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BALLISTIC BASICS
Training aids like
Crimson Trace
Lasergrips can make
learning to shoot
little guns easier.
[ BY TAMARA KEEL ]
The Mechanics
of Accuracy
“You carry one of those little guns? You can’t hit nothin’
with one o’ them. They ain’t accurate!”
I
have heard this countless times,
about all kinds of handguns. I’ve
probably heard it most often about
snubnose small-frame revolvers. It’s
a factoid that would come as a surprise
to my boss at the first gun shop
I worked at, seeing as how he’d regularly
win bets proving he could hit pie
plates at 25 yards and more with his
S&W “Bodyguard,” shooting doubleaction,
no less.
There’s no real reason that a little
revolver is any less mechanically accurate
than a long-barreled one; basically,
clamped in a vise, it should shoot
pretty much as well as a bigger gun.
There are several things that impact
its practical accuracy, however, which
is to say how well it shoots for nonexperts
like you and me.
Barrel length doesn’t really impact
mechanical accuracy; as long as you
have enough rifling to get the bullet
spinning, the rest is gravy. But barrel
length impacts something called
“sight radius.” The longer the barrel,
the farther away from the rear sight
you can put the front sight, and the
greater this distance, the easier a time
you have lining up your sights on the
target.
Smaller guns are also, well ... smaller.
This has a couple of important effects:
In the first place, the grip of the gun
is all shrunk down to a size that only
allows you to get one or two fingers
around it. This is important because
smaller guns are also usually lighter,
so you are holding onto this bitty,
lightweight little blaster with one or
two fingers and now you have to pull
the trigger, which involves applying as
much as ten pounds of force to an object
that weighs less than a pound, and
which you don’t have too firm of a grip
on to begin with, and ... well, some
idea of the difficulty of this task can be
appreciated by looking at the target of
a newbie snubby shooter, which usually
has holes scattered all over it.
Did I mention that you’re trying to
hold this thing steady while pulling the
trigger, all the while knowing it’s going
to smack your hand like a baseball bat
when it goes off? Because that’s the
inescapable penalty Isaac Newton assigns
to putting powerful cartridges in
lightweight little guns.
I have good news and bad news.
The good news is that these difficulties
can be overcome, and you can
shoot these little guns accurately, as
my ex-boss proved to any doubters
willing to risk five bucks. The bad news
is that it takes time and practice.
Thankfully, there are tools available
to help with this practice: Lasergrips
and snap caps make dry-fire practice
easy, for instance, and an investment
in good instruction can help you iron
out the bugs in your technique.
With a bit of time and effort, when
somebody says, “I bet you can’t hit
nothin’ with that little gun,” you can
just smile at them and ask, “Got five
dollars?” H
Tamara Keel has been shooting guns as
a hobby since she was eighteen. She has
worked in the firearms business since
the early 1990s. Her pastimes include
collecting old guns, writing, and being
bossed around by house cats.
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USCONCEALEDCARRY.COM n CONCEALED CARRY MAGAZINE n MAY/JUNE 2011