Sustaining revolver fire part I: the tactical downside to the revolver is firepower. Speedloading can help

Guns Magazine, Oct, 2008 by Massad Ayoob

Revolvers still make a lot of sense for self-defense. High reliability, low dependence on ammo type or maintenance and more. Wheel guns don't go out of battery when jammed against an attacker's body at contact distance, they just go bang and tear hellacious wounds with bullet and muzzle blast combined. Once you learn double action trigger control, the revolver's worst shortcomings are low on-board round count and slow reloading.

Speedloading practice can't fix that entirely, but it can go a long way toward ameliorating it. The techniques for doing so have been proven over the many decades when revolvers ruled in police work and armed citizen preference and, if rescued from becoming a lost art, they'll serve you well.

Emptying The Cylinder

To get fresh ammo into the wheel, the first thing you have to do is make room for them. To clear the spent brass, you have to pop the cylinder and then branch into one of four ejection techniques.

The FBI Eject is the oldest technique. Fingers of the left hand hold the cylinder out of the frame window as the left thumb pushes the ejector rod. This is still fastest in terms of pure time and motion, since the right hand is free to simultaneously reach for live rounds. Downside: the thumb doesn't have enough leverage if casings are fireformed tight in the chambers, the index fingers can get burned on the hot forcing cone of the barrel if you've been firing Magnums, and the gun ends up at a slightly sideways angle in the hand not conducive to the gravity feed needed with most speedloaders.

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The FLETC Eject was developed by the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center to overcome ejection weakness of the old FBI technique. Left hand holds open gun, and right palm slaps down hard on ejector rod ... much more positive. Downside: knuckles can block ejector stroke, especially in snubs with short rods, preventing full ejection, and gun still ends up at a less than perfect angle for gravity feed with quickloaders.

The StressFire Eject solves these problems. The gun stays in the right hand and the left palm slides down the guiding barrel for a clean ejector rod slap. Then the left hand grabs the gun as the right goes for fresh ammo. Downside: right thumb must be kept up so it doesn't block ejection.

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The DeBethancourt Eject, developed by Michael DeBethancourt, keeps the gun in the right hand with the left hand ejecting as above, but also performing the reload. Downside: least-dexterous hand is performing a dexterity function during the refill.

Reloading Loose Cartridges

When concealment is a priority (and if it wasn't, why would so many folks be carrying snub revolvers?), you want to keep the cartridges in a flat array that doesn't protrude under clothing. That means a cartridge pouch, a strip of loops on the belt, or a Speed Strip. When you're loading one or two cartridges as at a time, the rounds are generally referred to as "loose" ammunition. You'll want one of those containers, though; just the cartridges by themselves in the pocket won't work well. They tend to bunch up in a lumpy bulge and end up pointing every which way--the slowest way to reload.

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Cartridge loops should be at the very top of their belt slide to give your fingers room to grab the rounds one or two at a time. In the pouch designs, the 2x2x2 style (pioneered by Gene DeSantis to the best of my knowledge) and used by the FBI 'til they went to autos, is the fastest. When the flap is popped, the pouch tilts out to almost 45 degrees, allowing cartridges to be easily plucked out and inserted two at a time. If you use a dump pouch or spill pouch where all six rounds fall into the hand at once, try dropping them in the palm of the hand holding the open revolver, which acts as a loading tray, instead of trying to manipulate all six at once in your dominant hand. The latter requires the dexterity of a card sharp, which is likely to be lacking under stress.

Bianchi Speed Strips are great if you use them correctly. I load mine with only five, leaving the bottom hole empty so my middle finger can wrap around the strip for a solid hold. My index finger rides along the top of the strip as if atop a scalpel blade, which makes insertion much faster and more positive. It's no trick to load two rounds at a time, peeling the strip off when they're in the chambers. Speed Strips carry well in spill pouches, watch pockets of jeans, and those little business card pockets inside the side pockets of many suit coats and blazers.

The cartridges will go in a little easier if you insert them on a slight angle. When you have as many fresh rounds in the gun as time allows, slap the cylinder closed and get to work. I got away from the old conventional wisdom of trying to close the partially-loaded cylinder so the next trigger pull would bring up the first live round. Work on a timer proved we'll get lead downrange sooner if we just close the cylinder and start pulling the trigger.

With practice, well-designed belt loops, 2x2x2 pouches, and Bianchi Strips are roughly equal in speed. Dump pouches are slower, and loose rounds in the pockets are slower yet, especially if you're crouching or kneeling in tight pants.