Double Naught Spy
Sus Venator
Not always.
This is strangely true. I have worked with some longer range shooters who had trouble shooting quickly and well at 5 and 3 yards. What is fast for shooting at 50 yards and hitting a target inside a 6" circle is virtually all day long at 5 yards. Sure, they could hit at 5 yards, but were horrendously slow. When they tried to keep up with the "short range" (defensive) shooters on speed, their accuracy was crap by comparison. Why? Simple. The way in which the targets were addressed by the long range shooters was really very different than what was done by the short range shooters. They each addressed the target and consistently shot based on their shooting needs and contrary to what was perceived, the long range shooter's skills did not immediately translate into the seemingly easy short range shooting distances and times of defensive shooters. Yes, they could shoot very well up close, but not quickly.
I will say this, most of the short range shooters really didn't expect to be great shooters at long range, even when they slowed down. The long range shooters extremely minute detail attention to sight alignment was something short range shooters had not practiced and as a result, did not fair as well.
The bottom line was that being very good at one type of shooting need, defensive short range shooting where time is critical did not translate very well to long range shooting and vice versa.