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Of course, there is a lot of chest puffing here – there are any number of You Tube videos showing selected clips of people loading 8 shells in less than 5 seconds! God knows how many attempts it took them to get that perfect reload. Of course, world-class shooters can reload like that consistently.
All I want to do is be able to strip and load 8 rounds in less than 8 seconds without fumbling – most novices would be happy with that in a competition.
The method outlined below is the result of watching Master and A-grade shooters at competitions and copying them. I keep what works for me and dump what doesn’t. I take no credit for inventing this method – all I have done is watched and analysed experienced shooters.
It’s helped me and my advice, based on it, has helped those who have asked me. I offer it to you in the same spirit. Use this article as a foundation but, go out there and watch elite shooters, experiment with and tweak their techniques and see what works for you. Above all, watch and copy – there is no shame in that.
Starting off.
If you want to reload consistently and quickly get a decent belt and some caddies. There is a great article by Tony Saunders in the April 2011 Target Shooter looking at the pros and cons of different ammunition belts. Some very fast shooters on the circuit strip off pairs of rounds from a wide belt and run them into an upside-down gun. I can’t do that. I have seen other shooters strip rounds from clips with their strong hand and reload like lightning. I can’t do that either. The method I am extolling is week-hand loading from a caddy – it works for me - but there are other methods that may work better for you.
There are several suppliers for stripper clips – I use California Competition Works because they are relatively easy to get hold of. Most caddies work in the same basic way. They have a spacer which you will need to fit into the caddy so that your shells are not jammed in but are loose enough to strip out easily without falling out. If you are right-handed and are stripping rounds with your left hand (which I
am – consequently this article is for righties – south paws need to reverse these instructions), then put the spacer down the left-hand side of the caddy.
The shells go in with the primer to the left. This means that when you strip the shells from the caddy they are sitting relatively high up in your hand (we will come back to this later). You need to attach your caddies to a stout, stiff belt that doesn’t flex as you try and strip the shells from the caddy. I recommend 4 shot caddies - the sixes are OK for loading at the firing point but you can’t get more than 4 shells in your hand at a time during a speed reload.
I ‘hold’ the caddies in place on the belt with cable ties (see the photo below) – this stops them moving too close together during a competition. You will see why this is important shortly. When you are starting out - or if you have small hands - load 3 shells into the caddy – its easier to practice stripping and loading.
The other thing worth buying is four aluminium 12g dummy shells. They are expensive but last a long time and mean you can practice reloading at home. They feel more-or-less right in terms of weight (the plastic ones don’t) but their main disadvantage is that they go into the mag much easier than real shells. NEVER practice with live rounds at home. EVER!
So now you have your belt and caddies, your dummy shells and your gun we can start practicing.
Starting off with an empty gun in ‘aim’ position. Release your weak hand, lower the gun with your strong hand (finger out of the trigger guard – OK its an empty gun and you are using dummy rounds, BUT make safe technique an aim of your drills too) and tuck the butt into the crook of your strong arm. In this position the barrel weight pulls the front of the gun down, your strong hand acts as a fulcrum and your armpit locks everything in place. It’s a natural and comfortable position and provides a very stable position for reloading.
With the gun in this position the reloading process can begin – it should happen in three distinct stages:
Stage 1 – Strip the caddy Stage 2 – Index your hand under the gun’s carrier
Stage 3 – Thumb the rounds into the magazine 78
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