I’m working my way through the postings at SnubTraining.com. I just came upon a set of postings regarding reloading your snub. This particular drill about “paired round loading” caught my eye. The background is that while at the range we might always reload our guns to full capacity, in a pressure situation we may not be able to. We may be able to unload the gun then only partially reload, either by choice or by time constraint, and then have to get back into the fight. So this drill is discussing that you may only be able to do a partial reload. Assuming your snub holds 5 rounds, maybe you can only get 2 rounds reloaded (thus “paired round”).
What Michael points out is how/where you do the reload. Chances are, we’re going to reload those rounds side-by-side. He presents some statistics worth considering:
If you were loading to protect your family wouldn’t you have better served them if you had loaded those roundsanywhere other than side by side? When loading side by side you run a statistical risk of closing the cylinder and having to cycle through three or four empty charge holes (depending on if you loaded a five or six round cylinder) before you hit upon your first live round. If you had split the loading then your chances for a live round earlier would have gone up to 25% with a five shot revolver and 20% with a six shot revolver.
Quite a good point. Yes with only a partial reload you have to keep pulling the trigger over empty chambers before you get to a loaded chamber, but now with the rounds spread out you’ve got a statistically better chance of getting at least one shot off sooner rather than later.
Furthermore, by practicing this way you give yourself an inexpensive “ball and dummy” drill. It can help you work to eliminate flinching. Load a couple rounds, spin the cylinder so you don’t know where they are, close the cylinder, then go. Work to eliminate any flinch or anticipation.
I’m not saying this is the best way to do things, or the worst. I do think it’s worthwhile food for thought.
Stuff From Hsoi 
On tactical reloading for Snubs. I think you load the rounds and practice turning your cylinder to index them in the appropriate spot. What you want to practice though, is the use of your reloading device. I personally, do NOT carry loose rounds in my pocket, when I run to the store, nor do I use a 2x2x2 pouch/cartridge slide. I instead use HKS speed loaders and Bianchi Speed Strips. With the strips, stripping two rounds off is no trouble, but you get them side by side.
I think the trade off is fair, instead you get a sure two rounds (you don’t run the risk of dropping the rounds, like you do hand held rounds). Also, I’m not sure that it takes any longer to load two rounds and snap through three empty chambers, then it takes to load a round, find a separate chamber and load another round. Also, I’d personally rather go, “click, click, click, BOOM, BOOM” then “Click, Boom, Click, Click, Boom.” Why play the guessing game? I agree it’s a nice drill to make sure you aren’t flinching at the range, but other than that, I wonder about the viability of it, should you need to reload.
-Rob
Well as I said, I’m not really evaluating the proposed approach as good or bad, just putting it out there as food for thought. I see the statistical argument being made, but I wonder if the “on paper” math makes any difference or not one way or the other (either this or any partial reload technique) in a real fight. I just don’t know.
I will agree with you tho, that you should practice reloads, and use your hardware to practice. So if you have speed loaders or strips or even just loose rounds that you practice with all of it. In fact, even if you don’t carry loose rounds, it’s probably good to work on reloading loose rounds since if nothing else that can wind up being a least common denominator situation that you may wind up in like it or not.
Another factor is the stress of a fight. Fine motor skills are out the window… will you be able to accurately reload and get the cylinder indexed as you desire? Of course, practice will help abate this to some extent. But I also think that there’s agreement here on whatever approach is done (and you can see more of this if you read through all the SnubTraining.com articles) that you just keep firing… don’t hear “click” and think things are done… keep going.. you’ll get to a loaded chamber eventually. Don’t give up the fight.
In the end, I just found Michael’s suggestion an intersting one. One worth considering, even if the end conclusion is to not adopt it… it’s good to think about such things.
I certainly agree that it is worth consideration Hsoi. I don’t agree with the idea that if you train to load a pair of rounds side-by-side you are training to fail, however. I think if you get ammo in the gun, then at least you won’t die from lack of shooting back. I also believe it will be easier to load two rounds side by side than index them in another spot.
On the subject of fine vs. gross motor skills. Working a trigger and handgun sights are both “fine” motor skills, over gross. I think that with plenty of training, reloading might be a “fine motor skill”, but it is a conditioned one. I’ll bring an analogy to bear, many people are taught to counter steer into a skid, that is a fine motor skill (operating a motor vehicle is). When the car begins to slide, many people counter steer, is that instinctual? No, actually it isn’t, it’s a taught and conditioned behavior that does require a skill set to be activated. The people who are most conditioned to handle a skid, will counter steer and apply the proper amount of acceleration/deceleration necessary to correct the skid. Those with less conditioning will do less, in both cases it comes down to experience and training.
If we train to reload, then we will reload. These days if I’m shooting at the range and my revolver runs dry, I reach in my pocket for a speed loader and load it.
I took a look at SnubTraining.com and I’ve found it quite interesting, lots of good info and ideas to try. I think however, I will stick with my loading of two rounds, simply because that’s how I was trained and that’s what I am conditioned to do.
-Rob
I’d agree that you’re not training to fail; perhaps just training for a differing set of statistics. 😉 Either way I think the important thing is that you are continuing to fight, you’re not giving up. I think THAT is really the ultimate key.
On fine vs. gross, what you say is true. I recall back to a martial arts seminar from a few months ago:
https://hsoiblog.wordpress.com/2009/05/03/memorization-precision-smoothness/
and one topic of discussion is that we must train the things that will not come naturally to us in a pressure situation. Speed, strength, they will come with adrenaline. But other matters such as being precise will not… thus, it’s important to train those aspects so when the fur does fly, our bodies will move as they have been trained.