Guns 201 - The Revolver

Revolver post!


Revolvers rock. The first handgun i ever shot was a revolver, a .22-caliber Ruger Single Six (which i just typoed as "Single Sux," which could not be further from the truth). Revolvers are a great learner gun, generally speaking, but more on that later.

So it is probably oversimplifying, but revolvers are so-called because they have a revolving cylinder. The cylinder is where all your bullets live, and the cylinder rotates each bullet so that it lines up with the barrel. That's easy enough. HOW the cylinder works is a little more complicated.

Revolvers come in two different types of actions--single-action and double-action. Single-action is when you have to use your thumb and cock the hammer (the pointy doohickey on the back of the gun, above the grip). Cocking the hammer rotates the cylinder and lines the bullet up with the barrel. Cock hammer (huh huh), aim, squeeze trigger, *bang*, cock hammer again, repeat. It's called a single-action because the trigger is responsible for a single action only--dropping the firing pin onto the bullet.

DOUBLE-action guns don't need you and your feeble thumb to cock the hammer, although you still can if you want. The two actions performed by the trigger are the rotation of the cylinder and the firing of the bullet. I think that's why it's called double-action, anyway. I never really understood that. As far as I'm concerned, the names should be switched, because MY thumb and MY trigger finger perform 2 actions for one type, and only one action for the other type. I don't get to make the rules though, so whatever. >:(

Double-action guns have a really heavy trigger--you have to pull it pretty hard because it is mechanically working the cylinder around. You can shoot a double-action gun as a single-action, though. If you cock the hammer and rotate the cylinder yourself, the trigger gets a LOT lighter and easier to pull.

You most likely won't be able to tell single-action from double-action by looking at them, so make sure you ask before you shoot! It's nice to know so you're not sitting there hauling on an immobile trigger going "WHY. WON'T. YOU. FIRE!!?" and looking like a big dweeb when actually you forgot to cock the hammer. :) The notable exception--hammerless revolvers are always double-action. Also, they are always humpbacked and ugly. Even when they are pink:



Revolvers fire bullets almost exclusively, although they DO make tiny shot-shells in certain calibers for revolvers. The shot-shells are retardedly expensive and have a lethal range of about 3 feet, which is why people pretty much just buy them for shooting rattlesnakes, at least in my part of the world anyway. John Wayne might be able to thwack a rattlesnake with a bullet from like 30 feet, but most of us aren't that good. And no, i have never actually shot a snake, because i loooooooooooooooove snakes. But i am in the minority with that opinion, i think.

They also make blanks, which are basically black powder capped off with wax or paper. No bullet, but the black powder goes *BANG* and flings flaming powder 6-8 feet. THAT's the stuff they use to pop balloons in cowboy-action mounted shooting.


Single-action revolvers are considered very safe to carry and shoot because the gun CANNOT accidentally fire without the hammer being cocked back. This, and historical accuracy, are the reasons single-action firearms are the only ones allowed in cowboy-action mounted shooting ("cowboy" action meaning "single-action").

Most revolvers have room in the cylinder for 5 or 6 rounds. Some of the smaller calibers can hold more but 5 or 6 is pretty standard.

CMSA (Cowboy Mounted Shooting Association) rules state that your revolver has to be a single action .45 caliber, and that you can only load 5 (blank) rounds even though your gun holds 6. The thought process behind this is, if you drop a loaded revolver on a VERY hard surface and it lands on the hammer JUST RIGHT, it can theoretically hit the butt-end of the bullet hard enough to fire it. The chances are like one in a gajillion, but they don't take chances with people's safety, so the chamber underneath the hammer is ALWAYS empty unless you are in the ring running the pattern and actually firing your gun. GunS, there are usually 10 balloons on a course (i think) so it takes 2 guns. I am still a total n00b at mounted shooting, and Roxie sucks out loud at it, but it is fun and I'm going to keep on it!

Revolvers are a really good gun if you are learning how to shoot, for a variety of reasons. One of these is recoil. Most first-time shooters are a little scared of what it's going to feel like to have a thing in your hand go *BANG* and kick backwards. Revolvers are generally pretty heavy for their size, and the rule of thumb with guns (if you're ignoring caliber) is always "heavier gun = less recoil." I'll touch on that more when i talk about long guns.

There is a little bit of a trend in the gun world right now to make handguns out of lightweight material (titanium, alloys, "polymer" which i am pretty sure is just a fancy word for plastic, etc). Lighter-weight materials make a gun a LOT easier to carry, especially in your purse which is already too heavy. The problem is, FIRING A LIGHTWEIGHT GUN IS TOTALLY LAME AND UNCOMFORTABLE. Especially as you get into larger calibers or magnum rounds.

I work in the timber industry, and I know a lot of my foresters like to carry titanium revolvers because they are lightweight and that's a big concern when you have to carry it on your hip or in a vest pocket all day long. But even these big burly dudes complain that actually FIRING the gun sucks because there is a ton of recoil. It's intimidating, and it makes it tougher to get the gun back on target after each pull of the trigger. So that's something to keep in mind if you are learning to shoot or picking out a gun to purchase. Heavier = better, unless you have some experience and/or know what you're getting into.

The Ruger Single Six i was talking about earlier was an AWESOME learner gun. Single action and .22 caliber. When you pulled the trigger, the gun didn't go "bang," it went "pop." Hardly any recoil, and very accurate over short distances. Most pistol ranges have the targets set at 25-30 feet out (although some are pretty adjustable) and that is longer than most distances over which you would actually want to use a handgun. Handgun hunting is an exception, but I won't babble about that just yet.

Anyways, a single-action .22 revolver is a great way to learn to shoot and build confidence.

Revolvers also don't fling an empty shell out of the gun like semi-automatic pistols do. When i was learning to shoot semi-autos in larger calibers, i found the flying empty shells to be a HUGE pain in the butt until i learned better control of my wrist. It's one less thing to think about with a revolver, and personally i am ALL ABOUT lessening the number of things i have to think about. ;)

Loading a revolver is pretty simple. Most of them either have a little gate that swings open so you can rotate the cylinder and stick a bullet in each chamber, or they have a lever or a button you can press to make the whole cylinder swing out of the gun. The above picture is a close-up of the little gate, closed, on a gun that has the hammer cocked back. The swing-out cylinder is easier to work with, although according to Google Image Search it is apparently prone to cracking. The gate-style (i don't think that's really what it is called) is slow to unload because you have to extract each spent case with a push rod on the front of the gun, under the barrel. Some revolvers are break-action, which is cool but you really don't find that too often.

Oh, the other cool thing about revolvers--if you have the hammer cocked and then you decide you don't want to shoot, you hold the hammer with your thumb, pull the trigger, and EASE the hammer back down. Pulling the trigger releases the hammer but your thumb slows it down (hopefully) so you don't actually shoot if you don't want to. Definitely practice that at the range though, and keep the barrel pointed in a safe direction! ("Down range" refers to "towards the targets," and that's a safe direction).

Also, just like anything else, they DO make guns with us in mind:






See??

Gut Check Time

OK, i know, i promised i was going to post about revolvers. I will, i will.

There were a couple of, uh, incidents this weekend that made me really want to do a gut-check on why firearms are a good thing. Here is the first one, which happened Friday night:

Police sergeant stabbed in attack outside restaurant
One suspect in jail; another still sought
From Staff Reports

A Spokane police sergeant was stabbed in the face late Friday, and later two officers investigating the attack were injured in a hit-and-run accident.

One suspect in the stabbing is in custody on a felony assault charge and another, described as a transient, is still at large.

Spokane County Sheriff's Department major crimes detectives are investigating the attack in downtown Spokane.

Sgt. Brad Thoma was stabbed in the jaw outside the Steam Plant Grill about 10 p.m. Thoma was taken to a nearby hospital, where he received stitches and was released.

In a news release this morning, detectives reported how both the assault and hit-and-run unfolded:

Thoma, Spokane police Officer Amy Ross and a civilian female friend were leaving the Steam Plant Grill. They had split up and were getting their individual vehicles from the parking area.

As Ross was pulling up to Lincoln to exit, she was confronted by two men walking southbound on the sidewalk. The men began making rude and sexually inappropriate comments to her, detectives said.

Thoma told investigators that he walked over and told the men to knock it off and to show some respect. The two suspects began advancing on him, and Thoma identified himself and Ross as police officers. He told Ross to get her pistol from her car, and he displayed his identification to the men.

The two men continued to advance on Thoma, and when they were about four feet away, Thomas saw that one of the men, identified as 19-year-old Kenneth James Kheel, was holding a knife in his right hand.

Kheel lunged at Thoma and stabbed the sergeant in the jaw, detectives said.

Thoma was able to grab the suspect's arm, but Kheel tossed the knife to his companion, identified as 23-year-old Gyles "Shannon" Dogskin, who fled the scene with the weapon, detectives said.

Thoma, Ross and a civilian passer-by fought and detained Kheel until patrol officers arrived to arrest him. Kheel was booked into the Spokane County Jail on a first-degree assault charge.

Meanwhile, patrol officers located a man they thought might be the other suspect. Spokane police Officer Cory Lyons drove Ross to the man's location to attempt an identification, but the man detained was not Dogskin.

As Lyons and Ross were driving back to the scene of the assault, their patrol car was broadsided by a hit-and-run driver. Both officers were injured and taken to the hospital. Ross received stitches in one of her legs, and Lyons was treated for an injured wrist.

The Police Department is investigating the collision. Patrol units also are searching for Dogskin, the Sheriff's Department said, "because they best know the downtown haunts where he likely is hiding."

Police say there is probable cause for Dogskin's arrest for rendering criminal assistance. Anyone who knows his location is encouraged to call Crime Check at (509) 456-2233.

So . . . This is cause for a gut-check because Sgt. Thoma and Officer Ross were HANGING OUT WITH ME AT THE RESTAURANT that night. A mutual friend of ours was throwing a "baby shower" to congratulate her husband on his first horse (she's a big black Percheron mare)(awww). So yeah. Matt and i left around 9 and this happens an hour later. How easily could this story have been about us? Only i guarantee the words "hail of gunfire" would have been included if this story was about us.

Downtown Spokane is crawling with transients. Matt and i must have walked past 5 or 6 in the half-block from my car to the restaurant doors. Granted, most of them are relatively harmless, depending on how much it annoys you to be panhandled. But apparently some of them aren't. And i will say that i was thankful that both Matt and myself were carrying handguns. I would rather have one and not need it than need one and not have it. As Funder says, "I'm more important than someone who wants to kill me." I don't mean to sound ultra-paranoid, but there are scary people in the world, and it is best to be prepared.

Second (dumber) thing happened to me last night.

I live in a fairly nice neighborhood but it is an interesting place. It is older and some of the rental homes have been or continue to be drug houses. So you will be driving down the block, looking at the homes, thinking: "nice house, nice house, nice house, crack house, nice house, REALLY nice house, crack house . . ." you get the idea. Oh, i should also mention that i don't really differentiate between types of drugs. Methamphetamine (sp?) is a HUGE problem out here in the rural West, and is generally considered by law enforcement to be the cause/reason for 95% of theft crimes in the region. But anyhoo, if a person is whacked out on drugs, i call them a crackhead. May not be actual crack, but the results are the same. It's still a toothless drug addict and still a crackhead to me. So when i say "crack house," i probably mean "meth house." But whatever.

ANYWAYS, when i moved in to my house (which i rent from my grandmother and which has had a string of . . . tenants of questionable character over the years), I was fairly insistent on having an alarm system installed. Not because i own anything worth stealing, but for my own peace of mind. Being broken into is something i AM paranoid about, majorly. I need to feel comfortable in my own home.

So i am sound asleep at 2:30 a.m. last night and my INCREDIBLY LOUD alarm siren goes off. I am not sure WHY, as a brief and panicked investigation revealed nothing out of the ordinary.

Here is the ideal course of action, for me anyway, when my alarm is triggered in the middle of the night:

1) Grab loaded firearm and cell phone, both kept close at hand for this sort of situation

2) Lock bedroom door

3) call 911

Here is what i ACTUALLY did. If this was a test/dry run, it would have made Failblog.

1) Alarm goes off. Scream.

2) Attempt to leap out of bed, foiled by tangled sheets

3) Stumble over to bedroom keypad, TURN OFF ALARM cuz OMG I can't wake the neighbors!

4) dig around in purse for handgun

5) find handgun

6) unholster handgun

7) THEN think to check alarm pad for notification of WHAT sensor was tripped. Stupid Serena, check that BEFORE you turn off the alarm!!

8) Motion sensor in the living room. Great. Living room attaches to my bedroom. Might have been good to know before i shut off the siren.

9) Check all entry points in the house. Everything checks out, so, false alarm.

10) lay in bed, heart racing. Don't think about going back to sleep as it is physically impossible now. Assess reaction to potential threat, give self a failing grade.

False alarms happen, and used to happen all the time when i had a cat that leapt up on stuff he wasn't supposed to. My motion sensor is infra-red and programmed to ignore small bodies such as dogs and cats, but any heat at a certain height (head high) will trip it. So i don't know if my current cat jumped up on something or what. Still. Trial run, and i sucked. What if an actual crackhead had been in my living room?

Definite food for thought.

I live alone. If my alarm goes off in the middle of the night, i have no one to rely on but me. So what if i had to check all my points of entry without a firearm? What am i going to carry to subdue a crackhead, a baseball bat? A big flashlight? My hunting knife? Nope, nope and nope. This is a fight i want to WIN.

Sorry to delay the revolver post, i have just been thinking about this all since . . . 2:30 this morning.

Guns 101: Handguns - The Derringer

So as a primer, we're going to go through all the different types of gun.

. . .

OK, no we're not. I'm not going to get historical because i don't feel like doing research. But i will be discussing the "Big Three" types of guns--handguns, rifles and shotguns--and talking about their uses and attributes. All together that is a huge topic so for today I am going to stick to one type of handgun.

A handgun is a short-barreled gun that you hold in your hand, obviously. Although ideally with most handguns you hold it with TWO hands. :) Handguns are available in a fairly limited range of action types ("action" meaning, "if/how the next bullet is fed after you pull the trigger and shoot once"). The only three of those that i care enough about to discuss, and probably the only three you will ever encounter, are: break action (derringers), revolvers and semiautomatics.

And I am going to start with derringers. Because they are KYOOT!



awwwwwwww!

Like i plan on doing with lots of my pictures on this blog, I pirated this picture from the interwebs. If it belongs to you, and you want me to take it down, just tell me! kthanx.

"Derringer" is actually a generic term for any 1 or 2 shot, break-action handgun. "Break action" referring to the fact that you load the rounds into the barrels by "breaking" the gun in half. You big meany, you.

These are kind of a classic purse/vest gun because they are tiny, easy to conceal, and deadly enough at 15 feet. And 15 feet is about the average distance from your assailant if you do ever get into a gunfight, btw. :)

They are usually chambered in bullet calibers (.22, .38, .45 etc) but they are commonly found in .410, which is a shotgun round (a shell full of tiny bullets). Here is an awesome picture of a derringer, open, with shotgun shells in it:



For the sake of scale, .410 shotgun shells (like the ones in the picture) are a little bit shorter and thicker than a cigarette.

You get the idea though. Open the gun (flip that little lever near the trigger) and put bullets/shells in it. Close. Aim. Pull trigger. As a point of discussion, i should mention that most derringers are single-action, meaning you have to cock the hammer before you can pull the trigger. This is cool because it functions as a safety (you can't pull the trigger unless you MEAN to pull the trigger because there is a step you have to take prior to pulling the trigger) but it can also be kind of lame if you have, like, .005 seconds to shoot a mugger or a rapist.

Derringers aren't really considered a beginner's gun because they are tough to learn how to shoot since the grip is eeny beeny teeny tiny.



They are also limited on range and accuracy due to their size. But they DO fit nicely in a purse, and some of them are plainly designed with women in mind:



Good choice if you are scared of muggers or carjackers. Not such a good choice if you are scared of bears or . . . bears.

Next up--revolvers!

Handgun cleaning 101

As promised!

Funder posted an excellent entry on her blog a while back on how to clean her handgun, a Smith & Wesson M&P .40 caliber. Tear-down on most every handgun is pretty similar to this, and she got some great pictures, so i am re-posting it here.

It is definitely jumping into this blog's subject matter with both feet, though! Next post won't be so technical, i promise.

Here goes:

So. I have a Smith & Wesson M&P .40. I wanted a .40, and I wanted something lefty-friendly, and that pistol fit my requirements at the gun store I went to. It's got a switch inside it somewhere to swap which side you eject the magazine from. It's a pretty good gun - it's full size, which should make it marginally more accurate and definitely makes it easier to hold with gloves on. It's a bit persnickety; when it's dirty it tends to misfire. This is really annoying but makes me keep it clean! Here's how I clean it.

Make sure it's empty and assemble your stuff. Here's my gun (unloaded), some vile-smelling gun solvent, gun oil, and a screwdriver. Not shown are nitrile gloves and a chunk of an old flannel pillowcase.


WAIT! Stop what you're doing and go open the door. Or do it outside. I'm not kidding about how horrible the solvent smells.

Rack the slide back and pull the Pointy Thing out of the grip.


Look down the top of the gun. See the yellowish thing?


Use the Pointy Thing to flip that down/forward. Also my hands are pretty dry.


Look on the left side of the gun. See the little thing above the trigger that looks like a wing?


Flip it down toward the trigger, and you can move the slide completely forward off of the gun.


This is the underside of the slide. The spring is sitting on top of the actual barrel. To the right of the spring you'll see some golden colored metal - that needs to be cleaned.


Here's the body of the gun after you take the slide off. All the flat surfaces on top of the gun need to be cleaned and lightly oiled.


So, when you buy your gun you're going to buy a cleaning kit with it. Unlike me, you won't immediately lose the cleaning kit. You'll have plastic rods and brushes and pretty white cotton swabs. I, however, can't find half the rods or any of the white cotton swabs. Therefore I am using a screwdriver and part of a flannel blanket. Put your nitrile gloves on. They tell me that gun solvent will eat latex or vinyl gloves. Dip the swab in the (horribly nasty smelling) solvent, so the swab's completely saturated.


Use your cleaning rod to shove the swab completely through the barrel. It'll come out dirty. Repeat, with clean solvent swabs, until it's not dirty anymore (took me three passes).


Take a look down the barrel. It should be pretty clean. The swirls are rifling; they make the bullet spin as it comes out of the barrel and greatly increases accuracy.


Get another swab with some solvent on it and scrub off all the parts that look like they slide together. With some good light you'll see black crud in various spots, just scrub it off with light pressure. Wipe all the bits of dirt off your poor gun, too, you silly redneck.

Now that it's dry, you want to oil it. Less oil is waaaay better than too much oil! The oil lubricates the moving parts a tiny bit, and it keeps the shiny metal from rusting, but it also attracts black crud (GSR) and makes your !$#@$ gun jam.

You can click on this picture and go to "all sizes" on the flickr page - this is oiled enough. I put a drop of oil on either side of the slide, then smear it out with another (clean) swab.


Now look down the handle, where the magazine locks in. Pull the trigger and note where the trigger gears move. Put one drop of oil on the trigger gears and pull it a few more times to distribute the oil. Oil the flat metal pieces on top of the back of the gun while you're there.

Put two drops of oil on the barrel and smear them all around with a swab. It won't look like much, but it's enough. This is half-oiled. The inside of the barrel doesn't need oil.


Here's everybody's favorite car repair manual phrase: "Reassembly is reverse of disassembly." You'll probably want to check the manual! Drop the barrel in the slide, put the spring in (it only goes in correctly one way), get the slide back on the gun locked back, find the Pointy Thing and put the green lever back where it was, and you should be able to rack the slide and NOT have the slide fall off. Put the Pointy Thing back in the grip. Dry fire it (pull the trigger) just to make sure, then you're ready to reload and store it.

Funder raises a couple of good points, possibly to be addressed in future posts. 1) left-handed shooting vs. right-hand shooting, and 2) proper gun storage. I could tackle one or both of those now, but i am off to the barn to see if Roxie's arena is fixed yet.

First!

Hey all!

Welcome to Guns 'n' Glitter. I couldn't think of a snappier title, so we're stuck with that one.

I know just anecdotally that there are a lot of women out there who are interested in getting involved in shooting, be it for self-defense, hunting, target shooting or just to pick up another life skill. I am very much in favor of this, as you may imagine, because more women shooters means "more cool chicks i can hang out with at the gun club."

Hopefully this blog can serve as a non-intimidating place for us gals to discuss some of the things that can seem overwhelming or embarassing to ask if you are going into shooting as a newbie. Thus, this is my attempt at doing a women-specific shooting sports/hunting blog. I hope i can be of some assistance to some of you out there!

Street cred: I have been shooting Red Ryder bb guns and .22 rifles since . . . probably around age 10. Isn't that when most parents decide a kid is old enough for a bb gun? Started in with handguns at 18 and shotguns at 21. Most of the time that I spend shooting is spent with my shotguns, since clay pigeons are FUN FUN FUN to shoot at. I started hunting at 25 (late bloomer, i guess) but i have been making up for lost time in that particular area.

I am not affiliated with the NRA or any particular political party--I just firmly believe that everyone should know how to use a gun because you never know when the need may arise.

Let me know in the comments if you have anything specific you would like me to address. You can also e-mail me (it's in my profile). Otherwise I am going to poach the "How to Clean a Handgun" post from Funder's blog as the first "real" post, since that is where the whole idea for this blog came from.

Also, since most of my readers (all 2 of you maybe??) are crossing over to here from the horseback world, I do plan on doing a post on how to humanely dispatch your horse with a firearm in case of extreme emergency. But don't worry; I will give lots of warning on that one so that the non-horsey or squeamish can just skip right over it.

I also plan to wax poetical about all the cool pink shooting accessories that are out there.

And, we're off!!