I practice 2 types of shooting. Close and personal. 15 feet or less. That is what I believe is a reasonable distance SD.
I can point and shoot, not from the hip but about mid chest level and keep all my shots in the 9 ring of a B-27 target. At 20 feet is opens up a little but still keep them in the 8 ring. Past that I use my sights.
I was told by a cop friend that the farther you get past 20 feet the closer you are to a possible manslaughter charge. True or not I hope I never have to find out.
Who do you plan to CQB pistol gunfight with? Philadelphia lawyers!
Twenty feet is NOT an adequate pistol gunfight SURVIVAL distance; it is, instead, your opponent’s ideal pistol (or knife) AMBUSH distance! I suspect your ‘
cop friend’ has read too many of the old (and erroneous) FBI ‘
Officer Killed’ reports. This fellow needs to ‘
come up to speed’ by studying
more modern CQB pistol gunfighting research and conclusions.
IMO, B-27 targets are huge — Huge! B-27’s are ‘
yesterday’s technology’; and, for certain, you’d never find any target as monstrously large as a B-27 in any of today’s far more sophisticated pistol competitions. If you practice for working inside CQB ambush distances then, if that ‘
pregnant moment’ ever does arrive, THAT will be the same distance at which you’ll, probably, end up getting yourself knifed, or shot.
Inside most successfully conducted CQB pistol gunfights: ‘
Survivors act, and losers react!’ Especially — especially — if you don’t have the prerequisite proprioceptive reflexes to draw a pistol from the holster and quickly place a series of double or triple tap shots into an 8 inch COM @ 8 to 12 yards. Personally I haven’t practiced on anything as large as a B-27 target in more than 30 years; and, if I did, I’d think I was shooting at the ‘
side of a barn’.
In a CQB pistol (or knife) gunfight: Never allow your opponent to sufficiently close the distance between the two of you in order to allow your ARMED AND DEADLY adversary to step into his own preferred CQB engagement distance. A competent gunman has to be, both, smarter and better than that.
What is more, I am convinced that any pistol gunfighter who isn’t, at least, this accomplished should put away his pistols, and take up some sort of other (much safer) recreational activity like fishing or golf. ‘
Why?’ Because survivable pistol gunfighting requires a whole lot more than merely having a gun; and any hesitation-to-engage on your part will only serve to lessen your chances of surviving the event.
I’m reminded of something Sir Winston Churchill once said (and I paraphrase) ‘
If you're going to win the battle then you've got to be every bit as: ruthless, brutal, and merciless as your opponent. Anything less only guarantees defeat ’