Revolver Fest - After Action Review

Revolver Fest was a training event that Bruce McCarthy and I attended in Clinton, SC from October 11th through the 13^th, 2025.  It was a revolver centric training event planned and well executed by American Fighting Revolver that allowed all in attendance to try out a wide variety of revolver manufacturers revolvers, but also some of the best revolver instructors in the industry. 

For those of you who do not know what American Fighting Revolver is, it is a website with tons of revolver information and revolver porn behind a $5 a month pay wall.  Bryan “Y” Eastridge and Daryl Bolke teamed up to bring its subscribers their expertise regarding wheel guns.  These two outdid themselves with the planning and execution of the first Revolver Fest.  I was honored to attend as a student.

Day One of the event allowed all in attendance to handle and shoot a wide variety of manufacturers revolvers.  Ruger, Taurus, Lipsey’s, Smith and Wesson, Colt, and Diamondback were showcasing their offerings.  Also, there was a wide number of venders selling everything you needed for your revolvers should you have forgot something at home.  Mickey from Carry Trainer was even there giving away great coffee to keep us caffeinated.

At the Colt both, I only remember shooting two of their guns.  The 3” Python in .357 Magnum and the King Cobra .22 LR.  Both were excellent shooting revolvers and have my recommendation.

At Diamondback, I liked the sights, fit and feel of their SDR revolvers, but I found the two I shot to be snappy.  I shot their 9mm and .38 Special 2” offerings.  The snappiness was a letdown, as they are priced in the $600 to $800 range. 

At Ruger, I shot a wide variety of their guns, but really liked their SP101 in .327 Federal Magnum. 

At Taurus, I shot a few of their revolvers.  Their downfall is their gritty trigger pulls.  They also own Rossi.  I was impressed with their .357 Lever Action rifle they had on hand to try as well. 

At Smith and Wesson, I shot a few of their revolvers.  What impressed me the most was not a revolver though; it was their new 9mm Shield X.  This Glock 48 sized pistol has earned my endorsement.  If I did not own a Bowie Glock 48 that does the same job the Shield X does, I would pick up a copy. 

I am pretty sure Lipsey’s got tired of me shooting all their ammo.  I shot everything they brought at least once.  My favorites included a Ruger LCR with Hamre Forge Boot Grips in .32 H&R Magnum; the Smith and Wesson Ultimate Carry’s in .32 H&R Magnum and .38 Special and the NAA Rule One Mini Revolver in .22 Magnum.  The later Bruce talked me out of buying even though I made 20-yard steel shots with the little pocket clipped single action mini revolver with XS Big Dots.  Jokes on him, my wife got me a copy for Christmas.  I carry it everyday in addition to at least one other pistol. 

Daryl Bolke giving a safety lecture at the end of the industry day on Day 1.

Day Two and Day Three consisted of three-hour blocks of training with some of the greatest trainers who teach the art of defensive revolver. Attendees were given a sign-up list with the instructor and class names so they could pick out which classes they wanted. This was done on

a first come first serve basis, which resulted in blocks of training filling up fast.

One best sign up early if you want to train with everyone you want to. The good news is, all the trainers were experts.

On Day Two the first class that I went to was Revolver Fundamentals with Daryl Bolke. All participants had to take a fundamentals class to start the training portion out with, as they had no way of telling the competency levels of all students. Daryl is retired cop from Southern

California. In his rookie years, he carried a revolver on patrol. Now retired, he primarily carries a revolver everywhere he goes. The gun I used was my 43C, a .22LR air weight J Frame from Smith and Wesson.

Daryl started the morning with a traditional safety lecture discussing the four rules. One of the interesting points he made, was that one cannot screw up the unloading sequence like can so easily be done by novices with semi-automatic pistols. Another interesting thing that I differ in teaching methodology is that Daryl recommends a continuous roll of the trigger instead of stagging the trigger like I typically teach. Both techniques have their place, but for most individuals who will not put in the time it takes to learn where the wall is on their revolver, a continuous roll makes sense. Simply put, the revolver is a deliberate gun that requires a deliberate operator.

The live fire drills consisted of accuracy-based drills at B8’s at seven yards from low ready. I

really liked the revolver version of the ball and dummy drill that we started out with. We

progressed to firing pairs and triplets. Then it was on to holster work shooting similar drills that we shot from low ready.

This block was my second favorite block of the weekend. Daryl is a very talented and

experienced instructor on the wheel gun. I would not hesitate to take a full weekend class with Daryl should the opportunity arise. You should not either.

The afternoon block was One Handed Shooting with Bryan “Y” Eastridge. Let me start with this, Bryan is an excellent gunsmith and a mechanical expert on revolvers. His block of instruction, however left me desiring more. Y only presented roughly and hour and a half of instruction and for the rest of the block, discussed his mechanical knowledge and answered questions. I did learn a lot listening to the Q and A session. Knowledge was gained as Y shared what he does to every revolver that he owns to make them more to his liking.

I used my Smith and Wesson M&P 340 in .357 Magnum for this block of instruction, shooting .38 Specials to be nicer to my hands. The live fire portion consisted of Y showing us various ways of standing to see what worked best for us. We shot at 3x5 shipping labels at

approximately 7 yards. He advocated standing square with your torso to the target, but let you experiment with foot placement. After that was over, we shot a non-dominant hand drill

followed by the last drill which incorporated two handed shooting, a reload, dominant only

shooting, a reload, and non-dominant hand shooting.

Y is a good instructor; he just did not bring enough material nor shooting to make the class

more interactive and enjoyable. It was the lowest round count of all the classes I took as well,

only shooting slightly less than 50 rounds. When I spoke with him privately about this, Y

admitted that we were a good group of students and the group before us was not that great,

which is why he kept the same material to keep all the classes he taught uniform. I would have liked to see a block geared toward the student base, not just lowest common denominator training. I would grade this block as my least favorite.

Y sharing his wisdom during One Handed Shooting

Training Day Two or Event Day Three started off with a training block on Marksmanship taught by Wayne Dobbs. Wayne is a retired cop from Texas who brings a lot of knowledge and skill running a wheel gun. When Wayne started as a cop, a revolver was standard issue. For this

block of training, I used my 4” Smith and Wesson 64-3 in .38 Special. Wayne lectured about the importance of Rule 4: Know your target and its surroundings. Wayne also discussed the importance of being aware in public, sharing statistical facts that more people in your day-to-day life have a criminal record or are just plain crazy. To steal a quote from him, “your neighborhood isn’t nice, it just looks nice.” Wayne ended the lecture with his

viewpoint on precision accuracy, as anything outside of the heart or brain is simply a contained miss. Wayne told a story about a child that was shot by their poor marksmanship when any student missed the B8 Targets completely.

Wayne is a fan of low round count drills especially when training people on revolvers. So that is exactly what he focused on. We shot seven different drills. These drills ranged from 5 to 15

yards on 3x5 cards placed over a B8 repair target. During his block we shot the most out of all shooting close to 150 rounds. That is my kind of training. Drills focused on shooting accurately at and under a time limit as well as reloading the gun quickly. I would most definitely recommend all my students take a class from Wayne Dobbs without any hesitation.

Wayne Dobbs during the lecture portion of his block.  Train with Wayne.  Yesterday.

The last block in the afternoon was Holster Skills with Mike Wood. Mike is retired military, a Gunsite Instructor and runs the website revolverguy.com. I used the same 64-3 that I used during Wayne Dobbs block of instruction.  Mike used folded in half sheets of printer paper numbered as targets on an IDPA backer. 

Mike lectured with starting out having all the participates read a range rule followed by discussion on each rule.  There were 15 of them.  I liked them all, but the problem with long laundry lists of rules, is students forget them, including the most important rules.  That is why I have always taught simple rules that incorporate Cooper’s Rules plus four rules that I feel students need to know right before live fire training is conducted.

Mike had us run everything dry before live fire. This strategy makes you do everything with an unloaded gun before you shoot live ammunition.  This is a great way to train beginners, but experienced shooters can often get bored by it. Most of my group were beginners so I do not fault Mike for his approach. I would say out of the 20 people in attendance, only five or so had taken training prior to attending Revolver Fest and it showed.

Something that I will steal from Mike is his way he teaches the draw stroke.  Instead of each individual step, he combines two of them. This makes a six-count draw stroke if you include removing a cover garment a three-count draw. I also stole his verbiage “make a path” when teaching how to properly holster a revolver. 

After each skill was practiced dry it was shot live fire. We practiced single shots from the holster, pairs from the holster, and then we repeated this strong hand only. We advanced to starting with an empty box of ammo in our hand simulating a cell phone. When the command was given, we were told to drop our phones and fire a pair. This drill set us up for the last series of drills which was my favorite of Mike’s block. 

We were given cards that had a front and a back. On the cards were letters and numbers which corresponded to a different drill or scenario depending on which side you were using.  Once Mike would call a side color, a number and letter combination, you were to figure out the appropriate response on the card, drop it and do whatever you needed to do. The command called for a verbal challenge with a low ready revolver or required shooting one or two rounds and whether it was shot one or two handed. I admittedly was looking at the wrong side a time or two and that resulted in an inappropriate response which I caught as soon as I did it. If you cannot laugh at your mistakes, you are not as humble as you should be. 

Mike’s block was barely behind Daryl’s at my third favorite. I would have liked to see Mike demo the drills for us so we all would have better understood what was expected of us.  When you have six possibilities of responses per side of the card, a demo is necessary to show the students what you expect them to do.  The scenarios on the back side of the card, which our group did not get to, would be a good way to test the decision-making abilities of the students.   Mike should have then told and demonstrated the appropriate responses.  Finally, he should have let the students repeat the drill to ensure the lesson was learned by all. Mike probably had that on his agenda, we just did not get around to it. Overall, I learned a few things to teach my students so this block was time well spent.

Mike Wood during his safety brief.

I would give Revolver Fest four out of five stars. It lacked getting five due to my disappointment with one of the blocks that I was really looking forward to. As I am teaching two shotgun classes two of the three days that the 2026 Revolver Fest will be held, I am going to sit 2026 out. If you are a revolver guy or gal, I highly recommending making the trip to Clinton, SC October 10-12, 2026 to check it out for yourselves. Sign up using the link below.

https://revolverfest.com/

Ruger and Lipsey’s did their homework on this one.  If you can find it, buy it.