Close Encounters of the Snubby Kind
Glenn E. Meyer, PhD
The first gun I purchased was an Smith and Wesson 442 – a J frame Centennial with a shrouded hammer. I bought the 442 as it was a nice sized package and easy to conceal. Guess what, it was harder to shoot than a 9 mm semi-automatic pistol.
That’s probably what many snubby users have found. Great to carry, easy to conceal, appealing to women shooters and a tough gun to use. It’s seemly difficult to aim given the typical minimal sights and substantial recoil with common defensive 38 SPL rounds and a bear if you have one in 357 Magnum.
Thus, when I had the chance I took a snubby class in Texas. KRTraining brought Claude Werner to teach a two day class. Training never hurts and when you carry an instrument of lethal force, it is a responsibility to learn how to use it.
Claude Werner is one of a small group that teaches specific snubby revolver use. That’s surprising, when so many people carry them. While some folks are of the view that practicing with a full sized revolver will transfer skills successfully to a snubby, research in other domains suggests skill learning can be very platform specific. Claude is master level IDPA shooter and for 5 years was chief instructor at the Rogers Shooting School. He was also an analyst for the U.S. Army and brings formidable research skills to bear on the issues of defensive firearms usage.
The class was divided into two days. The first was on basic use of the snubby platform. The second was more advanced skills, applying them in FOF scenarios and Claude’s take on some of the most popular bit of ‘gun lore’ don’t stand up to skilled statistical or logical analysis.
First, equipment as gun folk love to discuss that. Everyone in class shot a 5 shot 38 SPL of some kind. Claude told us to bring a significant amount of practice ammo and a smaller amount of carry ammo. The predominant manufacturer was Smith and Wesson in a Centennial pattern – 642, 442, 640s and some of the lighter weight guns. Claude shot a Taurus also at times and Karl Rehn (the host) tried out a Charter Arms snub. All of the guns ran. For my part, I shot my pre-lock 642 with a Crimson Trace 405 Laser grip (but didn’t use that). For ammo, I shot Winchester WinClean 125 GR. 38 SPL JSP for most of the class. The carry ammo wasSpper Gold Dot 38 SPL+P 135 GR GDHP – which was designed for snubby guns. Despite shooting about 150 rounds each day, I didn’t beat up my hand. This was in part due to the 405 grip having a recoil pad and Claude teaching us a cute trick of putting some padded athletic tap around the base of our strong hand thumb.
The first day started with a lecture portion. Some of the crucial points are as follows. Snubbies have some advantages. They are easy for everyday carry – especially in your pocket. This makes concealment easy, reduces the risk of accidental disclosure and with a quality pocket holster – easy to draw. Given their small size, they are easier to retain. Dry fire is easy to accomplish. The downside is a limited ammo capacity without a more involved reload. The longer and heavier trigger pull takes some effort to master. Recoil can be significant – most folks train with lighter target loads. Claude told us that in some police revolver usages, the officers firing 357 Magnum ammo in a critical incident after training with 38 SPLs thought their guns had blown up.
The majority of malfunctions can be resolved by pulling the trigger again – unlike most semiauto platforms. However, a rare but serious mechanical malfunction might not be correctable in real time. Common mechanical problems with revolvers, according to Claude, are bad ammo (primer placement), screws come loose, esp. problematic if they are the crane screws, powder gets under the ejector star, with light guns and heavy loads – the bullets can move out of correct placement and other fun things. These can be easily prevented by using a screwdriver, a toothbrush and putting quality ammo in your gun for the real deal. Shoot a significant number of rounds from a given brand before committing to it. Learning how to manipulate the trigger is important as to not short stroke it or not letting it out enough to rotated the cylinder.
Another important equipment nuance had to do with sights, trigger/finger placement and grip. The shallow groove sight is a difficult one. If too much of the sight is out of the groove, you can throw the round high. It was recommend to paint the top of the sight to a level such that if you see the unpainted part, you have too much sight coming up. Semis are shot using the pad of the trigger finger but for the snubby, Claude teaches first knuckle on the trigger. Also, rather than the thumbs being parallel, the off hand thumb crosses over the strong hand thumb and grips. It is very important to keep fingers from the cylinder gap to keep those fingers on your hand.
After lecture, it was time to shoot! The main practice target was the DEA DOT COMMAND TRAINING TARGET (with six 31/2” round and numbered dots in a 23 by 24” rectangle -
http://www.letargets.com/estylez_item.aspx?item=DEA+DOT) (see Figure Dot). We shot initially at 3 and 5 yards, reasonable distances for a personal defensive snubby usage. See Figure Claude, Dot and me.
The initial drills were to get good hits on the small circles and the key to it was trigger control. First, we did a significant amount of dry fire to try to master the long and heavier revolver pull. After that, we moved to live rounds and and what is called a ‘ball and dummy drill”. The idea is that you shoot one or two rounds on command and then spin the cylinder. Thus, you don’t know when you will come up on an a spent round. It is a simple and clear diagnostic for a flinch and correcting your trigger control. Shooting at small targets at a realistic distance is accomplished by focusing on a small detail in the circle. That way, you hopefully will achieve some accuracy on the relevant target point of your adversary – say center of mass. It’s harder than just shooting at the center of the class B-27 target.
We also practiced reloading with Claude showing up a method with the gun being upright on ejection such that gravity would aid in ejecting rounds. Reloading was accomplished with loose rounds, not speed loaders. The reason being that unless you carry a speed loader on your belt (which seems unlikely for the pocket carry typical of snubbies), you might be reloading from loose rounds. Why – many folks carry a speed loader in their pocket and they are know to release their rounds into your change and keys. Claude showed us how a dime can jam a speed loader. We held the loose rounds in pocket formed in our left hands and tried to put two rounds at a time into the J frame’s cylinder. Two rounds fit easily into two adjacent chambers in the cylinder.
One neat trick, if one used a speed trip was to load 4 rounds. Claude recommended using 4 rounds in a staggered manner of two, space and two. Why! You can have six in a strip. This is because, if you have to reload a snubbie, you are in serious trouble and you better do it quick. The gun’s max is 5, so the sixth round is just in the way for a quick reload. If you load 4, you can hold it with the space such that you can quickly reload two chambers and then the next two and get back into the fight. Otherwise, you end up peeling off the rounds one at a time. Thus, you are fighting faster. Makes sense.
After many reps on the dot targets, we move to a human photographic target for a touch more realism. The target (
http://www.letargets.com/estylez_item.aspx?item=Q-ANT-A) had an evil doer pointed a gun at you (see Figure Bad guy). His vital anatomy was lightly outlined. The target was engaged at 5 and 7 yards, which seem to be realistic for the majority of close encounters of the snubby kind. To maintain tight groups with our newly practiced sight and trigger skills, Claude told us to focus on a small spot on the target. A button, shirt collar opening or the like. Surprise, we can shoot the gun accurately. We then finished the day by taking the Nevada Concealed Carry permit test using a B-21E-ant-a target (Figure B-21). The test consists of
3 yards 5 rounds No time limit Freestyle
5 yards 10 rounds No time limit Freestyle
7 yards 10 rounds No time limit Freestyle
One needs to score 70% and we all passed.
The next day started with some rehearsal of skills but moved on to more advanced ones. We practiced shooting with the nondominant hand – something which is not consistently done by the casual practitioner. Issues are which eye to use? It is not hard to move the gun in line with your dominant eye. Why practice that why? It’s an example of a low probability but high impact contingency. It’s unlikely that a civilian will get into a gun fight and it’s unlikely you will lose the ability to use your dominant hand. However, it can happen. Years ago, I took a hard fall and broke my wrist and ribs. If it were a fight, my dominant hand was useless. Luckily, I had signed up for a whole course on injured shooter skills that occurred after the accident and I took the course with a cast on my wrist – what clever planning. We also practiced with just one hand and not the preferred two handed grip. Why? You never know if you have to manipulate a phone, flashlight, help someone, guide a kid or carry that bag of diamonds. In reality, I’d drop the later. Besides shooting with one hand, we practiced techniques to draw with your nondominant hand and reload with one hand. There are several techniques. One entails putting the gun between your legs and then establishing your shooting grip (Fig. Knees) here done by Justin Galindo, a KRtraining instructor. Others involve using your holster or pocket to rotate the gun and establish a grip.
There was also a lecture component based on Claude’s analytic skills.
Conclusion:
A snubby easily fits into your pocket. They probably can handle most defensive gun use events. The single mugger or bizarre approaching stranger usually can be deterred or dealt with. Is it the optimal gun for the low probability, high intensity and severe consequences gun fight or rampage – no. It’s better than NO gun at all if you can’t avoid it. Some folks denigrate the smaller guns like snubbies and scorn the even tinier guns – mouse guns – in the trade. Claude told us of a relative who was being carjacked. As the miscreant came to the potential victim’s door – our good guy pointed a 22 caliber mouse gun at him and said : “Do you want it in the belly or the teeth?”. The bad guy left the scene. Claude, being analytically enabled, has collected more than 3000 civilian gun fights and concluded only 3 couldn’t have been resolved with a correctly used snubby.
You can shoot snubbies decently with Claude’s training regime. Then get out and shoot the thing a lot. Dry fire at home (be careful!). Shoot it in an IDPA match and forget about time and reload strategies – shoot it well and righteously.
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Originally Posted by Inspector71
