Reloading a Revolver

Today’s lesson is going to be on how to reload a revolver. I’ve been doing this for quite a long time and some of the techniques I use can help you get a faster reload. What we are going to do today is cover two distinct styles of reloading a revolver and, with that in mind, we’re going to load up and get right to it.   We’re going to show you the technique that I use when I shoot in competition. It’s called a swap over and the reason for that is, I’m doing a lot of work with my non-shooting hand. The first thing you’ll want to do with your firing hand is reach over and hit the thumb latch. Then you open it up and, placing it in your weak hand, go ahead and drop the spent cartridges out, come back around with your fresh ammo, drop it into the cylinder, go ahead and mount your gun again with your firing hand, make your extension, then break the shot.   Now we’re going to talk about the one-hand reload technique and the way this varies from the two-handed is of course the revolver stays in the firing hand. A lot of guys have their guns set up with extended thumb releases. Some of them have finger groove stocks and checkering, so it doesn’t make it compatible to the swap over. What I’m going to do is hit the thumb release and the cylinder with my firing hand, open the cylinder with my non-firing hand or your weak hand, eject the spent cartridges holding the muzzle up slightly, lower the muzzle, come back with the live ammo with your non-shooting hand, load the cylinder, close it, mount back with your weak hand, and get back on target. Okay, guys, those two techniques we just did involved using a revolver that has a moon clip. And you say “what is a moon clip?” Well, a moon clip is a piece of spring steel and what’s really nice about a moon clip is when you load it into a revolver, all of the ammunition stays affixed to the clip. So you get a good clean reload and also a good extraction. All the rounds go in and all the rounds come out, so all of the ammunition is in a tidy package . I’d like to show you some other equipment that will help reload a revolver fast. Here I have some speed loaders and these are two very distinct styles here. We have a turn knob and we have a push button. With a turn knob speed loader, what you are looking to do is insert the cartridges into the cylinder, turn the knob, and the cartridges fall into the cylinder. Pretty easy. And here is a push button; it’s even a little better. You insert the cartridges into the cylinder, they click, and they go in. Now lets shoot the push button speed loader. So with all of these different reloading techniques, the key thing is to find one that works best for you and practice, practice, practice. See you on the range. CLICK HERE FOR PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION