pistol shooting distance

i started at 5 yards to get a feel. it's surprising how challenging it is at 5 yards for a beginner. now I shoot at 10 yards and see how much I must learn to correct for. I shoot high and to the left. been doing that for years (only been able to go shooting once a month for the last 5 years)...hope to correct for it now that I have another shooting buddy. :)
 
I have started at 7 yards, then 15 and last trip we moved to 20 yards which is the max for the indoor range. It was good fun.
 
i shoot all my pistols around 5-7 metres.
i dont think my m&p22 is very accurate because i can shoot my shadow accurately at 5m but not my m&p. i think i should buy one thats more accurate so i can practice at further distances.
 
Set up a pop can at 100 yards and have some fun. In still conditions, it not all that hard to hit the can fairly consistently. Variable windy conditions is another matter.
 
I started shooting 5y, 7y, and 10y. I'd throw in the odd 15y or 20 y mag every now and then just to see what happened. Which wasn't much, lol.

Once I got better I basically stopped shooting at 5y and would shoot 7, 10, and 15 yards most of the time.

Now I start at 10y with a couple warm-up groups, then move on to 12y, 15y, 20y and throw a couple groups from 25y and 30y in there at some point too.


Yesterday I was out at our silhouette range (25,50,75,100y rimfire targets and 50,100,150,200y pistol targets). Had the 686 out and was shooting mostly the chickens at 50y, or more accurately attempting to shoot the chickens. Was having better luck with the pigs at 100y. Got 3 of them with 7 shots, which is pretty good for me. Stupid chickens was around 1 for every 6 shots...

So I decide to use my little Beretta M71 .22lr on the big pistol silhouettes. So I trudge out to the chickens. I set them really soft, and even went out to the 100y pigs and set up 3 of them. I was knocking over 3 or 4 chickens with every 8 round mag! And get this....my first shot at the pigs and down it goes! I'm glad I had the place to myself and no one heard me giggling like a little girl. It took another five or six shots to knock over the second one. The last one was a trooper, I shot probably 50 rounds at him, he took at least 7 or 8 of them..... and he's still standing. I didn't have anymore .357 at that point, so I called it a day! :wave:
 
My club's indoor range is fixed at 20 yards. For outdoors it varies from matches where I'm shooting at 10 to 50 yards. The 50 yard target is typically a two foot tall by 18 inch wide steel plate. It's not hard at all to hit that 10 for 10 in slow fire and 8 in 10 when on the clock if that was required.

Target size and lighting actually plays a bigger part in the whole thing. Sure, our groups are tighter closer in and that feels good to chew out the center of a target. But you'll learn more if you shoot out to a little longer distance so the holes are all separate. And for that 12 to 15 yards is pretty much a minimum. If you're able to chew the center out at that distance then push it out to 20 or 25.

On windy days at 25 I'd also suggest there's not much point in shooting seriously for group size. The .22's will be pushed around too much. At that point just shoot for giggles and wait for a calm day for the serious practice.
 
Always enjoy watching the newbies put the target at 15m and even 25m, waste half a box of ammo, get very frustrated as the target looked buck shot with no completely no idea where any shot hit.
Move to 7m to find handguns are not that easy to shoot.

I usually start with paper at 7m, once my group settle down to <1" move to 15m. 25m clay shooting is fun, ~75% hits with 686 using mid loads.
 
I am at best a plinker, with guns that will far and away outshoot me.

The goal from 20yds, indoor, is to keep all of my shots in the black on something like this:

nra_b_5.png


It does not happen as much as I would like, so practice, practice, practice ...
 
grauhanen said:
I recently got a new Buck Mark and have tried it once at 25 yards. I was lucky to hit the 6" bull half the time. I don't know if pistols are for me.
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I believe 1/8" at the muzzle= 8" at 20yds or close to it! I practice at 10 ish yards, and had to learn to squeeze off the shot. I've heard that many make the mistake of using a pistol at 25yds, saying "I can't hit anything" Of course not its hard enough your first time with a rifle and no scope.
 
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