Grant Cunningham - Gun Digest Book of the Revolver

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DEDICATION

I n memory of my Father, who could do just about anything he set his mind to.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants. ~ Sir Isaac Newton

E arly in the process of writing this book I realized that Im not half the genius I thought I was. Everyone Ive come into contact with over my lifetime shaped who I am and how I look at the world, and were I to be honest with myself Id simply say thanks, everybody! and get on with it. There are some, however, who have been particularly important.

I note that most authors thank their spouses last. I cant do that, because my wife Chris has been the most important person in my life for over twenty-five years. She puts up with my sometimes moody attitudes, never thinks my crazy ideas are as crazy as they probably are, and never fails to serve as my rock when everything around me is crashing into the sea. I love her more than life itself, and without her there would be no me. I hope our next quarter century together is as good as the last.

To Massad Ayoob goes thanks for my initial entree into the business. It was Mas who first noted my small talent and exposed it to the world. Were it not for him Id probably still be working in corporate management. Mas has always been a professional, even when our opinions were not in complete synchronization. That alone is reason enough to thank him.

Gila Hayes, author and teacher par excellence, co-founder of Firearms Academy of Seattle, showed me the need to consider the student first: whats best for them, what they truly need. Gila is also responsible for introducing me to the editor of her book, who in turn championed this project at the publisher. I suppose you could say that this whole thing is her fault!

Rob Pincus impressed upon me that it is the message which is important, that I have an obligation to tell the truth, that I should question with integrity, and most importantly that what I have to say is valuable. My ability to articulate how shooting should be done took a dramatic leap forward because of our association. Sapere Aude, indeed.

C.E. Ed Harris, engineer and formerly of Sturm, Ruger Company, is the guy I go to for extensive technical information. Ed carries in his head the most amazing amount of data, detail and trivia, and thankfully he lets me siphon some of it off now and again.

My editor, Corrina Peterson, deserves great thanks for wading through my prose and making the necessary changes to get it through the publication gauntlet. She also weathered my email requests for advice, from which Ive determined that editor is not one of the jobs I would have any patience to perform. Im glad someone can do it, as long as I dont have to.

Special thanks to the folks at LaserLyte, Crimson Trace and Tucker Gunleather for supplying some of the products featured in this book.

FInally, my best friend Georges Rahbani is one of the most patient and professional firearms instructors that Ive known. It was he who got me to teach, who convinced me to write my first article, and who first suggested that I needed to write a book long before I even had a topic about which to write. We make fun of each other, pull jokes on each other, question each others parentage, but at the end of the day theres a lot of respect and admiration. (Same to you, buddy!)

Grant Cunningham

February 2011

FOREWORD

The west wasnt won with a jammed-up gun.

W hen Grant Cunningham speaks of revolvers, one should listen. On the whimsical side, hes the founder of the Revolver Liberation Alliance, whose mottoes are The west wasnt won with a jammed-up gun and The world isnt flat, why should your gun be?

On the serious side, Grant is an experienced instructor and one of the finest revolversmiths in the country. He can craft you a royal Ruger or a dandy Dan Wesson. My friend Herman Gunter, III regularly wins Enhanced Service Revolver matches with a Model 625 S&W .45 revolver that Grant tuned for him, one of several Cunningham guns in the Gunter family. And Grant is perhaps the only full-time pistolsmith today specializing in turning the Colt Python revolver into the exquisite, super-light-pull-with-totally-reliable-ignition treasure that was made famous in the latter 20th Century by Reeves Jungkind, Jerry Moran, and the late, great Fred Sadowsky.

He doesnt just fix em, he can race em right into the winners circle. Ive seen Grant shoot perfect 300 out of 300 qualification scores on demand with his tuned six-shooters. Whether its a Colt or a Dan Wesson doesnt matter; his skills transfer between them, as yours will if you take his advice to heart.

This book belongs on a sadly short shelf of double action revolver volumes written by people who actually know how to shoot them. It joins the work of Ed Lovette and Michael DeBethancourt in contemporary times, and Bill Jordan, Bob Nichols, Charlie Askins, Elmer Keith, J. H. Fitzgerald, and Ed McGivern before them as Rosetta Stones that unlock the secrets of operating double action revolvers swiftly and accurately.

Not every shooter is mirror-image to one another in techniques or beliefs; if we were, marksmanship would be a giant mutual admiration society with no need for good books like this one to convey new ideas and test old ideas for verification. Grant and I speedload revolvers a little differently, for instance. But looking at his chapter on revolver advantages, and his tutorial on how to run a double action trigger, or his explanation of the rationale of the double action only revolver, all I can say is, You can take Grants advice to the bank.

Enjoy the book. Like a Star Wars light saber, the revolver is seen by some as an elegant weapon more suited for another time. Theyre wrong. Its a very functional one, very serviceable in the here and now, and thats why so many folks still use them. Grant Cunningham has done an excellent job of explaining why.

Massad Ayoob

March 2011

Massad Ayoob has served for over 30 years as both handgun editor of Guns magazine and law enforcement editor of American Handgunner. His books include Gun Digest Book of Concealed Carry, In the Gravest Extreme, The Truth About Self-Protection, and Gun Digest Book of Combat Handgunnery. Director of Lethal Force Institute for 29 years, he now teaches through Massad Ayoob Group LLC, and has won several state and regional handgun championships with double action revolvers.

INTRODUCTION

The book youre holding in your hands is the result of an obsession.

W hen I was growing up most of the kids in our rural town were playing cowboys and Indians with toy guns obtained from the local dime store. The junior armaments of choice were the Peacemaker and the Winchester rifle, and every kid wanted one of each.

Not me! I remember being fascinated by guns like the M1 Carbine and the Colt .45 Automatic, because those were the kinds of guns I saw in magazines and war movies. My father, a veteran of the Army Air Force during WWII, was issued a Model 1911A1 and carried a Garand in basic training. These influences convinced me that revolvers and lever actions were old-fashioned, and I wanted nothing to do with them.