Why to sight a 1911 for 100 yards.

[TooTaxed]

I remember two instances of long range pistol shooting I've seen. The first was when a member of our military pistol team gave us a demonstration of hitting a 200-yd target paper, standing freehand, with his 1911A1 target pistol.

The other was when I was shooting at the old Oroville rifle range one afternoon in the 1950's. Fred Huntington drove up and unpacked an old 1902 Colt auto and a Browning High-Power. At my first shot, a jackrabbit jumped up at about 50-yds. Fred grabbed one gun and emptied it at the jack, picked up the other gun and continued the fun. He didn't hit the Jack, but the dust puffs stayed mighty close! The jack was about 200-yds and still picking up speed when the second gun ran dry. Fred grinned, packed up the guns, and went home.

 

[Cosmoline]

Gunpacker--if you want to sight in your 1911 for 100 yards and try a shootout with a rifle-armed foe, be my guest. But it's a very, very, very bad idea and a good way to go to an early grave. You seem to be counting on the rifle-armed foe missing. I know how easy it is to hit a target at 100 yards with a rifle. And I know how hard it is to do the same with a short gun. I would not advise anyone to roll the dice with life-and-death odds at play. The cop in the shootout discussed rolled the dice, and he got his shooting arm blasted up and another person killed when he rolled them.

You mentioned energy dump. Bullets don't kill by "energy dumping." They kill by tearing big holes through vital organs and systems, and either causing a failure of the CNS or death through blood loss and shock. Shock, BTW, is not surprise or psychological distress at getting hit or having "energy dumped" on you. Shock is caused by a drop in blood pressure. And a hunting bullet from a rifle will do it orders of magnitude better and faster than a .45 ACP's slug.

Speaking of the great wars. Have you ever considered why soldiers are packing around LONG GUNS and why handguns are almost never used for front-line combat? There's a reason for that. The only circumstance I know of where soldiers took the short gun into battle in preference to the long gun were the soldiers who crawled into the Viet Cong tunnel systems.

The bullets-per-hit statistics include covering fire, suppressing fire, and shootouts with dug-in enemies. Both sides were using rifles and heavier weapons. The statistics do not prove that a rifle shooter is going to have even odds against some idiot blasting away with a 1911 at 100 yards.

"Know that the pistol has no value, we practically don't use it. "
Mordechai Anielewicz, 1943, Warsaw Ghetto.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Holy cow! Nobody is suggesting that they would prefer to use a pistol for defensive purposes at 100 yards when better weapons are available, if they are available. It was just a theoretical consideration thought to make a pistol a more versatile fight gun that could be more readily applied at longer distances than pistols sighted in as shorter distances. It is an interesting consideration and maybe if I were in the military where I might have to shoot long range, it might be a good thing to have a pistol sighted in at something other than 25 yards.

Most non-LEO and non-military folks won't ever need to worry about getting into a pistol fight at 100 yards. Yes, it could happen. Yes, it is good to shoot at distance once in a while such that we know the capabilities of our skills and firearms. With that said, such incidents are exceedingly rare. Few people are going to attempt to rob, rape, beat, or abduct you at 100 yards. They are going to be up close and personal.

In regard to the Claude Deckard incident, fine story. You just gotta wonder how a guy who is such a good shot at 100 yards didn't try to correct his aim. After the first couple of shots obviously didn't hit the guy, he would know something is wrong with his aim. Instead, he had a nice tight pattern of misses. Tight pattern or loose, they were misses and were failures to stop the bad guy who had shot two other officers (as I recall).

 

[grendelbane]

Their is a happy medium! Zero your sights at 50 yards, (or 50 meters, whatever )

Then your pistol will shoot a little high at normal pistol range encounters. Big deal. It will also shoot low at the 100 yard range, and again, big deal.

It will be spot on at 50 yards!

For those people who seem to think that a 230 grain .45 bullet loses too much velocity a 100 yards away from the muzzle, I have a suggestion.

Read the ballistics charts. Yes, those bullets shed a little speed, but, they don't lose that much. They are still lethal projectiles, and will do a great deal of damage.

 

[shooter1]

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Holy cow! Nobody is suggesting that they would prefer to use a pistol for defensive purposes at 100 yards when better weapons are available, if they are available.
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Double Naught Spy,

Thank you for making the obvious point that has been lost to so many on this thread!
str1

 

[444]

One obvious point that I think is missed on many of these similar threads is the fact that when the SHTF, you don't get to call time out and decide what gear you need and then go get it. You have what you have and that is that. You don't turn to your gun bearer and say you think this shot calls for a rifle. If you don't have a rifle in your hands you are crap out of luck.
You don't get to choose what options you have. "Oh, I would just run away" Of course you always just decide what is going to happen and everyone else cooperates with your wishes. "Oh wait, this caliber is inadequte for that range, please pass me my heavy"
I could go on, but why ?

 

[Ankeny]

It's your pistol, sight it in any way you like. There, feel better now?