Handgun accuracy

[mattgreennra]

My buddy is buying a handgun and he is obsessed about accuracy. He seems to think that you should be able to shoot tight groups at 50 YARDS. I told him he was smoking crack. I don't shoot over 50 feet b/c I think a handgun is a close range weapon.

Other than big-bore magnums, what is "good" accuracy for a handgun at say 50 feet or 25 yards?
I can hit the all black @ 50 feet, but 25 yards w/o bench seems to be more shooter than gun. I have head from wilson combat they have a "1 guarantee @ 25 yards.

Also, is 50 yards for a handgun stupid? What is the max "target" range for a typical 9mm, .40, or .45 handgun?

 

[T. O'Heir]

"...tight groups at 50 YARDS..." That being a relative thing. It depends on what he thinks is a tight group. It's more about the shooter, his firearm and the ammo than anything else. Plus there are lots of people who hunt with handguns. 50 yards isn't unusual for a hunting shot, but you have to be good.
"...don't shoot over 50 feet..." NRA bullseye pistol shooting is done, standing, one handed, out to 25 yards(75 feet). There's also a 'slow fire' stage(20 shots in 20 minutes) done outdoors at 50 yards. The 'X' ring on the 50 yard slow fire target is 1.695". The '10 ring' is 3.36". Down to the 5 ring that's 19.68". Half these for the 25 yard targets.
None of it is done with a magnum of any kind. You can, but you'd be at a serious disadvantage on the 'timed'(4 five shot strings in 20 seconds each) and 'rapid'(4 five shot strings in 10 seconds each) stages. You wouldn't be able to recover fast enough with any magnum. Most of it is done with a .38 Special revolver or semi-auto .38 Special and/or a .45ACP. There's also the National Match Course (10-shots, slow fire at 50 yards, 10-shots timed fire, and 10-shots rapid fire). The timed and rapid are done at 25 yards.
So no, shooting at 50 yards with a handgun isn't stupid. It's normal. Go try it. Shooting matches is great fun.
http://www.nrahq.org/education/training/marksmanship/bullseye_pistol.asp

 

[JoeHatley]

Also, is 50 yards for a handgun stupid?

No.

I'm guessing you've never been to a Bullseye match. 50 yards, one handed, is part of the standard round of fire. Most folks will want a handgun that can hold 2" at 50 yards from a rest.

www.bullseyepistol.com

Joe

 

[mattgreennra]

W/o a rest though, what is a good paper target group @ 25 and @ 50?

 

[Trapper L]

I don't consider myself a pistolero at all. I'm able to offhand shoot a 4" group with most of my handguns at 25 yds. With a rest, these same handguns are capable of under an inch group. My brother is a pistolero. He shoots a Ruger Blackhawk at a 6" steel plate at 100 yds and won't miss- offhand. He can shoot a 1" group at 25 yds with most of his handguns. The guy is very practiced and shoots daily. He is something to watch. And don't get in a point and shoot game with him. From the hip he can keep a can in the air for all the rounds in the gun. I'm lucky to hit it the first time.

 

[SGHOTH]

I have seen good bullseye shooters consistantly put all there shots in a 4" or less circle every time, every day at a range of 50 yards. Thats outdoors with wind, rain, etc.

 

[Bobalou]

Have shot steel silhouette at 100 meters with a TC 22magnum and 3x9 leupold rifle scope offhand and Combat matches with a stock Glock. The accuracy needed depends on what you want to do with the weapon.

 

[evan1293]

"Good accuracy" is relative to what your intended purpose is. As was mentioned, bullseye competitions, ipsc ,ect often involve making shots out to 50 yards. For competition purposes you would really want somthing that can shoot at least a 1.5" group at this distance. A gun tuned to deliver this kind of accuracy is going to be costly. For carry / self defense this kind of accuracy is not a critical. A gun that can shoot under 3" at 25 yards is acceptable for combat shooting. I enjoy '' accurized guns" so I own a Les baer TRS. It is gurenteed to deliver under 3" groups at 50 yards, which is excellent accuracy. Its a great carry gun but is also fun to shoot at the range because I can shoot tight groups with it out to 25 yards. The glock is not know for being a tack driver but I often carry a glock and I feel it has plenty of accuracy for self defense shooting.

Case and point, its all relative to your needs and to what you want.

 

[YoungKiwi]

Most pistols out of a rest or off sandbags are very accurate, but it's means nothing until you stand up and hold one.

As implied above it also depends on what you use the pistol for, what you consider to be good enough accuracy.
I'm a pretty casual shooter these days, so I don't practice much, that said.

With my S&W Mod 14, on a average day I shoot about a 150mm (6") group at 50 Metres (55 Yards)
With my Auto (BUL M5) that comes out to about 200mm and 50M

I am pretty happy that for IPSC shooting that is good enough.

On the other side of the if I'm not shooting less than 30mm groups @ 25 Metres (1" @ 27yards) with my S&W Model 41 (22LR) I am annoyed.

 

[deadin]

I told him he was smoking crack. I don't shoot over 50 feet b/c I think a handgun is a close range weapon.

10 shots, 50 Meters. Don't say a handgun can't be accurate at 50 yds.+

 

[Sarge]

I shoot from some kind of a rest to evaluate mechanical accuracy. Good service pistols will keep 5 shots in 4" at 50 yards. Many will do it just as they come from the box. I expect any defensive piece, including small (PPK size) autos & snub revolvers, to stay inside 3" at 25. True hideout guns should do at least that well at 15.

Target pistols are another matter entirely, and Joe Hatley is correct. 2" @ 50 yards is pretty much the standard. Under 2" is preferred.

I don't test for accuracy at under 25 yards, and such testing also provides the opportunity to address an equally important issue- proper zero. Even a 3" group at 25 yards is plenty good for 99% of what you'll do with a handgun- if you can put the center of that group exactly where you want it.

 

[Tom2]

Maybe look at an official NRA 25 yard pistol bullseye target. Maybe consider what the diameter of the 9 ring, or even the 8 ring, is. That could give you an idea of what a target grade pistol should be able to do. They would not make the thing impossibly small to hit with a handgun, and it is an old design, so it would appear that target grade revolvers, if not autos, were expected to shoot fairly tight groups with centerfire ammo. If the bullseye or 10 ring were too large on that design, too many people would be able to shoot perfect scores. You should be able to shoot tight groups at 25 and 50 yards with an excellent revolver probably shooting something like standard velocity 32 or 38 cal. ammo, or even 44 special cal ammo. Probably the limitations in alot of cases are the shooters, not the guns. Apparently alot of research went into sizing the bullseye targets at one time. I would wager that there are revolvers that can shoot 1.5-3 inch groups at 50 yards under ideal conditions. The run of the mill out of box gun and random ammo maybe not so good. And bullseye matches were shot single action, one hand hold, as I recall. Others that have shot competition can be more helpful.

 

[Hobie]

Several times I've had friends bring inaccurate handguns to me wondering what was wrong. Test firing found that nothing was wrong. Either the gun simply couldn't shoot to their standards, often because of the ammo used, or the owner couldn't shoot well. It is amazing how often bad shooting is attributed to the firearm rather than the shooter.

 

[10 MickeyMouse]

W/o a rest though, what is a good paper target group @ 25 and @ 50?

Excluding really high-end and custom guns combined with very skilled shooters, I'd say 3-4" and 7-8", respectively.

 

[deadin]

If you can shoot a 4" group @ 25 yds on slow fire, timed fire and rapid fire NRA targets (10 rounds on each target), you should be classified as "Expert" (250 out of 300)

 

[JohnKSa]

If you can shoot a 4" group @ 25 yds on slow fire, timed fire and rapid fire NRA targets (10 rounds on each target), you should be classified as "Expert" (250 out of 300)

I can shoot 3" groups at 25 yards with a reasonable level of consistency assuming the gun and ammo are up to it. (For example, I took a CZ-75 to the range and shot several groups with it a week or two ago. I threw away a couple of targets at the range, but when I got home I still had six targets for the best performing ammo--the average group size was just under 3".)

BUT, that was NOT timed fire or rapid fire. I shot at the pace I wanted to. If I couldn't get a shot to break right (began to develop wiggles or felt myself tensing up), I put the gun down and relaxed for awhile before picking it back up to try again.

It was NOT shooting with one hand as one would in a match--I used a comfortable two-hand hold.

It was NOT shooting the 10 rounds per target that one would shoot in a bullseye match--I only shot 5 rounds per target.

In my experience, people are far too willing to write off poor groups as ammunition or firearm problems. I have had a few pistols that wouldn't make nice groups at 25 yards, but it's less common than one would expect from reading these forums. As another example, on the same range trip I shot a 25 yard 5 shot group using my new CW9--the group measured just under 4.4".

 

[Double Naught Spy]

I don't shoot over 50 feet b/c I think a handgun is a close range weapon.

It is a close range weapon, compared to what can be done with a rifle. With that said, artillery Lugers had sights for distances out to 600 meters. It was basically area shooting and the projectile would lose a lot of its velocity by 600 meters, but they guns were set up as long range handguns.

Folks here have stated their prowess at distances with handguns. I know a gun who likes shooting steel silhouettes at 200 yards on a regular basis. He is about as good at 300 as I am at 100. The guns are capable, but the real problem tends to be with the shooter. The short sight radius and often blocky sights of many defensive pistols do not lend themselves to being very good at precision shooting at distance, but with training and practice, the shooter can actually use them fairly well for longer range shooting.

Personally, I find it tough to hit a target where when I aim at it, it is about 1/2 or 1/3 the width of the front sight and then I have to raise the gun above the target so as to get the trajectory needed to deliver the bullet the correct distance.

It isn't about what you think a handgun is for. It really isn't necessarily about what the gun was designed for. It is about what the gun is capable of doing.

 

[The Real Wyatt]

A "pretty good" shooter, not an expert, but one who practices ~100 rounds per week should be able to hit an 8" target 6 out of 6 times at 100 yards with almost any good revolver/ammo combination.

If you don't practice at 50/100 yards, you ain't gonna hit nuthin' at that distance. Practice at 50 feet and you limit yourself to that distance; why set that limit?

But we're talking about shooting for sport. There's a school of thought that says for defensive shooting there's no need to practice at any distance beyond 21 feet.

 

[deadin]

John,
One-hand, Two-hand, I don’t see if it makes much difference unless you are shooting in a match. I do draw the line at benched and bagged however. The only time this should be used as a test of marksmanship is if you are testing the gun, not yourself. Sounds like you’ve got the slowfire stage down. The only difference between 5 and 10 round strings is the second five gives you more time to get the shakes. (Try Free Pistol sometime, they shoot 20 rd. strings) As for timed and rapid fire, the aiming bull is the same size as slow fire but the scoring rings are bigger. A 7 on SF is a 9 on TF/RF. (And, of course, less time to take the shot.)

Real Wyatt,
8”, 6 out of 6 at 100 yds? I have to assume you are talking benched, bagged and probably scoped. 8” at 100 yds equates to 2” at 25 yds and there aren’t too many people that can do that consistently off-hand. At 100 yds there technically isn’t any reason a pistol should be any less accurate than a rifle (in a given cartridge) other than the sight radius . Glass removes that difference.
Every time I hear rifle shooter (or Bench Resters of any stripe) making fun of pistol shooters and their “short” range shooting, I just ask them to get their butts off the bench and see how well they can do.

 

[oldbillthundercheif]

Hell, I saw a service marksmanship unit (Marine?) fellow named Zins (maybe Zinns?) carve out the x-ring at 50 yards once. I guess the military needs its showoffs just like any other enterprise does. The rounds hit on top of each other for the entire course of fire... probably a 3/4" group and I'm being fairly conservative in my estimate as I didn't score the card.

I can keep the majority of my rounds near the middle of the target in bullseye matches, but some people are downright freakish.

Even your average Joe should be able to hit a man-sized target most of the time at 50 yards, though, as long as their trigger technique isn't too bad.