Bill Jordan, Border Agent------ Continued
As Surgeon General of Francisco Madero’s rebel army, Dr. Bush held the rank of Colonel, and felt the obligation to contribute a bit more to the cause than the extraction of rifle slugs and the healing of saddle sores. During a stroll down a quiet El Paso street, his eye fell on the McGinty cannon, a non-descript artillery piece that had years previously been retired from some unrecorded military activity and put to recorded military activity and put to firing Fourth of July salutes at the annual McGinty Club beer busts. Now even that honest work was denied the old field piece, and it lay a-mouldering in front of the El Paso city hall.
A man of action, Colonel-Doctor Bush wasted no time in hooking the carriage of the pigeon-marked old cannon onto the tail of his touring car. Crossing the Rio Grande under cover of darkness, the physician delivered the gun into the grateful hands of the revolutionary artillerymen, who promptly put it to work in leveling the federal garrisons at Ojinaga and Camargo. After a short, hot run in Northern Mexico, the McGinty cannon stealthily returned to Texas and resumed its career as an El Paso artifact.
The Bush 38 remained inactive for many years until Bill decided to clean it up. Stripping the old sixgun, Bill scoured out the accumulated gunk in its innards and left a touch of Gunslick inside when he reassembled it. The old long action of the piece was the smoothest double action lockwork he had tried, and he looked around for ways to improve the Smith for his specialized holster work. Smith & Wesson was producing a special, heavy barreled 4” M&P for the Border Patrol about then, and Jordan had one of these tubes fitted to the Bush gun. The hammer spur was cropped, and the trigger guard altered to Bill’s order. Topped off with the Jordan handles, fashioned from the flashy Mexican hardwood, Guayacan, the family jewel is now one of Bill’s favorites for double action hipshooting.
Jordan holsters are known to uniformed law enforcement officers throughout the United States as the most advanced design available to suspend a DA revolver from a Sam Browne belt. Rigidly reinforced in the belt loop area by an enclosed metal strap, the Jordan rig is rigid and unmoving, always holding the gunbutt in precisely the same relationship to the gun hand. The revolver’s trigger guard is completely exposed, and the gun is held away from the back portion of the holster well by a cunningly inserted plug of leather, allowing the trigger finger to enter the guard as the draw is commenced.
Designed by Jordan 30 years ago, this streamlined gun shuck is the standard of the U.S. Border Patrol, as well as many other top police agencies. Don Hume, the Miami Okla., leather craftsman currently makes thousands of these fast riggings annually, dubbing them the Jordan “River” holster.
For his exhibition work, Bill now uses a modification of the original Jordan rig, one that was designed by Lt. Dan Combs of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, himself an outstanding exhibition handgunner. The Combs improvement consists of a stainless steel insert throughout the complete holster, including the gun well, and the sewing of the belt tang to the belt for absolute rigidity. “This change is unnecessary for the officer who wears his belt and holster every day,” comments Jordan, “but it’s a help to me since I travel so much. My belt and holster are packed in my luggage most of the time, and the stainless steel liner prevents the holster’s being flattened out to cause binding of the gun.”
The talk of Bill’s gear was pleasant, but when I attempted to get him to spell out the secrets that make him today’s finest hipshot, we ran into hard going. Like so many masters of a physical skill, Bill finds it next to impossible to describe the combination of agility and subconscious awareness that goes into his shooting. Lining up on a tiny target. Jordan lets his bullet fly when everything “feels right.”
One big help is a pair of custom stocks that fit the shooter perfectly. While adapter type grips that fill the space behind the trigger guard throw more recoil into the shooter’s hand and forearm, they allow the trigger finger to pull straight back naturally. Jordan agrees with most DA experts that a straight, uninterrupted DA pull is to be preferred, and describes the two stage pull – hauling back on the trigger until the cylinder locking bolt engages, then pressing the short remaining let off – as a poor substitute for straight single action shooting.
Bill and I are also agreed that a large diameter, hefty barrel is a definite aid to pointshooting. The sixgun with its weight well out front seems to home in like radar on a small target. Jordan’s style requires that he “feels” the barrel as it moves in front of him. Contrary to the teachings of some police instructors, he does not use his body as a reference point in aiming his hip shot. Rather than going into an exaggerated crouch and locking his elbow rigidly into his midriff, Jordan fires from a relaxed, erect position, his arm extended at waist level, and his elbow away from his torso.
In the tense, elbow-against body pose, it is necessary to lean forward to lower bullet strikes on the target, and to lean back to raise them. Jordan finds that the slightest change in the angle of the torso, when firing with a rigid gun arm, moves the group to an extreme degree, and prefers simply to raise or lower the gun hand to correct for errors in elevation.
Since he performs so frequently, Bill has found practice unnecessary, and while he sometimes misses his aspirin tablet when he does indulge in a warm-up exercise, this seldom occurs in front of an audience. “The pressure seems to help,” he avers, “and if a too-healthy dinner makes me feel a little loggy, before I stand up to shoot, I key myself up by thinking “be careful.” For me, a good edgy feeling is a definite aid to good shooting.”
Action photographs have shown that when Jordan draws and shoots his arm is under a terrific strain, with muscles bulging and tendons standing out.
Asked if he followed some sort of physical training regimen to meet the exigencies of his work, the slender Southerner admitted that he travels with a pair of 35 lb. dumbbells, and that he indulges in a bit of jogging when time and location permit. “I’m sure these little workouts are a help to my shooting, but really I just exercise for general well being,” Bill says.
While Jordan genuinely wishes that he could lay down some easy rules to follow for becoming a top handgun man, he knows that there are few shortcuts. “It takes time and patience, trial and error. Years of it.Eventually, if you’re dedicated enough, hipshooting will become a cultivated reflex, like tying your shoes without thinking about what your fingers are doing.”
http://floridaconcealedcarry.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=1173
Asked what he thought a crash program in which he fired a large quantity of ammunition in a very short time would gain an eager, would-be sixgun man, Bill replied, “A complete loss of all confidence and a desire to take up golf.”
In his classic book, “No Second Place Winner,” Bill Jordan lays down his methods in a style as fast moving and fascinating as his draw. Now in its second printing, this unique volume has been read by serious sixgun men all over the globe, and is soon to appear in foreign languages.
This tough border country that is home to me has a special phrase that it bestows on special men – the ones who are hard when they must be and laugh whenever they can. I’ve known Bill Jordan for a good many years and the homey Texas expression fits. He’ll do to ride the river with.
Brownie
As Surgeon General of Francisco Madero’s rebel army, Dr. Bush held the rank of Colonel, and felt the obligation to contribute a bit more to the cause than the extraction of rifle slugs and the healing of saddle sores. During a stroll down a quiet El Paso street, his eye fell on the McGinty cannon, a non-descript artillery piece that had years previously been retired from some unrecorded military activity and put to recorded military activity and put to firing Fourth of July salutes at the annual McGinty Club beer busts. Now even that honest work was denied the old field piece, and it lay a-mouldering in front of the El Paso city hall.
A man of action, Colonel-Doctor Bush wasted no time in hooking the carriage of the pigeon-marked old cannon onto the tail of his touring car. Crossing the Rio Grande under cover of darkness, the physician delivered the gun into the grateful hands of the revolutionary artillerymen, who promptly put it to work in leveling the federal garrisons at Ojinaga and Camargo. After a short, hot run in Northern Mexico, the McGinty cannon stealthily returned to Texas and resumed its career as an El Paso artifact.
The Bush 38 remained inactive for many years until Bill decided to clean it up. Stripping the old sixgun, Bill scoured out the accumulated gunk in its innards and left a touch of Gunslick inside when he reassembled it. The old long action of the piece was the smoothest double action lockwork he had tried, and he looked around for ways to improve the Smith for his specialized holster work. Smith & Wesson was producing a special, heavy barreled 4” M&P for the Border Patrol about then, and Jordan had one of these tubes fitted to the Bush gun. The hammer spur was cropped, and the trigger guard altered to Bill’s order. Topped off with the Jordan handles, fashioned from the flashy Mexican hardwood, Guayacan, the family jewel is now one of Bill’s favorites for double action hipshooting.
Jordan holsters are known to uniformed law enforcement officers throughout the United States as the most advanced design available to suspend a DA revolver from a Sam Browne belt. Rigidly reinforced in the belt loop area by an enclosed metal strap, the Jordan rig is rigid and unmoving, always holding the gunbutt in precisely the same relationship to the gun hand. The revolver’s trigger guard is completely exposed, and the gun is held away from the back portion of the holster well by a cunningly inserted plug of leather, allowing the trigger finger to enter the guard as the draw is commenced.
Designed by Jordan 30 years ago, this streamlined gun shuck is the standard of the U.S. Border Patrol, as well as many other top police agencies. Don Hume, the Miami Okla., leather craftsman currently makes thousands of these fast riggings annually, dubbing them the Jordan “River” holster.
For his exhibition work, Bill now uses a modification of the original Jordan rig, one that was designed by Lt. Dan Combs of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, himself an outstanding exhibition handgunner. The Combs improvement consists of a stainless steel insert throughout the complete holster, including the gun well, and the sewing of the belt tang to the belt for absolute rigidity. “This change is unnecessary for the officer who wears his belt and holster every day,” comments Jordan, “but it’s a help to me since I travel so much. My belt and holster are packed in my luggage most of the time, and the stainless steel liner prevents the holster’s being flattened out to cause binding of the gun.”
The talk of Bill’s gear was pleasant, but when I attempted to get him to spell out the secrets that make him today’s finest hipshot, we ran into hard going. Like so many masters of a physical skill, Bill finds it next to impossible to describe the combination of agility and subconscious awareness that goes into his shooting. Lining up on a tiny target. Jordan lets his bullet fly when everything “feels right.”
One big help is a pair of custom stocks that fit the shooter perfectly. While adapter type grips that fill the space behind the trigger guard throw more recoil into the shooter’s hand and forearm, they allow the trigger finger to pull straight back naturally. Jordan agrees with most DA experts that a straight, uninterrupted DA pull is to be preferred, and describes the two stage pull – hauling back on the trigger until the cylinder locking bolt engages, then pressing the short remaining let off – as a poor substitute for straight single action shooting.
Bill and I are also agreed that a large diameter, hefty barrel is a definite aid to pointshooting. The sixgun with its weight well out front seems to home in like radar on a small target. Jordan’s style requires that he “feels” the barrel as it moves in front of him. Contrary to the teachings of some police instructors, he does not use his body as a reference point in aiming his hip shot. Rather than going into an exaggerated crouch and locking his elbow rigidly into his midriff, Jordan fires from a relaxed, erect position, his arm extended at waist level, and his elbow away from his torso.
In the tense, elbow-against body pose, it is necessary to lean forward to lower bullet strikes on the target, and to lean back to raise them. Jordan finds that the slightest change in the angle of the torso, when firing with a rigid gun arm, moves the group to an extreme degree, and prefers simply to raise or lower the gun hand to correct for errors in elevation.
Since he performs so frequently, Bill has found practice unnecessary, and while he sometimes misses his aspirin tablet when he does indulge in a warm-up exercise, this seldom occurs in front of an audience. “The pressure seems to help,” he avers, “and if a too-healthy dinner makes me feel a little loggy, before I stand up to shoot, I key myself up by thinking “be careful.” For me, a good edgy feeling is a definite aid to good shooting.”
Action photographs have shown that when Jordan draws and shoots his arm is under a terrific strain, with muscles bulging and tendons standing out.
Asked if he followed some sort of physical training regimen to meet the exigencies of his work, the slender Southerner admitted that he travels with a pair of 35 lb. dumbbells, and that he indulges in a bit of jogging when time and location permit. “I’m sure these little workouts are a help to my shooting, but really I just exercise for general well being,” Bill says.
While Jordan genuinely wishes that he could lay down some easy rules to follow for becoming a top handgun man, he knows that there are few shortcuts. “It takes time and patience, trial and error. Years of it.Eventually, if you’re dedicated enough, hipshooting will become a cultivated reflex, like tying your shoes without thinking about what your fingers are doing.”
http://floridaconcealedcarry.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=1173
Asked what he thought a crash program in which he fired a large quantity of ammunition in a very short time would gain an eager, would-be sixgun man, Bill replied, “A complete loss of all confidence and a desire to take up golf.”
In his classic book, “No Second Place Winner,” Bill Jordan lays down his methods in a style as fast moving and fascinating as his draw. Now in its second printing, this unique volume has been read by serious sixgun men all over the globe, and is soon to appear in foreign languages.
This tough border country that is home to me has a special phrase that it bestows on special men – the ones who are hard when they must be and laugh whenever they can. I’ve known Bill Jordan for a good many years and the homey Texas expression fits. He’ll do to ride the river with.
Brownie
