Our world has changed considerably. Gone are the days that even the average concealed carrier presumes that the only threat possible will be within a few feet in a parking lot or dark ally.
The majority of defensive gun uses still do happen within, typically, the length of a car or closer. However, there are more and more outliers, to the point of begging the question, is it truly an outlier event anymore? These statistics have been skewed primarily due to increased active killer interdictions that have required further-than-usual engagement.
The most compelling outliers that come immediately to mind are: 1) Andy Brown’s interdiction of an active killer at Fairchild Airforce Base in which that Military Police Officer stopped a rifle-wielding maniac with his Baretta 92 at 70+ yards, one of several shots he fired hitting the killer in the head. 2) Eli Dickens’ interdiction of a mass killer in a mall, firing 10 rounds at various distances, but his initial four rounds were fired at 43 yards and he connected with two of the four rounds at this distance.
Recently I did a walk back drill, shooting out to about 60 yards while on an outdoor range, on plates that were smaller than a C-zone steel, but larger than an 8-inch plate, so a good representative size for an effective body hit. At 60 yards I dropped as many shots as I hit with. This was with my iron-sighted Glock 19. Some time back I shot a 12 by 12-inch steel plate at 60 yards with my Walther Q5 pistol that has a red dot on it. I not only went clean on the rounds fired with the dot gun, but made the hits quite rapidly. I struggle with irons, but with the dot it was like beating the plate because it owed me money. This leads me to believe that my inconsistency with irons is due to vision issues, not grip or trigger press.
I have not shot the Q5 in over a year, but this past week I put 200 rounds through it. Most was shooting close and fast, working on dot tracking. However, I fired a single run of 25 yard B8. Using cheap Blazer ammo, I still pulled a 98. I can’t even come close to that with irons.
The takeaway might seem obvious: put a dot on my carry guns. Still, I am not there, as I cling to simplicity, even though I am just as comfortable with shooting a dot as with irons. I encourage a serious shooter to be able to consistently hit the 8-inch down zero of an IDPA target, off hand, at 25 yards, and the Down-1/C Zone, off hand, at 50 yards. While I can generally do that with irons, the dot proves exponentially superior for distance accuracy, and enhanced speed at those distances. The increase in outlier events proves a persuasive argument for the dot.
Simplicity or the undeniable increase of distant accuracy? What do you say?
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