How good a shot is too good?

Both are probably tall tales, but if I had to buy one, I'd believe the AK story. That's possible with dumb luck.

1" groups would have to be repeatable, and I'd have to see it to believe it. I'd ask him to attempt it now to see if he could pull together anything resembling a group.

1 inch 1911 group at a hundred? Possible. Likely hood of doing it once or twice in a life time? Possible, but doubtful. I might be able to beat Michael Jordan in a game of one on one too, but pretty doubtful.

Killing somebody with an AK-47 at 1000 yards? Once again, mechanically possible, but probably more through volume or sheer luck than skill.

Anyone who claims to do either of these things consistently is a liar, or they have a really good job, and are able to turn down the million dollar contracts to be a paid shooter for various gun companies.

When you can be like Chuck Norris and pop out a river with an M60 and wipe out a platoon from the hip in two seconds flat without missing a shot I will be impressed.

I would call those both "Fishy"

Doubt it seriously

One inch groups with a decent rifle at 100 yards is good shooting, offhand is incredible shooting....the same group with a 1911? I don't hink so. A good friend of mine is an incredible shot, he usually pulls off about 1.5 to 2 inch groups at 50 FEET and I'm impressed. I can't imagine even a trick shooter shooting that well at 100 yards with a 1911. The ballistics of a .45 almost negate that claim anyway....anyone know the ballistic stats of pistol ammo at 100 yards? They've got to be dropping like rocks out that far, like 50 inches or more.

The AK story, yea okay. I'd believe a guy was killed at a really long distance with an AK but you know how people embelish a bit with their stories, they probably rounded up...like a few hundered. Or maybe they forgot to mention they went through 30 rounds to get to him! Not just one well placed shot 1000 yards out.

I'd say the guy killed at 1000 yds with an AK had to be one of the most unluckiest people on earth.

In all fairness to the 1" group at 100 yds, he didn't say how many shots were fired for the group. His group could have been 1 shot!

What hoghunting said.

By the way, has anyone EVER calculated the velocity & (holdover) drop on a 7.62x39 at 3000 ft? Those have GOT to be some impressive numbers. Something like 6 mph and 45 ft.
(I obviously really don't know and don't want to know what the real numbers are)

Anything anyone says about what they can do or did do with a firearm is complete and utter bearthread.

Gee, I must be wrong. Had not 100, but 101 competition shooters, now only 100. Don't care to be called wrong particularly by someone still wet behind the ears. Bye.

Bulletfan, not even close. It has been awhile since I've shot a .45 at a hundred yards, but if you hold at the head of an IDPA target you can still hit it center of mass. I belive the drop is about 10-16 inches depending on load(off the top of my head) I can't tell you what it is, but a hundred yards with a 1911 is a whole lot easier than people make it out to be.

1 inch group however, is utter crap. I'm glad to keep all of mine in the -1 zone on an IDPA target.

That said, Ben Shepherd (of this board) can routinely hit clay pigeons at 200 yards with a .41 Mag Ruger Redhawk. (though it does take him a few shots to get on, he averages about 1/3 from sandbags) I wouldn't guess what his group size is, but he shoots a pistol more accurately than most of the people on here can shoot a rifle.

The AK thing is actually relatively believable, just ballistically speaking, but it ain't no one shot one kill.

Plus gun people usually can't estimate range to save their life.

For example:

There is an area south of here out in the hills where lots of people shoot. At one spot there used to be a phone booth sized white rock. We lasered it at 460 yards from road. I got to where I knew exactly where to hold over to hit that thing with my .45. I got to where, as long as the wind was calm, I could hit it about 90% of the time.

So everytime I would take a new person shooting out there, I would look at that rock and say, "see that white rock. How far do you think that is?"

"Oh, about 700 yards."

"Okay, bet I can hit it with my .45 in three shots or less."

"$20 says you can't."

This story writes itself. Did it several times. Sadly, the rock is now a pile of gravel because we bought .50 BMG rifles and it was just too good of a target.

I killed dragonfly last week with my cheap BB pistol about 13 yards. Cut him right in half.

Took about 60 shots, but hey I did it!

Dragonflies have nerves of steel! I would be bugging out after the first basketball-sized ball of steel went whizzing by at a couple-thousand miles per hour! Actually a couple times I hit the branch he was setting on, he would fly around in a cirlce and then land back in the same spot, now that is one tough dude!


What is my point? Pretty much the same as everyone else's points. That dragonfly was like the 1000-yard shot with the AK: Dumb Luck. Groups by definition implies repeatability, so I think the 1911 story is much harder to believe.

A really well made 1911 will shoot under an inch out of a Ransom Rest at 25 yards. Under an inch at 50 yards is phenomenal. At 100 yards, incredible.

A kill at 1000 yards with an AK is very believable. If I wanted to do that, I'd just drop it out of a helicopter into a crowd...

I wouldn't have thought it possible to shoot a dozen or so clay pigions after tossing them in the air if I hadn't seen that trick shooter doing it in that Benelli demo

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If it's the same trick shooter I'm thinking of, it was John Satterwhite, and IIRC he "only" did 8. I've tried the same trick myself - three is easy, four more difficult, and though I have done 5 a couple of times, I won't say how often I tried to do five and didn't quite manage it. Even with the VERY open choke (You could drop a shell into the muzzle of his shotgun, and it would fall in to the rim) Satterwhite was really, really, good.

On the other hand . . .

Elmer Keith claimed that using his cast bullets and his recommended loads, some folks were getting 1" groups at 100 yards with the S&W M29. (Nobody else confirmed this, even with a machine rest.) Elmer also shot that running deer at 600 yards with his M29 and made it sound routine . . .

I saw a man with a .45 shoot at a metallic silhouette chicken at 200 yards and hit it. Of course, he hit the second one in line, rather than the one he was aiming at, but the bullet certainly carried that far.

When I was in college, I fired a 1/4" five shot group from my M70 .30/06 at 100 yards . . . now, my M70 is pretty accurate for a hunting rifle, but being mathematically curious, at the time I did a little statistical calculation and computed that the odds are the barrel will wear out before I do it again.

That's the point - given enough shooting, somewhere along the line there will be what looks like an unusually good shot; the question is, what can be done repeatedly on demand in front of witnesses?

A high school teacher of mine, in class, said he could hit a man "between the eyes at 500 yards every time" with an M1, and that I (meaning me) couldn't hit a man at 10 feet with a .45. He got rather upset when I challenged him to put his money where his mouth was . . . and opened up the bet to anyone in the class who believed him over me. Nobody accepted the challenge . . .

HerrWolfe, there are about 100 guys on this board who shoot High Power competition. They can do 1,000 shots all day.

However they don't do it with an AK, and they certainly aren't doing it with 7.62x39.

El T, I'm inclined to agree with you, unless they shoot in organized competion, with plenty of witnesses, and scores that are publically posted. Most of what people say online is exagerated or fabricated, unless you show me match scores.

I could kill someone with an AK at 1000. If you give me three full mags and make the guy stand still. The sights on my Yugo SKS are graduated out to 1000, ask me if I think those same sights are good for precision at 100 .

My Kimber Custom II will shoot 1.5" at 25 yards. A Nighthawk custom is guaranteed 1". (For $2000 more. More than an inch of improvement is worth to me.) Handgun sights are VERY large indeed when you point them at a bullseye 100 yards away. I would think you would have to put it in a rest and futz with the adjustments for an hour just to get it close.

I agree with what everyone else said. I have a busted watch that's right twice a day. Let's see you do Matthew Quigley with a 1911 repeatedly.

Stats

Muzzle velocity
14.7 g (230 gr) Full Metal Jacket: 260 m/s (860 ft/s)
11.9 g (185 gr) CCI/Speer Gold Dot JHP (from 5in (127 mm) barrel): 317 m/s (1041 ft/s)
14.7 g (230 gr) Federal Hi-Shok JHP (from 5 in (127 mm) barrel): 260 m/s (860 ft/s)

+ P loads

11.9 g (185 gr) JHP: 350 m/s (1150 ft/s)
14.7 g (230 gr) JHP: 290 m/s (950 ft/s)

These numbers barely compete with a .22 long rifle cartrige at 100 yards as far as speed is concerned, I think if he actually hit the paper at 100 yards with 15 magezines downrange, he could probably piece together a "one inch group" to brag about...but the completely shot out frame and surrounding area would have to be ignored.

1911 guy should apply with the Secret Service

AK-47 guy should be a Marine Sniper.

and another who says he knows a guy who killed yet another guy at 1000 yards with an AK-47 in Afghanistan

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That happens every Christmas in L.A. No biggie. Aerial fusillade.

That's the point - given enough shooting, somewhere along the line there will be what looks like an unusually good shot; the question is, what can be done repeatedly on demand in front of witnesses?

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That right there is the key.

Give me an afternooon, my Springfield 1911, and a case of ammo, I am fairly confident I will eventually be able to get 2 or 3 holes within an inch of each other shooting from 100 yds. Please ignore all the other holes in the target.

As far as the 1000 yd shot with an AK. Sure, it is plausable but how did the shooting know it was a 1000 yd shot? By definition, the shot was made under combat conditions (since he was shooting at a person). Did the shooter use a range finder before taking the shot? how was distance measured? How many rounds were fired?

I will always be skeptical of any story that starts with "a guy who knows a guy who......"

I always say the only targets to worry about are your own. There will always be fish storys out there. They don't mean anything.

I got one guy that tells me he used to be able to shoot 1 inch groups at 100 yards with his stock 1911a1,

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If he can do that repeatedly, on demand, then he really ought to be winning competitions and taking home the prizes.

To good a shot

I also believe the 1000 yards with an AK before the 1inch 1911 grouping. I have never shot 1000 yard targets, but have used range finding scoped hunting rifles to target shoot out to a little over 600 yards and was able to get kill shots very easily. With a good high power scope, ballistics chart/range finder, sand bag rest, on a quiet day, I would think I could get into the "kill zone" in a couple of shots, even with the AK. Shooting open sights with a 1911 at 100 yards to get a tight group would seem to be the much harder of the two.

As the guys on Mythbusters would say this is "Plausible"---as opposed to "Busted" (Impossible).

However, both would fall under the category of "Dumb Luck", and its doubtful they could reproduce either, on nay regular basis

P.S. Most guys, either intentionally, or just naturally, overestimate range, and the farther away it is the more they tend to overestimate it. Most "1000 yard shots" are probably more like 500 yards. At 1000 yard a human isn't much more than a tiny dot.

If it's the same trick shooter I'm thinking of, it was John Satterwhite, and IIRC he "only" did 8.

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The current World Record Holder is Tom Knapp
http://www.tomknapp.net/content/home.html

His website is a bit out of date, though.

World Record No. 1 Tom joined Benelli in 1993 when he set his first World record with his Benelli M1 Super 90 by throwing nine standard clay targets (using no assistance) and breaking them with individual shots in less than 2 seconds!

World Record No. 2 On July 19, 2000 Tom Knapp, with his Benelli Nova pump in one hand, threw eight clay targets in the air with his other hand and broke every one of them with individual shots in an amazing 1.87 seconds creating a Manually Operated Pump-Gun classification.

World Record No. 3 In Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on October 20th, 2004 Tom Knapp set out to make history again. With his 12-ga. Benelli M2 fitted with a ComforTech™ stock and extended magazine tube, Tom launched ten clay targets into the air with one hand and shot all ten with individual shots in an unbelievable 2 seconds Flat. The listed timing for each of these unbelievable records have been digitally recorded for accuracy.