I think I'm somewhere in this general area. I want a gun that is capable of good groups, and I will test them all to see if they are good enough in my hands to suit me. And I'm likely to sell any that won't meet some nebulous standard of accuracy that probably varies a bit from gun to gun, but generally they have to be capable of good tight groups.I hate group shooting. I do like to be able to hit things. Even far-away small things. So I work on accuracy. But I truly hate shooting groups. I’ll try to hit the upper a-zone on a USPSA target at 25 yards. I’ll happily bang away at a steel plate or popper at 100+ yards. I’ll try to chew out the x ring on a target. But shooting groups is a chore.
I was on another firearm-specific forum and a debate ensued regarding how accurate your self-defense firearm needs to be.
Disparaging comments were made towards the few people such as myself that actually test for accuracy at 25 yards and select self-defense ammo with accuracy in mind. To me, it made sense to carry a gun I was completely confident in it's ability to make a head shot at 75', even if I was incapable of such accuracy in a high-stress scenario.
But one of the insults hurled at me caused me to have an epiphany. The poster suggested that if shooting tiny groups gave me a tingle in my leg, then fine, but it didn't make a bit of difference in the real world.
Maybe, maybe not.
But it made me realize that I DO enjoy shooting as small of groups as possible.
I had just assumed that everyone else did as well.
But I realize that a lot of shooters concentrate on defense drills that emphasize speed and just "getting hits on paper" and eschew the slow fire discipline of getting as small as groups as possible.
And that makes total sense for a carry pistol and is absolutely critical for self-defense. I admit that I need to concentrate more on developing that skill to the level of my ability to make tiny slow-fire groups.
But I still get a large amount of satisfaction from making little groups.
I've re-discovered the fun of when I was a youngster shooting with friends and family when we would be at the family cabin or out camping, and collect the empty aluminum cans from the previous night's imbibing and put out a dozen or so cans on a dirt hillside at various distances and heights, then see who could hit the most cans the fastest. Might not be official self-defense drills, but it is relevant practice and completely more fun.
I guess my question for other shooters here is, do you find getting small groups and optimizing accuracy fun, or think slow-fire at a single target boring and not really important in the grand scheme of a self-defense firearm?
I never poke fun at people doing tactical drills or that type of shooting. I wish they would shut up and do the same for those of us target shooting.
I hate group shooting.
I took a self defense handgun class a couple years ago and they did a drill of drawing from holster and engaging a target 10ft in front of you. Basically the example they wanted to stress is fast can be better then accuracy. I practice drawing so I thought I was doing pretty good and I had a small group center mass on the target. After the drill was done the instructor looked at my target and said my group was too small, which meant I was going too slow and should speed up. I just nodded but I know I wasn't the last one to finish firing during each string. So basically my practice and accuracy worked against me in the class. I kinda took the rest of the class with a grain of salt.
"Small" is always relative, but for the competitive shooting I'm doing (IDPA), keeping them inside 4" at 50 yards with .5 - .75 sec splits has been my goal for the last couple of yearsRight or wrong, shooting small groups at 25 and 50 yards with a defensive pistol has been my obsession for the past 20 years.
I only want to be able to knock down steel plates at reasonable distances and quickly.
Disparaging comments were made towards the few people such as myself that actually test for accuracy at 25 yards and select self-defense ammo with accuracy in mind. To me, it made sense to carry a gun I was completely confident in it's ability to make a head shot at 75', even if I was incapable of such accuracy in a high-stress scenario.
But one of the insults hurled at me caused me to have an epiphany. The poster suggested that if shooting tiny groups gave me a tingle in my leg, then fine, but it didn't make a bit of difference in the real world.
"Small" is always relative, but for the competitive shooting I'm doing (IDPA), keeping them inside 4" at 50 yards with .5 - .75 sec splits has been my goal for the last couple of years