I’ve now lived through 51 Veteran’s Days as a veteran. Most have been just another day, some with a free meal, one Veteran’s Day I got fired from a job, another I got ridiculed by my boss for wanting to take Veteran’s Day off. Today was the best I can remember.
Two of my grandchildren are students at Boyd High School in Boyd, Texas. Boyd High School’s FCCLA organization invited veterans in the community, especially those who have relatives in the school, to a breakfast at the school. When my grandson Josh invited me via a text message I decided to go.
We were served breakfast in the school library. Somewhere I heard the number 29 veterans in attendance. Most were accompanied by family members. I sat at a table with a 95 year old veteran of WWII, Korea and Vietnam. He seemed in better health than me and was sharp and clear of mind. The other two veterans at my table had not served during war time, but had been stationed in Europe at various times. One was an air traffic controller who had worked LA (Lower Alabama) where I went to flight school.
The school librarian welcomed us and said we’d have a prayer before eating. When she asked for a volunteer to pray, the Superintendent of Schools responded and prayed like she knew the one she was praying to on a personal level. Imagine — prayer in school! We were served a breakfast of pancakes and sausage with coffee and plates of cinnamon rolls. But breakfast wasn’t it, folks. We were next escorted down a hall with full height posters on the wall. Our destination was the gymnasium.
As we entered the gym, the entire student body of approximately 400 students was seated in the stands and began applauding as the veterans entered. They kept up the applause and shouts of “Thank You!” until all of the veterans and their families had entered the gym and taken seats in the folding chairs that were set out on the floor. A ceremony followed in which the school band played the national anthem, then a parade of students entered in groups of two, with each group holding a banner for a branch of service. As the groups walked in one at a time, the theme song for the branch of service represented by the banner they held played over the speaker system.
Several individuals gave short speeches. One of them was a teacher who is an Air Force Veteran, another was a graduate of the school who was a veteran and six were students who had written short essays. While in the library, we each had been given a booklet of essays and poems written by students at the high school in honor of veterans. These speeches were additional essays by the students.
The ceremony was quite moving, but that wasn’t all. I’m overcome with emotion as I write this, just remembering. As we left the school we were told the students from the other Boyd Schools — kindergarten, elementary, intermediate and middle school — all wanted to show their appreciation to us as well. We were directed into a parade of 20 or so cars, led by a two police cars with flashing lights. As we drove down Knox Street in Boyd, students from the Kindergarten waved at us from behind their fence, but students from the intermediate and middle school were lined up on both sides of the street, holding patriotic artwork they had done, waving to us and calling out (“Thank you!”) as we drove by. We continued to follow the police cars across one of the main drags, into and through the parking lot of the elementary school where all of the students from that school were lined up, holding up their artwork and calling out to us, “Thank You!” as they waved. The entire parade consisted of smiles, waves and cheers from the students.
Thank you, Boyd High School and all the other Boyd Schools for honoring your veterans in a way that most of us will never foget.
Sometimes magazine writers are in the loop early when it come to new guns being introduced. There are a lot of new guns I don’t get too excited about, especially when it’s just one manufacturer trying to keep up with or outdo another in one of the classes such as carry gun, duty gun or competition gun. I’ve got those categories covered with guns that work fine, so adding another to the rotation doesn’t get me all that excited. What does ring my bell are fun guns. A fun gun I bought over 60 years ago is still a favorite to take out of the safe and go shooting. Diamondback has just recreated that gun and made it better. To say I got excited when I saw the first announcement of the Sidekick is an understatement.
I put my family on notice. Any promises I might have made not to buy any more guns this year was hereby null and void. Come November 22, when the Sidekick is reported to become available, I want one. Then life bestowed upon me something very special in the form of an invite to a writer’s conference in which Diamondback was one of the presenters. This was in early October, more than a month before the scheduled release date for the Sidekick. I got to shoot it and it was everything I hoped it would be. I asked for a review gun whenever they became available, and I was scarcely home before one showed up at my FFL for transfer.
When I opened the box, it seemed like a jump back in time to the day I walked into a hardware store in Oxford, Mississippi, plunked $52.50 down on the counter and walked out with my first-ever revolver—a Hi Standard Double-Nine .22 revolver. That $52.50 would be $472 in today’s dollars. The Double-Nine is a pretty unique .22 revolver in that it looks like a single-action cowboy gun but has a swing out cylinder for loading and a double-action trigger system that allows it to be used like a single-action or a double-action. The Sidekick has those features, too.
The Sidekick (below) Gets It’s Roots from the Hi Standard Double-Nine (above)
How the Sidekick Came About.
I asked Adam Walker, Vice President of Engineering and Quality at Diamondback America, how they came to develop the Sidekick, wondering if maybe the Double-Nine had been an influence. Adam told me as they began conceptualizing Diamondback’s first-ever revolver product, they wanted it to be a fun .22 plinker that would be easy to use by people of all ages and levels of experience. He said most of the folks at Diamondback had grown up spending time with their families shooting and that much of the shooting had been done with rimfire guns. As they discussed their various experiences, a common theme arose. More than half the people in the room had owned a Hi Standard Double-Nine. Almost in unison there was an “aha moment” when they realized that this particular revolver model had everything they were looking to create. Everyone was brimming with nostalgia and immediately excited about the project and they were in disbelief that this specific type of product had been out of production for so many years without anyone having picked up the torch.
Life is Better with a Sidekick!
There are many rimfire revolvers currently in production, but none fit the bill of the quintessential “plinking” rimfire revolver as closely as the Hi Standard Double-Nine. Diamondback’s objective became clear—to recreate the classic Double-Nine revolver using modern manufacturing techniques to ensure a high level of quality and consistency and then reintroduce this product to the world as the Diamondback Sidekick. They are proud to continue the tradition of encouraging families and friends to spend time together through shooting and outdoor activities. As they say—life’s better with a sidekick.
I’d say they’ve met their objective. I may not represent the typical shooter, but I have Ruger and Heritage .22 revolvers, plus a plethora of semi-auto .22 handguns, and I know without a doubt the Sidekick will be the one I pick up most often to go shooting just for fun.
The Nine-Shot Swing-Out Cylinder Makes for Quick and Easy Loading. Plus There are Two of Them — One for .22 and One for .22 Magnum.
Gun Details.
Diamondback built the Sidekick with swing out cylinders in both .22 and .22 Mag, but it is definitely a sho ‘nuff cowboy gun to look at and handle. Although it has revived the Hi Standard Double-Nine in spirit, Diamondback has made the Sidekick even better with the exchangeable cylinders and a repurposed ejector latch to facilitate opening the cylinder for loading and unloading. It also has counter-bored cylinder chambers which allow the gun to be dry-fired without injury to the cylinders or the firing pin. All in all, with modern manufacturing techniques and materials, it’s a better gun. Although the Sidekick has a shorter barrel—4.5″ compared to the Double-Nine’s 5.5″— at 2 lbs., it slightly outweighs the Double-Nine. The heftier feel to me indicates it’s built with stronger materials. The gun is black anodized aluminum with black checkered plastic grips. It has fluted cylinders where the Double-Nine does not. The Sidekick’s single-action trigger breaks at 3 lbs. while the trigger on the Double-Nine is a little over 4 lbs. Double-action pull on both guns exceeds the 12 lb. limit on my Lyman trigger pull gauge, but it’s not difficult on either gun. Sometimes I just roll off nine double-action shots one after the other to see how close I can group them. It’s not difficult to do, and if I were to encounter a rattlesnake in the woods, that’s probably exactly what I would do. Not that I wouldn’t have killed him with the first shot, you understand, but it’s fun to chop a rattlesnake into pieces with a firearm—and to make good and sure he’s dead.
The Ejecction Rod Handle Has Been Repurposed to Open the Cylinder.
At the writer’s conference, I watched the Diamondback rep swap the cylinders. He showed us how to take a punch and depress the link pivot pin through a hole in the lower front of the frame. It looked easy, and when I tried it on my gun, it was easy. It was so easy I should have, but didn’t, read the instructions ahead of time. Had I read them, I would have learned about the spring and how it would launch the pivot pin if you weren’t careful. It launched it when I wasn’t looking. When trying to put in the other cylinder was when I found myself turning to the instructions. An unattached spring behind the cylinder latch pin? Oops! I keep a magnet with an extended collapsible handle around for such occasions as this. I backed my wheelchair up, surveyed the room, saw something on the rug that looked out of place, extended my magnet toward it and found my missing parts. Had I been in the field when first attempting this cylinder swap, I’d have found myself with a functionless firearm through no fault of the gun or the manufacturer, just my own propensity to do stuff without first reading the directions. It’s not an issue if you know the spring and pin aren’t attached and to watch for them. In fact, it’s a piece of cake.
Outdoor Fun.
For my first shooting outing with my new Sidekick, I wasn’t thinking about paper targets. I thought about aluminum drink cans. I filled up a bucket of them from the family recycle bin and headed for the woods. Shooting cans is so much fun because they scoot across the ground when hit and present target after target. Sometimes they spin around so just the bottom is facing you making a perfect 2″ bullseye. The only reason I get tired of that kind of shooting is because I’m old and I get tired doing anything. I was by myself on this outing, but had I been with sons and grandsons, we’d have come up with some competitive scenarios to make it even more fun.
A .22 Revolver Will Gobble Up Your Old Shorts, Longs and Long Rifles With Ease.
Range Time.
The next day I went to the range to create holes in paper targets and to shoot the Sidekick alongside my trusted Double-Nine. I wasn’t particularly motivated to determine 15 or 25 yard accuracy because that’s not what these guns are about. I wanted to more or less just practice shooting them to see how well I could do. Since neither gun has target sights, the biggest challenge I faced was tilting my head at the right angle for my progressive trifocals to allow me to focus on the front sight. I found when I could do that with either gun, I could actually create some pretty good groups at 10 yards. I started my session by shooting 90 rounds of .22 Magnum using two different brands—Remington and CCI’s Maxi Mag. Then I switched cylinders and shot another couple hundred rounds in each gun. New ammunition consisted of SK Standard, SK Flatnose Match and Winchester Super X Hollow Points. I didn’t notice much difference in performance between the different loads. Next, I did something that only revolvers let me do. I went through an old box containing a mixture of shorts, longs and long rifles with that nasty white corrosion that gets on lead bullets with age. The revolvers don’t care. Shooting the shorts is almost like shooting a gun with a silencer they’re so quiet.
At 10 Yards the Sidekick is Plenty Accurate.
I got some targets worth taking pictures of and had a great time with my double-action, swing-out cylinder cowboy .22s. I’m betting at an MSRP of only $320, you’re going to want a Sidekick for your own shooting pleasure.
David Freeman 