[Abominable No-Man]

At what distance do you practice with you pistol?

That was a question asked me by a one of my wife's friends yesterday.

As it turned out, my weekend plans for going shooting weren't
completely blown out of the water by the last-minute "hey-you" Army BS that inevitably creeps up whenever I make plans. So I was able to escape for a couple of hours to the local indoor range down here to vent some of my frustrations. My wife wanted to go, too, and a friend of hers decided to tag along at the last minute. We had a good time punching paper, and my wife's friend, who had never shot a pistol before, really got into it (maybe I made a conversion...you never know...). Anyway, at one point, reeled the target out to about the end of the range just to see what I could do (didn't do too bad, thank you very much......), and she asked me if I normally practiced with the pistol at that range. When I said no, she asked me, if I had to shoot an intruder how far away might they be.

I figured realistically about ten feet. Anyone ever come across an instance where a home invasion or a similar occurance was more than that? And if that is the case, does that make you practice at longer ranges than normal?

ANM

[rwmagnus]

I usually practice 7yds, 15yds & 25yds with IDPA style target. For accuracy shooting I'll use a target 22 pistol at 25 and 50 feet.

Never hope to find an intruder nor have to shoot one but I'd think your answer is pretty good. I wouldn't want a hostile person much closer.

[DMK]

I practice at an outdoor range where I only have two choices for handguns, fixed lines at 15 and 25 yards. I do most of my practice at 15, but also put some targets out at 25 for slow fire, practicing smooth trigger control.

Realistically though, I'd think it would be very difficult to justify shooting somebody at 25 yards unless they already had a gun out shooting at you or somebody else.

Standing out there at the 25 yard line and looking back to the people standing around behind the firing line, I think it would be difficult to even determine if they had a real gun or something else in their hands, even in broad daylight.

[fourdeuce82d]

80% at seven yards- 10 % 15 yard plates...the rest mixed (sometimes try to plink clay pigeons on the fifty yard berm for S&G)

[Abominable No-Man]

Okay, I can see extending it out to seven yards. 21 feet really isn't that far. So figure 10 to 20 feet?

Funny, I never gave this much thought.

ANM

[B27]

Arms length to 75 yards.

[Standing Wolf]

I have a hunch the thing to practice isn't accuracy at any given distance, but getting one's carry gun out of the holster and into business in P.D.Q. order. I still can't do it very quickly, but am working on it.

[Zeke Menuar]

I practice at distances between five and 15 yards. Multiple targets in a hurry, two shots on two, three and sometimes four targets. Fast mag changes and that sort of thing. Anything over 20-25 yards calls for a rifle. Eyesight isn't so good( New glasses on the way, that could change).

ZM

[JNewell]

One yard (arm's length) and out, mostly 15 yards and under. Techniques that work at 25 yards don't work a 7 yards, and techniques for 7 yards won't work at one or two yards.

[longeyes]

I have a feeling Standing Wolf's right: if the worst happens it is probably going to be a very close range and speed of deployment will be a far greater factor than accuracy at distance.

That said I do most of my range practicing at seven yards, the outer edge for "personal defense."

[C. H. Luke]

This is an excellent overview of what "Training" really is reguardless of distance, etc.:

http://www.defenseassociates.com/rkba.htm

[Dr.Rob]

Contact distance to 25 yards.