LONG RANGE PISTOL SHOOTING

[SeekHer]

Submitted just as received in the e-mail to me from Suarez International

LONG RANGE PISTOL SHOOTING

I know all about how pistol fights tend toward being close. However, there have been several instances where a long shot could have saved the day. And there have been instances where the lack of skill or confidence to take a longer than usual shot could have stopped the action and saved the day. I know a story about police officers who were within 15 yards of an armored active shooter who did not fire the head shot for fear of missing.

We have pushed our Advanced Close Range Gunfighting students out to 200 yards with CCW carry pistols. I know the “close range” thing is a misnomer, but we do plenty of close and fast point shooting in that class as well. In Houston, a full 1/3 of the class was able to hit an IPSC humanoid steel from standing at 200 yards.

In a nutshell; Using the Meat And Metal point shooting method we can get very good hits out to 7 yards...even 10 yards without needing to refocus on the sights. In fact, you are faster simply using your hand-eye coordination than waiting to verify it via the sights. I know people want to argue this point, but we did it in class and the attendees will verify it. You can take a gun a strip off the sights totally and still be useful and dangerous inside 7-10 yards.

As a matter of note we had one gentleman in Houston repeatedly shoot a 50 yard metal silhouette (all were human sized or smaller) with a totally sightless pistol!

So if we can do this, then what are sights good for? They are good for verifying and refining the alignment that your hand-eye coordination has established. For easy shots, such as found in most CQB problems, you need almost no verification at all. You will need verification when you are taking a shot to a very small target such as an exposed part of the bad guy behind cover, or past other people as in a crowd....or dare I say...a hostage situation.

We have found that accuracy in the CQB environment is more a matter of a uniform and consistent grip on the pistol, and uniform and consistent management of the trigger than any type of sighting at all. These areas can only be established via learning a sound technique and repeating it thousands of times. Most US shooters would rather buy a set of sights they can see at CQB speed than invest in the time to learn and ingrain the hand eye coordination needed. The illusion of buying ability is far more attractive then the work needed to develop the ability in the first place.

I haven’t quite gotten to the point that I will say that sights can become a crutch for some shooters, or that they will slow you down in the CQB environment, but I am getting close to that belief.

So if we only need sights for very small targets or for very distant targets as we took in Houston, what sort of sights will best serve us? The modern technique movement sparked a market for sights makers that literally changed the way guns are used and made. But were the old sights made prior to the MT movement better for what they were intended for? They tended to have no colored inserts of dots of any sort. They tended to have very narrow front sights and simple black rear sights.

What we found as we began shooting at 50 yards was that any type of dots, bars or other items or deighs found on the front sight was distracting to the shooter’s objective of aligning the front sight with the rear sight. The mission was this - Top of the Front Sight level with the top of the Rear Sight, with equal amount of light visible on either side of the Front Sight. Fiber optics, or pronounced dots made it exceedingly difficult to determine the exact top of the front sight. It could be done, but with some effort required.

Additionally and excessively thick front sight made long shots difficult. I have always favored a thin front sight....thin as possible without making it weak. Thick front sights totally covered the target as soon as we moved out farther than 50 yards.

The angle of the sights was a factor as well. Serrations on the front and rear seemed to help provide a visible sharp sight picture at various lighting levels regardless of distance.

So where does that leave us if we can get by with any sights at all (or no sights at all) inside 7-10 yards and only need them for verification and refinement for those small targets or distant targets? And then, what sort of sights should we install on our pistols?

I’ll seek to answer those questions in the next part of this write up.

[Cybrludite]

Last time I was at the informal range out at the Stennis Buffer Zone, I was able to hit about 2/3rds of the time shooting at an old scuba tank at about 50 yards or so taking deliberate aimed shots with my 686. I was also able to hit it with a slug from my Mossberg, which of course tipped it over & out of sight. Not sure I'd try that against someone who could shoot back unless I had no other choice.

[kparker]

I was also able to hit [the scuba tank] with a slug from my Mossberg, which of course tipped it over & out of sight. Not sure I'd try that against someone who could shoot back unless I had no other choice.

Huh? "Tipped over and out of sight" sounds like a pretty good outcome against a hostile shooter! :-)