C&P of a post I made on the now-defunct Kansas forum some time back. I found it on the Oklahoma forum.


I put about sixty 38 special rounds downrange today and I can assure the board that the mean pizza box will never do any harm again. The gun was my S&W 686 in a 40+ year-old Roy Baker Pancake holster under my 'shoot-me-first' vest. For the most part the ammo was WWB stuff from WallyWorld. The sole exception was six GDHP that I needed to get shot. In other words, the stuff I carried for the past three or four months. The weather was excellent.

I took my cane to better simulate life and when I needed to shoot, I let it go. This showed a problem. The cane is a stand-up type, but I habitually carry it in my right hand, and that is the side my gun is on, so I should strongly consider walking with the cane in my left hand. This won't make any difference to my balance; it is simply a matter of getting used to it and making a few adjustments on the cane. Plus, left-hand carry might be better for my arthritis on my left side.

I taped a seal from a plastic coffee can on the pizza box (roughly 8" in diameter., and used that as an aiming point. Drawing, even from concealment, presented no issues, and I was able to get most of my shots in the seal, with the few that did not hit the seal still hitting the box, and were ones that I shot while moving. I didn't go backwards but moved mostly diagonally (to my ten o'clock and two'clock) and side-stepped to minimize the risk of falling. My shooting was decent, with no real problems noted.

I used the revolver's sights for maybe twelve of the sixty rounds, the rest being point shooting. The range is somewhat uneven and neither this nor my balance presented any real problems this time around.

The primary issue that I noticed today was the one with the cane and that is simply a matter of switching sides and getting used to the switch.

Hope this was helpful to some of you.

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Let's be careful out there