Shooting the DA Revolver.

I expect the DA trigger to be 12#. A bit lighter is nice, but at a point I worry about light strikes.

The main thing you want is a smooth trigger, no slack, no binding, no roughness. The pull should be the same 12# from when you start to pull to when it breaks.

The best way to learn the trigger is to pull it a lot. Dry fire, take it to the range a lot, go plinking a lot.

for the sake of the thread I'm assuming that recoil/flinching isn't the problem.

How the gun fits for hand is very very important. You should be able to hook the first knukle of your trigger finger over the trigger comfortably. That's not the way you pull the trigger of course, it's just a matter of fit. If the trigger is too far away it can lead to lots of problems.
A trigger that's closer is still workable but not ideal.

You can make an ill fitting gun fit better with a good grip. Get thinner grips if you have problems reaching the trigger, larger if it's too close.

I recently got a model 64 and the grips are way too small for me. In part it makes shooting the gun frustrating.

Holding the gun either one handed or two, the point is to isolate the trigger pull from the muscles holding the gun.
This is easier to do with a two handed grip. Having a firm grip with your off hand allows you to have a more relaxed (though still firm) strong hand grip. This makes it easier to pull the trigger without moving your hand.

Pull or push the trigger with the pad of your finger. I'm guessing everyone knows that. The reason is that the trigger pull should be straight back. Too much or too little finger on the trigger tends to push or pull the barrel off target.

That's my two bits.
 
I grew upshooting Smith revolvers, in my opinion, they have the best trigger on the market. And, through a little stoning, shooting and tuning, they get much better.

I also own a handful of Colt DA revolvers. Very nice guns, but, for me, the Colt DA is just awful. It stages and increases in weight as you near the end of the trigger stoke. Had I started with Colts, I might feel differently.

Alot of people have problems with DA revolvers because they actually require quite a bit of trigger discipline. You start slow and stare at the front sight as you press through the trigger ever so slowly until the gun surprises you when it goes bang.

The problems I generally see are:

Line up the sights and jerk the trigger when you think they are lined up (never works)

Get impatient and jerk the trigger at the very end. (ditto)

Press the trigger, anticipate the recoil and at the very last second, jerk the trigger to get it over with. (nope)

If the gun has a catchy, stagey or other wise crappy trigger, every one of those "bumps" in the trigger pull makes the shooter think its about to fire, and, they jerk the trigger, dropping the shot.

One needs to start slow, press the DA trigger all the way through, from start to finish, until the gun fires, watching the front sight, focusing on it and keeping it aligned, the whole time.

Realistically, there are alot of tasks all going on at the same time, and, until it becomes natural, its pretty tough.

But, once it all comes together, you can shoot very fast. After the gun fires, during the dwell time while you are recovering from recoil, you are already loading up the trigger so when the gun settles after the recoil, the front sight is already back where its supposed to be, between your eye and the target just as the gun fires agai.

Unless you are at very short distance, then, its just a drag race to get your shot off. Get the frame of the gun between you and the target and crank the trigger. If you are a practiced revolver shooter (having spent lots of time shooting slowly and methodically at ranges doing everything right) the trigger pull, though rapid, will be reasonably smooth and consistent. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast is reality.
 
Another old DA revolver man here.

While the objectives of good DA revolver work have already been covered in this thread, there can be no 'pat' set of instructions that will work for all shooters. The foundation element of good DA revolver work is the grip, and you simply cannot tell someone how to do that. The variables of hand size, strengths and handgun grips make it an individual journey, which can be made easier by a shooting coach that knows his stuff. Once that is accomplished, the objective is to send the shot away with as little disturbance as possible to the sight picture.

FWIW I learned DA shooting in an environment where they shoved you a rack-grade, fixed sight S&W and your need for a paycheck served as incentive to keep your scores above 70% for sixteen weeks. Some of us were shooters before we arrived and in short order we were getting at least some 9's and X's on a B27 from 50 yards. We didn't bitch about the trigger; it wouldn't have been well received. We simply paid attention to what the R/O said and applied ourselves to the task. By the third month, several of us were crowding a Distinguished pin. So don't tell me it can't be done and done very well, with stock revolvers.

A couple of years later, I learned some things from an old armorer and started doing DA action jobs- but not on cop guns. I soon learned what worked and what didn't. Wheelguns were hot then and regular guys all wanted a PPC trigger for 40 bucks.

You can lose reliability real quick by over-lightening either the mainspring or the trigger return spring. You can in fact make the action so sluggish that a really fast shooter can 'outrun' it. Stick with stock mainsprings, resist the urge to back that screw out too much and never cut more than one coil off the stock S&W return spring. Leave the SA sear alone. The rest is polishing the moving components that comprise the DA stroke and you can get a very nice, reliable trigger that will never cause a misfire or retard the trigger reset.

There's defensive shooting, competition shooting and exhibition shooting. There's a time to shoot fast and a time to shoot slow. Some guys 'stage' a DA trigger for precise shooting and pull it straight through quick for close work. That works pretty well for me. All things being equal, a smooth, reliable action won't make you shoot any worse. But no matter how good you make a DA trigger, it will never replace an ingrained application of the basics, a will to excel and a lot of practice with a single purpose of making every shot go exactly where you intend it to go. You get those things down and you'll be shooting so well you won't need a crutch.
 
The foundation element of good DA revolver work is the grip, and you simply cannot tell someone how to do that. The variables of hand size, strengths and handgun grips make it an individual journey...
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This ^^^

Pistol shooting, bagpipes, flipping pancakes - no two styles are exactly alike. Everyone's hands, fingers, arms, ear lobes are all different sizes. Any time a coach in any sport says "everyone should put their thumb [or whatever] on the left size of the gizmoflaggie or they can't play the pipes" you know you've got a bad coach.


The Other Sarge
 
Ok, now I'll be the contrarian.
Who do you think would have the highest score.
One of us duffers using Miculek's revolver or him using a dead stock one?
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Interesting point, BUT still short sighted, IMO. Jerry did not get to where he is at today by shooting a majority of the time with bone stock guns, with bone stock actions. He was able to achieve, dazzle, and embarrass most of the rest of us by having great skill coupled with finely tuned tools. If he was forced to use stock revolvers, he would not have been as dominant, esp if everyone else was using tuned revolvers.

A better question would be: if two shooters are equally skilled, but one has a much better pistol (trigger, ergonomics, sights, etc), who will most likely win the match?

Someone who races Ferraris, and does very well did not get to their present skill level by racing Ford Escorts for most of the time. And just like this scenario, you can only do so well driving an Escort, and it will hinder you compared to a sports car. I think people who try to improve their triggers are the people who are competitive or at least wish to remove all of the common ways the gun itself will hold the shooter back.

The core point here that most of us agree on is this: trigger time is crucial, and trigger time is necessary, but if you have a standard unmodified service grade revolver, or one that is low quality, you will not do as well as you would with a better instrument. Of course, if someone is terrible, and they don't practice, it almost doesn't matter if they have a great gun or not, because they will still shoot poorly.
 
I hear the "natural born talent" excuse all the time from musicians who simply don't work hard enough to get good. Every virtuoso at every skill or craft has exactly the same things to overcome that the rest of us do.
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If that were true, I would be shooting as well as Jerry Miculek by now.

Some of us have inherited genes that enable better eye-hand coordination than others, some of us (even siblings), do not. As a former teacher, I have seen one "natural" in regard to arc welding. Surprisingly, it was a girl. She learned to strike and arc and could run excellent beads during the first session of teaching her. The typical boy student, on the other hand, usually took a few days to just master holding an arc, let alone running a good bead.

As I suggested, I have practiced all my life and shoot (double-action only), nearly every day on my home range and if becoming a virtuoso is solely dependent upon practice, I should be a whole lot better than I am.
 
dahermit said:
Who do you think would have the highest score.
One of us duffers using Miculek's revolver or him using a dead stock one?
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dahermit said:
If that were true, I would be shooting as well as Jerry Miculek by now...if becoming a virtuoso is solely dependent upon practice, I should be a whole lot better than I am.
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It could be it's because you've already convinced yourself you're a duffer: Your subconscious is making sure your practice only serves to reinforce that image of yourself. The mind is powerful, and that's one of the big problems with Miculek hagiography. :(
 
Back in the day, when I was a young fellow, I was shooting with a local IPSC club. Now, most of those guys, myself included shot 1911's, but mine was stock out of the box, and the higher lever shooters all shot customized guns. I just KNEW that if I could get one of those "fancy" guns, I'd be able to shoot just as well as they could.

But one day, I watched a couple of those fellows take a "plain ol' gun" and shoot just about as well as they did with their fancy guns. I was forced to admit that it won't the gun. Those guys could just shoot a lot better than I could. And probably still can. Sure the highly tuned gun helped THEM, but it was like stropping a razor. The edge was already there.
 
It could be it's because you've already convinced yourself you're a duffer: Your subconscious is making sure your practice only serves to reinforce that image of yourself. The mind is powerful, and that's one of the big problems with Miculek hagiography.
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It "could be", but is not. Those of you who insist that we are all born equal, ignore the fact that genetics has been demonstrated to be a significant factor in "ability" or they would be able to charge such large stud fees for Kentucky Derby winners. Some of us just are not born with the ability to achieve the same running speed as others, or the ability to be world class double-action shooters...but a whole lot of practice AND a light and smooth trigger helps make us better.
 
dahermit said:
Those of you who insist that we are all born equal
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I've insisted nothing of the sort.

For the record, I agree practice and natural ability are important if you want to hang with the top dogs. But - and here's the important part - it's really only how you stack up against your own potential, and not any one else's, that's important. It just so happens that most have potential far beyond what they believe if they'd stop undermining themselves with their self-limiting mental narrative (and/or crappy DA trigger).
 
most have potential far beyond what they believe if they'd stop undermining themselves with their self-limiting mental narrative
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This ^^^

I coach a lot of things, athletic and otherwise. The overwhelming majority of competitors come into the sport already believing "Well, I could never be as good as Joe Blow, the famous expert".

Girls, for some reason, are better at disabusing themselves of this self defeating mindset. Men seem to be better at coming up with "logical reasons why I'm not great". Very common is the "But I've raised a family, had a job etc" reasoning. Another, and this one seems very weird to me, "I don't want to get as good as Joe Blow because all of his intense practice and focus has made him an Alpha Hotel personality (or a drug addict or suicidal or whatever).

Somewhere, in the early lives of Cooper, Pavoratti, Swartzenegger etc, they said "I WANT to be great". Nobody, absolutely nobody, no matter what their genes, body build, equipment, ever got great without coming to that realization.


Sgt Lumpy
 
SgtLumpy said:
The overwhelming majority of competitors come into the sport already believing "Well, I could never be as good as Joe Blow, the famous expert".
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Revolver shooters, IME, have a particularly strong affinity for a negative narrative.

Whether it's due to capacity, the DA trigger, or from watching Miculek vids, I see & hear a lot (too much) of it from revolver shooters. I call it the Great Revolver Narrative ("everything is soooo hard because I shoot a revolver :("). Not only does the GRN give the narrator permission to underperform, in competition, it simply gives the match to someone else. Unfortunately, the GRN is contagious, too.
 
I like tunned triggers, but there is a skill set which must be mastered before a shooter can throw DA rounds accurately.

On must learn how to pull and align the sights in unison. Last the break point must be committed to subconcious before you really have this dialed in. Once you do, your finger can go on autopilot when shooting DA fast. Remember to practice careful slow precise movements, but then start working that into a rithym so you aren't thinking too much.
 
Good thread. This is something I have been needing to work on.

I got the snap caps out and will be working on this at the range.
 
MrBorland addresses the mindset and attitude aspect perfectly. IMHO, it's the most important aspect of success in anything, not just shooting. However, shooting is also very physical and we are not all poured into the same mold. Nor do we all have the same mental capacity. That's not meant to be an insult but the Albert Einsteins of the world are not born every day. Nor are the Beethovens, Stevie Ray Vaughans, Liberaces, Leonardo DaVincis or Michael Jordans. Michelangelo carved the Statue of David when he was 26yrs old. I've stood at its feet in wonder and you're not going to convince me that anybody else, having lived the same 26yrs prior, would be capable of doing the same thing.
 
Sgt Lumpy said:
There aren't any expert pistoleros who simply picked up the gun and fired a few dozen rounds and was suddenly recognized as expert.
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Thing is, that's a straw man argument.

dahermit and I are not saying that practice doesn't matter; I get the feeling dahermit puts as many thousand rounds down range as I do in a given year, and that is several.

Practice matters; work ethic matters.

Still, there are going to be people out there who have BOTH natural gifts and a strong work ethic, and those people will be the prodigies.

That doesn't mean the rest of us will be horrible.

It does mean there are only going to be so many Jerry Miculeks, Jerry Rices, Tigers, Beckhams, etc.
 
Lots of people work hard at their craft all their lives and never become any better than "good".
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I'll wager that 100x that number never discover their gifts because they never got off the couch .......

Hydrogen, Human Stupidity, and Wasted Potential ........
 
MLeake said:
It does mean there are only going to be so many Jerry Miculeks, Jerry Rices, Tigers, Beckhams, etc.
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And my point is/was..."yeah, ok, but so what?" It's terrific that there are some really skilled people out there, but how anyone else performs (be it the result of talent or practice) is out of my control, and has no bearing on my potential, which is where I put my time and energy. Anything else is a distraction at best, a slippery (and self-limiting) slope at worst.

One may not have the potential to be a household name - that's life - but it'd be a shame not to realize the potential they do have.
 
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