Shooting Issues

gerhard1 · May 26, 2026

Here is a very old post I made in the KSCCW 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.

I still use my cane and I have it with me almost all of the time. The exception is when I'm around the house, as I have to have a 'third leg'. Otherwise, I risk falls and at my age falls are worse than they are for you young whippersnappers.

Alan · May 28, 2026

This is a really valuable write-up, the cane issue alone shows how small daily habits can affect everything under stress.

Belmot · Jun 9, 2026

What stands out is he built training around real physical limitations and still worked movement, draw and accuracy instead of staying static or over-relying on perfect range conditions.

gerhard1 · Jun 11, 2026

Here is another old post (2019) from the Oklahoma forum, somewhat related to the thread topic. I had just gotten back from Grant Cunningham's Threat-Centered Revolver class

Just got back home from Phoenix and had a great time at Cunningham's class. I did fairly well, and I think I was about in the middle of te group performance-wise. Both Grant and the Arizona F&G people (who ran the range) were very good about accommodating my physical and hearing problems. I solved the hearing issue by using a plug in both ears and leaving my implant in place. It bypasses the outer and middle ears and has a program that reduces the noise of loud sounds just like the electronic muffs do.
Grant suggested that I might consider carrying my 4" 610. I am seriously thinking about it, as it is very reliable so far, and the 10 mm seems to me as if it would be a very good combat round. Another advantage is that it is very fast to reload; however, for civilians reloading is not a really crucial skill. For that reason, he did not spend a lot of time on reloading.

He suggested another thing and that is i devote about half of my practice time to one-handed shooting, due to my using a cane. I told him that I sometimes practice with a cane and that I will drop the cane and draw my gun; he said that I was doing well.

This was a very good and also very fun class.

I'm glad that I went.