 but it was not to be, I was bored with clays and the fire for pistol shooting had already been lit. So began the dabbling in handguns and possibly the biggest waste of brass in a lifetime. I still have a hard time with how much brass I have thrown away in life as we did not reload. As any good rebellious son I went exactly 180 degrees from my Dad's interest which was revolvers. I wanted I had to have a 9mm of which my uncle had two. I schemed, I pleaded, I did everything I could think of to get my hands on a bonafide 9mm. All of this to no avail, "Revolvers are more reliable and safer. You could get hurt with a pistol like that." My Dad tried and tried to get his only son to love revolvers as much as he did. I got a 9mm finally...well actually my Mom did, but I spent all summer working in a glass shop polishing up expensive things with Windex and paper towels to earn the $489. It was a Glock 19 and it was great and it was mine. I can still remember the way it smelled out of the box and how neat it looked and how incredible it felt to fire the first rounds out of it.  Fast forward 10,000 rounds and ten years later. I got back into shooting competitions on a whim at a local range weekday match. The gun was the very same G19 and my eyes were forever opened. The thing that killed my auto usage was the brass....The G19 didn't last long and I soon found out .45's were more fun and also more expensive to shoot. I got so frustrated with all the brass that i was losing at the matches that I went made the best mistake ever: I traded off an auto for a used 625JM Smith and Wesson revolver. I can still hear my father laughing and saying I told you so.  That was four or five revolvers ago. 

First Posting....

Well my name is Forrest Halley and I shoot. Well to be more correct I compete in shooting events and practice for same. I decided to do a blog just for fun and to keep track of my own progress and hopefully inspire others to enjoy the shooting sports also. This is intended to be a documentary of my journey through the world of shooting. I sincerely hope you enjoy it as much as I am.