When I first started thinking about CCW, I figured there was no need to defend yourself from someone beyond bad breath distance.
After all you don't get mugged by someone from 75 feet away.
But in recent years, with shootings in theaters, large parties, or night clubs perhaps it's useful consider longer ranges.
At least practicing at 25 yards or even a bit more seems worthwhile.
And it might be useful to consider the very unlikely need for a longer range defensive shot when selecting your carry gun. Perhaps, if you want to stick with J frames, a 3" with adjustable sights.
Three thoughts on this:
1) Zero distance with a self defense handgun
People often ask what distance they should zero a handgun - 5 yards, 10 yards, 25 yards - as if it actually made a difference.
Handgun cartridges are not flat shooting, but even at a lowly 700 fps, a .38 special isn't going to drop much in the time it takes to travel 25 yards.
The angle of departure also makes a big difference at short ranges, and most front sight heights on a handgun will vary from .5" to .8"
In practical terms this means my Model 66 with a .8" sight height zeroed at 5 yards with 700 fps 158 gr .38 Special ammo (about as slow as it gets) it will print .5" high at 10 yards, 1.0" high at 25 yards, .9" low at 45 yards and 1.8" low at 50 yards.
If I zero at 10 yards, it will be .3" low at 5 yards, .3" high at 25 yards, .8" low at 30 yards and 4.4" low at 50 yards.
In however I zero it at 25 yards, it will be .3" high at 15 yards, and .4" low at 30 yards, and will be 3.9" low at 50 yards.
If I zero it at 50 yards, it will be about 1.0" high at 10 yards, 2" high at 25 yards, and about 2" low at 60 yards.
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The purpose of adjustable sights on a handgun is to allow that handgun to be re-regulated for different loads. Most folks understand that a lighter, faster bullet will shoot lower in a handgun than a heavier, slower bullet as the muzzle rises more prior to the bullet exiting with the heavier, slower load, increasing the angle of departure. Most .38s and .357s for example are regulated for 158 gr loads and will shoot a couple inches lower at normal social shooting distances with a 125 gr load.
If you've got fixed sights, the load selection will largely determine point of impact and 'zero' distance.
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For self defense shooting purposes it makes no significant difference what distance you choose to zero a handgun as long as it's somewhere between 5 and 50 yards. The good news is that even if your handgun does not have adjustable sights and shoots a couple inches off point of aim at 10 yards, it won't matter in a self defense shoot at normal ranges where you are shooting center of mass.
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Personally, I zero my adjustable sight snub nosed revolvers at 5 yards as it will put me within 1" of my line of sight from 0 to 45 yards. I'll zero my 4" and 6" revolvers at 50 yards, mostly because I like to shoot them at 25 and 50 yards, and I can easily hold 2" low at 25 yards and hold dead on at 50 yards. And being 1" high at 10 yards is a non issue in a self defense shoot.
2) Snub nosed revolvers are capable of greater accuracy than most people who shoot them.
People equate short barrel revolvers with "inaccurate" but that's not the case.
A short barrel revolver has a commensurately short sight radius, but that just makes sight alignment more critical. A given amount of alignment error with a 3" sight radius will have twice as much error on the target as the same amount of alignment error with a 6" sight radius.
In "short", that just means you need to be more precise in your sight alignment if/when accuracy matters with a short barrel revolver, but it does not mean that you cannot shoot accurately with a snub nose.
Under ideal lighting conditions, the Mk 1 Mod 0 human eyeball can detect differences in width as small as .005", and well made iron sights are designed to create a sharp edged high contrast sight picture where you can compare the white space between the black sight elements.
With my 2.5" Model 66 with it's 4.3" sigh radius, a .005" sight error produces only a 1" error at 25 yards. In if you double the error to .01" that's only 2" at 25 yards, or 1" at 12.5 yards.
3) Lighting is important.
As noted above accuracy with a short barrel revolver is attainable if you've got sufficient grip and trigger control to allow you to maintain a good sight picture - but that sight picture is very light dependent.
In aggregate, police officers in the average police department demonstrate hit percentages that are only in the 15-25% range depending on engagement range, lighting conditions and the number of officers involved.
Even the best trained officers suffer a performance decline in low light. For example, Baltimore County PD has some of the best training in the country and over a 13 year period achieved a 64% hit percentage in daylight shootings. But in low light that hit percentage dropped to 45%.
As an aside, many people claim that police officers do not use their sights in real world shoots, and many officers will report that they do not remember using their sights. However, the fact that hit percentages decrease in low light suggests otherwise, whether they remember it or not.
A well trained officer will at a minimum place the front sight on the assailant and with sufficient practice and a well developed grip and muscle memory, the rear sight will be well enough aligned all on it's own for accurate combat shooting.
If you're one of those folks who don't think training to use the sights matters, you might want to re-think it.
Range also plays a factor with the hit rate at ranges over 7 yards being only about half the hit rate at less than 7 yards.
Low light also plays a factor in mistake of fact shootings. About 25% of all shoots by law enforcement officers are mistake of fact shootings where the officer thought a weapon was present but where one was not ultimately found. About half of mistake of fact shootings involved the suspect making furtive movements and about 75% of mistake of fact shootings occur in low light situations.
You need to be aware that while the courts give officers a great deal of attitude in a mistake of fact shooting given their role in the community. However, as an armed citizen you will receive absolutely no latitude at all - mistake of fact shootings occur in armed citizen self defense shoots, they just are not called that when the individual is charged or sued. Officers also have Dept. attorneys and liability coverage behind them that you won't have, so you will be fully liable for each round you fire.
Adding it all together
A shooting in a theater will create several conditions that are not conducive to accuracy:
- You're going to be shooting under extreme stress where you will devolve to your lowest level of
MASTERED training. People are notorious for over estimating their level of mastered training.
- You're probably going to be shooting at ranges over 7 yards.
- You're going to be shooting in low light conditions, which will degrade accuracy and increase the potential of a mistake of fact shooting.
- You're probably going to be shooting in an environment with lots of bystanders and the shooter will probably be moving among them.
If you are serious about training for this type of scenario, you need to train not just at longer ranges, but also in low light conditions and you need to consider getting a set of tritium night sights to improve the low light sight picture, or at a minimum get a tritium front sight that you can place on the target.
