How important is 25 yard accuracy with your edc?

[9mmepiphany]

But the skilled shooter finds little, if any, difference in difficulty between hitting a 14 or 15 yd target, or even between a 5 and 15 yd target.

This reminds me of a newer shooter who I was working with when I asked them to shoot an El Prez.

They were actually slower at 5 yards...because they had to swing the gun further between targets. They hadn't yet realized that they didn't need as refined a sight picture at that range...plus they were tracking their sights between targets

 

[DaisyCutter]

For self-defense, if you shoot someone who is 25 yards away from you, it will be very hard to prove you were in immediate danger.

Unless you're in the boonies of AZ and some nefarious drug/human smugglers decide they don't want a witness. What if you have to, God forbid, engage someone with a rifle or shotgun? Or even another handgun? Also, the discipline for shooting 25 yards is different from 7 yards. At 7 yards I get a "good enough" front sight picture and yank the trigger, at 25 I focus closely and pull the trigger smoothly so as not to upset the perfect sight picture, amd at 3 yards I instinctively point the muzzle and mash the trigger. It doesn't hurt to calibtate your mind and muscles to perform appropriately for the situation. Also, long range shooting exposes issues that aren't as noticable at 3-7 yards.

What if the enemy combatant is using cover or only partially exposed? I try to prepare for more than the obvious and commonly assumed frontal close range assault.

My EDC is a Glock 27. It's my ankle gun on duty. As accurate as my Glock 22, but at the 25 yard line I need an extra second to make hits with it. I know when rushed I throw rounds low/right, and on a "bad day", I'll use Kentucky windage by aiming 6" up/left on my qual target to ensure I hit the scoring area. I'm a southpaw.

 

[Nom de Forum]

Quote:
For self-defense, if you shoot someone who is 25 yards away from you, it will be very hard to prove you were in immediate danger.

Unless you're in the boonies of AZ and some nefarious drug/human smugglers decide they don't want a witness. What if you have to, God forbid, engage someone with a rifle or shotgun?

Precisely. You leave the town here and the next town is not just 6 miles away like it is in more populous states. Civilization disappears quickly and you become a more easily accessible part of the food chain. Seeing targets at thousands of yards let alone hundreds of yards is very easy in the Sonoran Desert. You can be shot at and never know where it is coming from. It is not just the smugglers in southern Arizona, there are plenty of places where opportunistic two-legged predators could make you disappear without a trace.

 

[Nickb45]

Again this is where a steel challenge would expose your issues. I shot my first match last weekend, the first stage was "five to go" I shot the farthest away plate first, every string I missed my first shot or two, low left. On all the stages after I engaged the closest plate first to "settle in" after the draw.

 

[David E]

As far as Steel Challenge goes, the good shooters engage the plate they want to first, be it near or far, to facilitate their transitions.

 

[Ankeny]

I don't care if you're making .15 splits or taking 10 minutes between shots hits at distance are harder than up close.

That sounds like something Capt. Obvious would say. I used to shoot a lot of drills on a 3/4" wide strip of tape about 4 inches long placed vertically on an IPSC target. At 7 yards it was pretty easy to put 5 consecutive shots on that piece of tape (touching the tape to score) while shooting at a cadence of around 1 second. For folks at my skill level and above, the drill was very reasonable. At 10 yards it was more difficult, at 20 yards the percentage of hits dropped dramatically no matter how much time was taken. Of course at 25 yards the drill was all put impossible due to the mechanical accuracy of the gun. Even if the gun had the mechanical accuracy, my wobble zone was more than 3/4" from side to side at 25 yards.

 

[David E]

Change the target to an 8" - 10" plate, then nearly any skilled shooter can hit it from 7-25 yds when they can take as much time as desired for each shot.

But put a time frame on it, then the number of folks that can hit it drops off significantly.

 

[Old Fuff]

Just what were those targets that got knocked down "at well over 200 yards while using a target accurized .45 1911 platform pistol"? I have never seen a ram knocked down by a .45 at 200 yards. I have hit them infrequently, but never seen any one knock one down.

A regular pistol metallic silhouette ram…

Carefully balanced on a narrow rail so that it wouldl tip over if hit with most anything.

The cartridge was a .45 ACP reload using (as I remember) a 200 grain Lyman #452630 backed with about 5.8 grains of Bullseye.

And no, that wouldn’t have tipped over a solidly placed target, except maybe with a very high hit, and they didn't always go down when hit while sitting on that narrow rail.

 

[Pete D.]

25y yards

Why not practice at 25 yards? If you can hit your aim point at 25 yards, you can hit it at three.
The reverse is not true.
I have always considered practicing at three and seven a waste of time and ammo.
Pete

 

[Old Fuff]

I have always considered practicing at three and seven a waste of time and ammo.

Unless you are doing so in a very tight time frame, and using a mostly, if not entirely different technique.

 

[mavracer]

But the skilled shooter finds little, if any, difference in difficulty between hitting a 14 or 15 yd target, or even between a 5 and 15 yd target.

So if there's no difference in difficulty, why would you need to slow down?
Yes the clock is important and it'll show just how much harder distance is. I've pasted plenty of target I've seen what happens to everybody's hits as the targets get moved out.

 

[1911 guy]

Shooting close is an important skill and needs to be practiced, as well as the long shots. Differing technique in sight alignment and trigger management are used.

 

[David E]

So if there's no difference in difficulty, why would you need to slow down?
Yes the clock is important and it'll show just how much harder distance is. I've pasted plenty of target I've seen what happens to everybody's hits as the targets get moved out.

You're the one that said:

I said no matter what the speed not that speed doesn't matter.
I don't care if you're making .15 splits or taking 10 minutes between shots hits at distance are harder than up close.

You've been saying time doesn't matter. It's not difficult for a skilled shooter to hit a pie plate at 5, 14 or even 15 yards when using as much time as they desire for each shot.

Reread my sig line.

Why not practice at 25 yards? If you can hit your aim point at 25 yards, you can hit it at three.
The reverse is not true.

Slow fire, that is true. But since the thread is based on defensive skills, never shooting fast up close and making good hits, leaves a serious weak spot in your defensive shooting skills.

I have always considered practicing at three and seven a waste of time and ammo.

Then you don't understand the dynamics of defensive shooting.

 

[Old Dog]

Slow fire, that is true. But since the thread is based on defensive skills, never shooting fast up close and making good hits, leaves a serious weak spot in your defensive shooting skills.


Quote:
I have always considered practicing at three and seven a waste of time and ammo.

Then you don't understand the dynamics of defensive shooting.

I don't know why anyone wouldn't practice at three and seven yards. But I think anyone who doesn't practice at least out to 25 yards doesn't understand the dynamics of shooting, period.

 

[Deaf Smith]

How important is 25 yard accuracy with your edc?

I can engage way out past 25 yards quite easily with even my snubbies, and do it well.

Yes it is important to me for while it is rare to need that, one can easily have to do a precise shot at closer range and that takes the same kind of skills.

Deaf

 

[Pete D.]

uh?

Slow fire, that is true. But since the thread is based on defensive skills, never shooting fast up close and making good hits, leaves a serious weak spot in your defensive shooting skills.

You are going to have to try to explain that.
Why not learn to shoot fast and make good hits at 25 yards?

Thread based defensive skills? The OP was not specific to defensive skills.... though, yes, many of the following posts were.

Recently I've shot more than I should at 25 yards. I say this because at some point it's no longer practice and simply chunking ammo. I sometimes get frustrated because I'm not make regular hits on the 6" plate. I shoot everything I have from 3-25+ yards. I did find that when I move to 7-10 yards my plate shooting is much improved. I wonder how important accuracy is at 25 yards. Should I worry that I don't hit the plate every time my glock 26 at 25 yards if I hit fast and regular from 3-10? I find that the 26 shows my fatigue quicker than larger guns. I think I am going to begin shooting less rounds while I only shoot 3 rounds per mag to pace myself I still waste a lot of ammo.

 

[mavracer]

You've been saying time doesn't matter. It's not difficult for a skilled shooter to hit a pie plate at 5, 14 or even 15 yards when using as much time as they desire for each shot.

By that logic time doesn't matter because it's not difficult for a skilled shooter to shoot a pie plate at 15 yards in 5 seconds or 4 seconds.

 

[RetiredUSNChief]

Unless you're in the boonies of AZ and some nefarious drug/human smugglers decide they don't want a witness. What if you have to, God forbid, engage someone with a rifle or shotgun? Or even another handgun? Also, the discipline for shooting 25 yards is different from 7 yards. At 7 yards I get a "good enough" front sight picture and yank the trigger, at 25 I focus closely and pull the trigger smoothly so as not to upset the perfect sight picture, amd at 3 yards I instinctively point the muzzle and mash the trigger. It doesn't hurt to calibtate your mind and muscles to perform appropriately for the situation. Also, long range shooting exposes issues that aren't as noticable at 3-7 yards.

What if the enemy combatant is using cover or only partially exposed? I try to prepare for more than the obvious and commonly assumed frontal close range assault.

My EDC is a Glock 27. It's my ankle gun on duty. As accurate as my Glock 22, but at the 25 yard line I need an extra second to make hits with it. I know when rushed I throw rounds low/right, and on a "bad day", I'll use Kentucky windage by aiming 6" up/left on my qual target to ensure I hit the scoring area. I'm a southpaw.

And here are the infamous "what if" scenarios!

I don't think there are actually all that many people who deny that there are situations where longer ranges for self-defense may be involved.

 

[David E]

You are going to have to try to explain that.
Why not learn to shoot fast and make good hits at 25 yards?

Thread based defensive skills? The OP was not specific to defensive skills.... though, yes, many of the following posts were.

As my sig line says, the two things separating the skilled from the casual are distance and speed. Apparently, you have a good handle on the distance part.

But what generally happens is the distance shooter tries to apply the same technique up close, which slows him down.

Most confrontations take place at 7 yds or less. Mostly less.

How's your point shooting? How are your transitions? (Target to target time) How about your one handed firing while protecting a loved one while moving?

Skills all plausibly needed in a defensive scenario.

 

[j1]

The answer depends on what you are trying to do. Self defensive shooting is usually much closer. Why are you shooting at 25 yards?

 

[MrBorland]

That's true if we're talking about "combat accuracy" at plinking speed. Rippin' a fast & clean El Prez drill is just as challenging as shooting 25 -50 yard groups.

You're compareing apples and oranges making a moot point. No matter what the speed distance makes hits more difficult.
Ripping a fast and clean El Prez drill is harder at 15 yards than it is at 5 yards.

I really don't want to wade into this too much more (I'm not even sure some of you know what you're arguing about anymore ), but I'll just try to clarify that I wasn't talking about an El Prez a 15 vs 5 yards. I was talking more about the skills involved in close-range speed-based shooting vs long-range target shooting. IMO, shooting, say, USPSA, at the master level is as tough as shooting master-level bullseye scores.

The reason most think shorter is easier is because they take their sweet time and are satisfied with their "combat accuracy". The basic math comes out to: "close range + plinking tempo + combat accuracy = poor shooting".

 

[Ankeny]

IMO, shooting, say, USPSA, at the master level is as tough as shooting master-level bullseye scores.

I have shot at both of those levels. The skill sets are certainly a lot different.

You've been saying time doesn't matter.

I am interpreting that quote to mean no matter the time, distance increases the difficulty level of the shot. I don't think he is saying time doesn't matter.

 

[Nom de Forum]

"close range + plinking tempo + combat accuracy = poor shooting".

That should be one of the formulas, like determining KE, SD, etc., that are found in the back of good reference books on the basics of shooting.

 

[mavracer]

I was talking more about the skills involved in close-range speed-based shooting vs long-range target shooting. IMO, shooting, say, USPSA, at the master level is as tough as shooting master-level bullseye scores.

I agree as far as raw shooting skills (sight alignment and trigger control), but there are more skills involved in USPSA that are not required for bullseye. A Master level USPSA shooter will be a pretty dang good bullseye shooter, at least everyone I've ever met is but a master bullseye shooter may not do well at USPSA.
There are also some skills that a Grand Master IPSC shooter might not possess that are mighty important. A criminal isn't going to give you a walk through, he's not going to ask "are you ready?".

 

[Deaf Smith]

The answer depends on what you are trying to do. Self defensive shooting is usually much closer. Why are you shooting at 25 yards?

There are cases where people did have to shoot past 25 yards with their handgun to stop a nutjob.

Read Massad Ayoob and you will hear of several cases.

Not all defensive shooting is close range, and not all of it is shooting COM. Sometimes precision is needed and you fight with what you bring, not what is in the gunsafe.

Deaf