Prohibition era rescue.

[Lester Polfus]

What is kind of cool for me, and the attraction (like a magnet) to this gun was this is the type of revolver that would have rode in the duty holster of 1920's cops in places like St. Louis and Chicago. I like things like this from the standpoint of a student of cop gunfighting. The first thing I noticed was that you cannot get any kind of sight picture (even with crappy sights) until the hammer is cocked. You can see where training was geared around equipment, and vice versa. Apparantly, point shooting in DA, and then cocking into SA for longer range and most likely range use only. What it also shows is how long "that is how we have always done it" in law enforcement lasts. When I was in the police academy in 1988, we were not allowed to use sights till we were past the seven yard range, so essentially only at 10, 15 and 25 (and occasionally at 50). You essentially went from the old FBI type point shooting at 3, 5 and 7 yards, and then transitioned to PPC and Bullseye work after that. You see the history of how various issues drive training. It is one thing for me to be reading all the old books from the old days, to actually getting the equipment in your hands to really get an actual feel.

I cut my teeth on handguns in the early 90s. You know that head tilt thing that German Shepherds do?
When somebody would mention "point shooting," I would do that.

Then one day I got to shoot a 1917 revolver and am original 1911 (not 1911a1) and realized if I had to get work done in a close range, fast moving fight, with one of those guns I would want to get real good at point shooting too. The sights on those guns were nonexistant compared to the Novaks on my 5906.