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Old February 15, 2010, 09:01 AM   #26
smince
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I know all about how pistol fights tend toward being close and fast. However, there have been several instances where a long shot could have saved the day. I recall reading statements from some witnesses of various “Active Shooters” detailing how they saw the shooter twenty-five, or forty yards away reloading his rifle. And there have also been instances where the lack of skill, or the lack of confidence, on the part of police officers to take a longer than usual shot could have stopped the action and saved the day. I know a story about officers who were within 15 yards of a fully armored rifle-armed active shooter who did not try to fire head shots for fear of missing.

I think that while we should definitely prioritize the close range problem, we should not ignore the possibility of the longer shots.

We have pushed our Advanced Close Range Gunfighting students out to 200 yards with CCW carry pistols. I know the "close range" thing sounds like a misnomer, but we do plenty of close and fast point shooting in that class as well. Recently, at a class in Houston, Texas, after several hours of training, a full 1/3 of the class was able to hit a man-sized steel target from a standing position at 200 yards. The reason we shot from standing was simply that there was too much brush to use any sort of supported shooting position.

As a matter of note we had one gentleman in Houston repeatedly shoot a 50 yard metal silhouette (all were human sized or smaller) with a totally sightless pistol!

What we found as we began shooting past the close range envelope at 50 yards was that any type of dots, bars or other designs found on the front or rear sights were distracting to the shooter's objective of aligning the front sight with the rear sight. Misalignment of a small degree spelled complete misses here.

The mission was this - Top of the Front Sight must be held level with the top of the Rear Sight, and the shooter must see an equal amount of light visible on either side of the Front Sight. Fiber optics, or pronounced dots made it exceedingly difficult to determine the exact top of the front sight. It could be done, but with some greater effort required.

Additionally and excessively thick front sight made long shots difficult because the width prevented indexing on the visibly smaller target. I have always favored a thin front sight....as thin as possible without making it weak. Thick front sights tended to totally cover the target as soon as we moved out farther than 50 yards. At 100 yards, hits could still be made but not very often, requiring the shooter to align the sights as best he could and then estimate where the target was. At 200 yards, it became even more obvious that the type of sights on the pistol helped or prevented any hits.

The angle of the sights was a factor as well. Serrations on the front and rear sights seemed to help provide a visible sharp sight picture at various lighting levels regardless of distance. That said, some folks in class were using those fiber optic sights as well with good effect. Most of our distance shooting was done in the afternoon as the sun was dropping lower in the sky. - Gabe Suarez
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Old February 15, 2010, 11:21 AM   #27
Double Naught Spy
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I took an advanced defensive handgun course in Nov. 2008 and we shot at a 1/2 scale silhouette plate at 50-75 yds. Ringing it with my Glock 26 wasn't difficult at all.
Shooting 1/2 size targets isn't the same thing as shooting full-sized targets at double the distance.

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He talks about the Mumbai/Beslan-style attacks and terrorist. He feels it's only a matter of time for these to happen here and for cops as well as CCW armed people, you many very well need skills to use your handgun past normal defensive range.
I agree completely. However, who is going to pay to cover all the expenses to bring our police officers up to speed of hitting moving targets with their pistols at 100-200 yards? I am not talking about just plinking, but actually learning to fight at those distances.

How successful are our current short range training and proficiency programs. Cops tend to his 25-30% of the time and certainly most of their shootings are inside of 25 yards. So if that is all that we are getting out of our officers, on average with the current sorts of programs we have, what is it going to take to make our officers be able to be comparably proficient at 4-8 times the distance? Do we really think the current real world proficiency figures reflect officers getting and maintaining the best sort of instruction to make them good fighters?

Based on my experiences with Joe Public in CHL classes, the vast majority of CHL holders don't even carry a gun with them most of the time and few see a range more than once or twice a year, some even less. The vast majority of the public concealed carry folks are going to have trouble beyond 20 yards, maybe less, because they do nothing to maintain their skills.

Even amongst people of this forum, there are those who think long range shooting can't be justified legally (which sounds silly, does it not) and/or think long range defensive pistol simply isn't practical.

http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/...e+self+defense
http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/...e+self+defense
http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/...e+self+defense
http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/...e+self+defense
http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/...e+self+defense
http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/...e+self+defense

It will be a long fight to get folks onboard with the idea of needing to be proficient and maintaining proficiency with a pistol at longer distances. And here I definitely do NOT want to stress bullseye stationary target proficiency, but combat moving target proficiency involving aspects of shooting on the move and shooting from less than ideal positions. Look at all the officers in the North Hollywood bank robbery shooting that were attempting to engage the robbers at 75-150 yards from around corners, from underneath cars, around the bumpers of cars, etc.
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Old February 15, 2010, 11:40 AM   #28
smince
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Shooting 1/2 size targets isn't the same thing as shooting full-sized targets at double the distance.
No kidding?

I was merely making a point to a previous poster: if I can hit half-scale targets with a G26 at 75 yds, a full scale at 200 with a service pistol isn't really much more difficult. I can hit farther with my G26 if necessary, and it only took a short time for everyone in the class to be hitting at the 75 yd. distance.

It really doesn't require massive amounts of time or money to do.

Quote:
However, who is going to pay to cover all the expenses to bring our police officers up to speed of hitting moving targets with their pistols at 100-200 yards?
Just say "It's for the children" and the .gov will pick up the tab...

Last edited by smince; February 15, 2010 at 11:52 AM.
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Old February 15, 2010, 11:27 PM   #29
Deaf Smith
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Just say "It's for the children" and the .gov will pick up the tab...
While that is funny... Guys, why do we sit around and wait for the 'government' to do anything?

What is Sam Hill is wrong with us?

Now if you the boat you are in might sink if you don't put the plug in the hole near the transom do you wait for the 'government' to do it?

Do you wait for the 'government' to put a fire extinguisher in your car (you do have one of those in it, right?)

Do you wait for the 'government' to put a first aid kit in your car (please tell me you do have one of those in it, right?)

If the police are too lazy to practice themselves, even after such warnings as North Hollywood and what happened in India, well it's their arse Cochise. Those that are committed do, those that aren’t, don't. Simple as that.

As Farnam has said, 'You are on your own.'
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Old February 16, 2010, 02:13 AM   #30
Double Naught Spy
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It really doesn't require massive amounts of time or money to do.
If you are talking about police departments, then it really will be a lot of money. First, there will be the expenses of bringing every officer up to speed. That means you are paying their salaries and the salaries of the trainers for the extra training. If you have a large department like Dallas with 3500 officers or so and getting folks to the level of being proficient at 200 yards is going to take at least a couple of hours. So that is 7000 hours of salary costs that will be incurred. That means that the extra training will cost as much as funding 3.5 officers for a year. The average 1 year Dallas officer makes roughly $42K.
Assuming that would be the average for the department (and it isn't - this would be very low), then you are looking at $147,000.

Let's say that the department can make their officers proficient at shooting stationary targets at 200 yards with just on 50 round box of ammo. Let's say that the department is getting the super bulk discount for ordering in large quantities and each box of ammo costs only $5. That adds another $17,500 to the costs making a total of $164,500.

Shooting stationary targets, however, probably isn't going to be the shots officers are likely to be getting given scenarios like Mumbai and North Hollywood. So how many more hours is it going to take per officer to be proficient at hitting moving targets at 200 yards with pistols?

I would be willing to bet that it would take at least three times as long and three times the amount of ammo to become proficient with moving targets at 200 yards. That adds another $493,500 for a total of $658,000.

Maybe you are a small department with just 100 officers. Assuming the same training times and costs, then you are looking at $18,800

Assuming that you get officers up to speed in hitting stationary and moving targets at 200 yards with handguns, what percentage of those officers are going to still be proficient the next time qualifications come around? For every officer who can't do it, more costs will be incurred with retraining.

Getting officers competent at slow fire marksmanship is nice, but the problem orientation isn't for slow fire marksmanship. The problem orientation stated was for fighting combatants such as those from Mumbai or North Hollywood. Getting officers to be effective long range pistol combatants and keeping those skills proficient will involve significant costs.

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Just say "It's for the children" and the .gov will pick up the tab...
No, they won't. Many departments have trouble as it is just with getting funds to add new officers and getting new gear. To incur the costs of additional training, departments are either going to have to cut other aspects of their budgets to cover the training, or successful justify the need for the training to their respective governing entities and get funds for a larger budget.

Look at the track record for getting patrol rifles in squad cars. How many departments have managed to be able to afford getting patrol rifles in every squad car? Contrary to what you might think, costs are a very real hurdle that must be overcome to implement such programs.
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