Minimum barrel length?

[tallball]

It's the wrong question.

It's actually a question of sight radius, how well does the grip fit your hands, how easy is the trigger, how well does that load work with that gun, and how much does that caliber recoil for you.

If you put a whatever caliber with whatever sights and grip with a 2" barrel in a padded vice and work on different cartridge loads, eventually you will be getting small groups at 100 yards.

The rest is all about the ability of the shooter.

[keithdog]

I'm going to choose the shortest length on the list of options and go with 3 inches, simply because I am going to assume you mean for self defense. If however, you are talking about general target shooting, I'd stick with 5 inch as the longer barrel gun is generally more enjoyable to shoot with less recoil.

[mavracer]

This is a screwed up question what is reasonable accuracy for a 3" barrel isn't the same as what is reasonable for a 5".

[Skans]

It all depends on what distance you are talking about. When I think reasonable accuracy from a handgun, I'm looking for A-Zone on an IPSC target at 25-30 feet, slow fire. That's about a 4" barrel for me.

[rodfac]

It all depends on what distance you are talking about.

Yep, I regularly carry a Smith M60 with a 3" bbl. and adj. sights. Zeroed for 25 yds, I've killed a cpl. woodchucks in our garden. SA with a two-handed hold, I can keep a cylinderful, slow fire, on a tennis ball at that distance. It's a matter of practice, and severe concentration on sight alignment.

In practice sessions, I run through my usual 5-7-10-15 yard drills. My home/farm range is set up for 100 yds from our back porch, and I've set railroad tie plates on end at 20 yard intervals. The plates are roughly 8x15 inches and make great pistol targets. I walk back from my defensive distances, shooting at the plates. Misses start coming at the 50+ range. It's fun, and instructive on just how good you are at trigger and sight work. Rod

[pete2]

The 5" bbl will be easier to shoot accurately, longer sight radius helps. A 6 or 7", even better but it depends on what you want and what you are shooting at. A bullseye at 50 or 100 yards, an IDPA target at 7 yards. Typically a longer bbl isn't more accurate than a short bbl but a gun with a longer bbl is easier to shoot accurately.
My 2 cents..............................................................................

[Mal H]

Since it appears kannonk doesn't wish to respond to any of the numerous questions asked or to clarify what he was going for, it's time for this one to end.

Closed.