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