OK Credit To Whoever Typed This
My computer is acting up tonight & bumped me off while I was doing a copy & paste of this text from some forum page.
I'll probably type it all later if someone's interested, but Ayoob's method (if it's still what he teaches) has the palm of (for a right hander) the support hand slap down on the ejector rod, instead of the thumb pushing it.
Then, the left hand grabs the revolver and indexes it near the bellybutton, vertically oriented, while the strong (and therefore more dexterous) right hand goes to the belt to retrieve the speedloader.
The right hand does the load, opposed to the left like the FBI load teaches.
His technique supposedly uses gravity to aid the extraction and also the load since you index it more vertical, opposed to the other techniques, which usually have the gun on an angle.
The firm slap instead of the push gives a more positive extraction, especially when you have a short extractor rod.
Personally, I like revolvers, but recognize that their weak point is reloading. This is not only an issue of speed, but also of position.
Reloading a revolver while lying on your back and trying to remain behind cover is not an easy proposition.
The fastest reload with a revolver (and sometimes with an autoloader) is a New York reload - drawing a second gun. Next fastest is a speedloader, but these are usually hard to conceal.
On the other hand, it's not a difficult proposition to carry four single column magazines concealed for use in your autoloader.
My point is that I believe that a tactical reload is a more critical issue for the user of the revolver than of the autoloader.
If you're not carrying a whole bunch of speedloaders you may not want to dump two or three good rounds on the ground in order to get a full cylinder again.
If you're using a five-round revolver of the .38/.357 persuasion the short crane may not give you enough clearance between the speedloader and the left grip panel to let you use a speedloader anyway.
Since you may already be relying on something like a Speed Strip or a 2+2+2 pouch, why not learn how to reload on a fire-two/reload-two regimen?
This doesn't mean that you would want to train yourself to a strict cadence of only firing two rounds before returning to cover to reload. There's no reason not to vary it and fire three or four rounds some of the time.
My point is that lack of a magazine to cram more rounds into your gun means that you might want to work an extra drill to develop some compensatory skill.
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Close, but missing an important part of Ayoob's technique, which I described above. Folowing is from an article I saved from an old Guns Magazine where Ayoob described his tech.
"The old FBI wheelgun reloading was to hold the revolver in your left hand and punch the ejector rod with your left thumb as your right hand sped to your belt for fresh rounds.
Nice theory, but in practice, the thumb often didn't have the power to clear magnum casings that had fire formed snugley into the chambers, nor would the hand naturally turn the muzzle up to allow a clean drop of the empty shells. This often allowed a full length ejector system to skip over a rim and create every wheelgunner's worst nightmare under stress - a spent casing jammed under the ejector star.
The improvement by the FLETC didn't go far enough. Here, the left hand would hold the gun while the fight palm delivered a hard slap to the ejector rod. Alas, the left hand's grast of the cylinder often foreshortened the ejector stroke, the right hand could easily deviate off angle and hit the ejector rod the wrong way, hard enough to bend it, and the sharp edge of the cylinder yoke often ripped the shooter's hand in training.
In both of these methods the gun winds up being held with the muzzle at an angle to the ground istead of pointing straight down during the reloading process. This is OK if you're loading single rounds, which you can snap firmly into a fully seated position in the chambers. Today, however, we generally use speedloaders, and they work by gravity, and gravity goes straight down.
This is why you've so often done a fast reload ...and the cylinder wouldn't close or wouldn't rotate once closed ecause at least one cartridge hadn't gone all the way in.
Skip to technique - I'm going to attempt to paraphrase Ayoob's writings here where possible for brevity's sake.
Cylinder opened similar to older techniques - Thumb of right hand hits release latch as support hand slides upward and forward, its middle fingers pushing cylinder out of frame.
Next part is Stress Reload's improvement - No hand change is required as with the old FBI and FLETC methods. the left hand continues its natural pattern of movement, traveling along the barrel, as the gun is grasped by the right and with the web of the hand unde the hammer spur and the thumb parallel to the barrel.
The muzzle is now automatically pointed skyward, where gravity will assist it best to ensure clean dumping of brass. The right thumb is holding the cylinder all the way out of the frame window and minimizing chances of a casing catching on something. The thumb is kept from blocking the path of the ejecting brass.
Now, the left palm is situated where, guided by the edge of the barrel, it can come down with one sharp stroke and blast even snugly fire-formed cases cleanly out of the chambers in a single stroke. It's impossible for a rim to get caught under the star using this technique. It's also the one tech powerful enough to generate sufficient momentum to make sure that even if the gun has a very short rod, all the brass will be kicked clear."
The instruction continues on, with his method of manipulating the speedloader and making sure that the revolver is indexed with the butt tucked into the abdomen, assuring that the gun is in the same place everytime, minimizing the distance the hand with the loader has to travel, and guarantees that the muzzle is nose-down, to allow gravity to work best to load the rounds.
Good stuff. I can see where it wouldn't be the fastest, but his logic seems clear about it being the most positive, and perhaps foolproof method. With Ayoob's background, and the number of students he's taught over the years, I think it warrants serious inspection. I'll be using it if/when I ever get a revolver.
