Rules of engagement and shooting distance

I find it somewhat disturbing that there are those who feel that practice at distances greater than 10-15 is not beneficial. While it is quite unlikely that you would have to engage a threat at 25 yards, the ability to accurately place shots at long distance can greatly enhance short range accuracy. Longer ranges force you to focus on the fundamentals of shooting. Longer ranges also serve as an effective measuring tool for your own abilities with a given firearm.

Long range shots are by no means common in self defense, but the ability to place a shot accurately at 25 yards, or even greater, should not be discounted. One thing that anyone engaged in a life threatening situation should be trained to do is to place distance between yourself and the threat. It may be that no hits are scored by either party at close range, yet the perpetrator does not disengage and you are not able to safely flee. While this is not likely to be the case, it is a possibility. Distance favors the marksman, and the odds of survival are proportional to your abilities. Training only for short range engagements limits your abilities and could place you at a disadvantage. This is opposite to the very reason that we carry firearms for defensive use. In taking responsibility for the safety of yourselves and your loved ones, do you not feel it necessary to be as proficient as possible with your chosen equipment? I have often said that I would rather have a gun and not need it, than to need it and not have it. But having the gun does not equl being able to use it effectively.


DO EVERYTHING YOU CAN TO CREATE ADVANTAGES!!!
 
Take some time and look at the distances involved in our everyday life. You'll find that 25 yards is nothing. Does your office building have any hallways or corridors? I bet many of them are farther than 25 yards. Your parking lot is larger than that if it holds more than a few cars. How about the grocery store you shop at, or the mall, or the department store?

Statistics say that most everyone who carries a weapon for self-defense will not be required to ever discharge it. Carrying ammunition is thus hedging your bets against the day when the averages turn against you. So, why train with the expectations that on that day, the averages will run your way?
 
This thread again demonstrates that folks don't understand statistics. The average is not guaranteed to happen most of the time. It depends on distributional shape.

One of the curses of the gun fight world is a lack of knowledge of how to understand these kind of human factor situations. The methodology is widely known in all kinds of other emergency situations. But not here - just anecdotes and misuse of the concept of 'average'.

How about this - the average man is about 5'9 - is it a waste to spar with some guy who is 6'2?
 
...folks don't understand statistics.
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That may be the truest statement yet. Standard deviation is very important in determining the usefulness of the number that is "average". People ignore everything except that single number we call "average".
 
So, we can pretty much rule out accuracy at 25 yards as irrelevant to self defense and home defense.
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Not necessarily. Practice hitting COM at 25 yards and you won't even have to think at 5.

Distance of engagement depends on what the BG is armed with. Again, he must have means, intent, and opportunity.

If someone with a knife says he's gonna kill you, and he's across the parking lot, he has means (knife) and intent (statement), but not opportunity (too far away). If you shoot at this distance, you might be hard-pressed to defend your actions in court. As soon as he's within knife throwing range, THEN you can engage. If he's armed with a rifle, you can engage as soon as you think you can hit him, since he now has the opportunity (rifle is a long distance weapon).

So, practice at long distance. Practice pulling and shooting from the hip from 3', too.
 
Not necessarily. Practice hitting COM at 25 yards and you won't even have to think at 5.
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I compare it to my archery practice. I set my 20 yard pin and don't shoot a single arrow at that distance the rest of the year, practicing at 30 and 40 yards instead. Right before the season I shoot some arrows at 20 yards, since the vast majority of my deer have been at 20 yards or less, just to be sure. After all that longer range work, 20 yards is a joke.
 
One also has to account for the types of incidents used to derive the "average distance". Many of these include police contacts. Seven yards happens to be the distance between the driver an the officer's car door (plus/minus a foot or two). It also happens to be the distance across the average family living room or recreation room where a lot of DV's (dom.violence) calls are handled.

For civilians, it's likely to be up close and personal. Shooting at 7-25 yards won't prepare you for that 3-8 foot encounter. Nor will it prepare you for handling the "contact" shooting where you're in physical contact with the perp.

There is benefit to training at all distances.

Other statistics show that gunfight with criminals are won by the good guys® the more distance increases. The BG's practice point shooting and close distance shooting but often lack the discipline to train for 15-25 yard shots.

Remember D + C = T & S
Distance plus Cover = Time & Safety.

Also remember that you will never have enough skill to beat your adversary's sudden acquisition of "dumb luck".

For those who see 25 yards as improbable, that distance is about equal to shooting across a 4-lane highway from curb to curb. I'd certainly like to be able to hit someone shooting from a window at that distance. Wouldn't you? Try measuring a 75-ft piece of string and measure from your doorknob to see how far way it is in your neighborhood. Swing it left and right to see how far down the street it is too.
 
Training just for the mean ignores the chance of the extreme situation. You should be able to get around in a person sized target at some distance. The mean isn't what always happens.
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Excellent point! It's a hell of a thing to find out YOU are the statistical outlier when its GO time.


I'm gonna stop saying I'm an average shooter and just go with " I'm a mean shooter. :p It just has a better ring to it.;)
 
1. There are no 'rules' which won't be broken in a gunfight.

2. Your problem will be 'That SOB over THERE, who is trying to KILL me!"

3. Your solution is to hit him center and hard, wherever he is and until he goes down- before he can get that done.

4. The distance to 'over THERE' is determined after the dance is over- and is inconsequential to you, as long as you can avoid incoming and land the hits.

5. Expect (and train for) the worst- and then anything else will be a pleasant surprise.
 
It's like the military insisting on rifles with effective range of 1,000 yards
for 50 years. But only snipers effectively engaged their targets at 1,000 yards.
The normal grunt just sprayed and prayed.
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Tell that to our guys in afhganyland.

-Max.
 
In regard to practical civilian self-defense with a handgun, I think people would be a lot better served by intensely practicing self-defense at very short ranges ie. 5yds instead of 25yds...and working on expanding their skills to longer ranges after gaining expertise at the short ranges.


Too often I think shooters do the reverse ie. a lot of practice at long ranges - 25yds. - and they get hung-up on accuracy at such ranges...but in the process they lightly practice short-range self-defense shooting only as a kind of afterthought.


One of the dangers of long range shooting is that it tends to reenforce a tactical mindset of using the weapon at a range that might be deemed illegal for most real self-defense situations. Shooting a stationary target at 25yds. is great for plinking and hunting, but it doesn't do much to help a person who needs to learn how to use a handgun against a hostile moving target that is only a few feet away. If the attacker is 25yds. away - then argueably there's no reason to be shooting at all; one ahould be getting away to safety - not shooting like a hunter.


Self-Defense is not 'hunting.' Hunting is predatory - and in a courtroom the difference between defending one's life and being a predator will indeed be explored and parsed. ;) Learning the strict limitations of drawing a weapon and shooting it within those limitations - is in a sense much more important than learning to push the envelop of range and 'stopping power.' Again the mouseguns and snubbies take centerstage.:D
 
If the attacker is 25yds. away - then argueably there's no reason to be shooting at all; one ahould be getting away to safety - not shooting like a hunter.
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So if the attacker is 24 yards away, you'll return fire? Do the bullets magically disappear when fired at 26 yards distance? The rounds I and others fired at a steel rifle plate this weekend certainly didn't. And amazingly enough, pretty much every round hit within minute of man even though the distance was approximately 75 yards away.

The 25 yard rule that so many seem to be adhering to is a perfect example of how the square range mentality will get you killed. It's based on the size of most pistol ranges, not reality. The question is not simply how far away the attacker is, but whether they have the ability to do you grave bodily harm or death, and whether they are utilizing said ability.

Escape and evasion is one tool in the toolbox. But people run into the same problem as do those who see the firearm as the only solution: they are locked into a type of thinking that can get them killed. Running away doesn't help if that 25 yards is all in a corridor and the individual is simply sending rounds down range. Unaimed or skip fire are both equally capable of putting rounds in your back.
 
How Close?

"Reasonable" range depends on the circumstance. If you backed away from a bad situation but the attacker grabbed a gun from his waistband 25 yards away you'd be justified. If the attacker had a small knife or fists, probably not.

Here's a good article entitled "How Close is Too Close?"

It's an old article but, IMHO, is still relevant.

http://www.theppsc.org/Staff_Views/Tueller/How.Close.htm
 
Yeah, but if one practices the unlikely situation exclusively, chances are that one is going to be SOL when an actual self defense situation arises.
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What moron would practice exclusively for an unlikely situation?

The 25 yard rule that so many seem to be adhering to is a perfect example of how the square range mentality will get you killed. It's based on the size of most pistol ranges, not reality. The question is not simply how far away the attacker is, but whether they have the ability to do you grave bodily harm or death, and whether they are utilizing said ability.
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Right.

For any given future fight, there is only one known distance that might occur. We know that the fight will not occur at distances closer than physical contact. After that, it may be any distance and not just a distance, but any number of distances as the situation may be quite fluid.
 
Why do we practice at 25 yards? Because it makes us better at 7 yards. If you can hit at 25 you can hit at 7 yards. Hitting at 7 yards dosnt mean you can hit at 25.

I was the OIC of the AK NG SARTS (Small Arms Readiness Training Section). I moved the soldiers to the 600 yard KD ranges.

As you know most of the military qualification is from 25 to 300 meters. When you train soldiers on the KD range, up to 600 yards, the scores on the 300 meter range goes up.

The same works for pistols/revolvers, you practice at 25-50 yards your close combat 7 yard scores are gonna go up. You dont believe it, challenge a Bullseye shooter to a shoot on your 7-15 yard ranges.
 
Why do we practice at 25 yards? Because it makes us better at 7 yards. If you can hit at 25 you can hit at 7 yards. Hitting at 7 yards dosnt mean you can hit at 25.
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That was the point of the 75 yard excercise mentioned above. Several people were having issues with shots at 7-15 yards. So, we fired at 75 yards to show that the problem wasn't with the weapons, nor even the shooters' ability. It was simply a failure to apply the basics when they were under pressure.
 
When asked a hard question, . . . most politicians either change the subject or issue the standard: "It all depends", . . . and many times they are perfectly correct in that statement.

"It all depends" is perfectly applicable to the question at hand here, . . . as there are circumstances where being able to shoot out to 75 or even 100 feet can be the difference between staying alive and becoming a statistic.

The key is to train, . . . as much as is possible, . . . for the "probable" encounter, . . . the "possible" encounter, . . . and then even for the "just in case it happens this way" encounter. No, . . . it will not make you perfectly proficient in all possible scenarios, . . . but it will give you a better chance of surviving.

One poster suggested that at 25 yds we should rely more on evasion, cover, and concealment, . . . but that is only applicable if there is cover/concealment available, . . . and if we are able to evade. At 63+, . . . a bad knee, . . . bum hip, . . . heart trouble, . . . my evasion skills are severely limited.

I shore up my evasion shortfall by trying to be more vigilant, being proactive in staying out of places that have a higher propensity of danger, and by being willing to go into action probably a bit sooner than many others may feel justified in doing.

Some of my range shooting is at 30 feet, . . . because my house has a living room that is 36 feet long, . . . there are shooting alleys in that same house that can stretch 56 feet due to the open floor plan, . . . training only for a 6 to 10 foot encounter in my opinion is counterproductive to my being ready, . . . whereas my 30 to 50 feet shooting may some day be needed, . . . especially in a home invasion scenario.

Again, . . . echoing earlier words, . . . the other guy will set the rules for which we will engage, . . . if we are ready, . . . we may survive, . . . if we are not ready, . . . we will not survive.

May God bless,
Dwight
 
Like DDS pointed out, distance doesn't really matter...if a direct threat to your well-being is six inches away...or sixty yards away, you going to react. How you react will be based on how you perceive your surroundings and how you see yourself using your surroundings to best employ the level of skill that you think you are capable of.

I do know from scenario and simulator training, during their first scenario, many folks are surprised (in a bad way) to find that their ability to react to a fast developing situation is not quite as they expected it to be. We had a lot of wasted movement and wasted shots...myself included. Sight picture, economy of movement and ammunition management went out the window...and many were left standing there with empty mags and simunition hits all over their vests, visors and helmets. It doesn't take long to get into that fight mode in a training environment after that first wake-up call. I actually considered myself ahead of the curve simply because I still had some ammunition left to fight with before the initial scenario was halted.

And so it is really something when you're out in the real world, in your neck of the woods, and the balloon goes up....and suddenly you find yourself in that proverbial "wrong place at the wrong time" situation. Hopefully most of us here at TFL have already mentally run enough obstacle courses in our heads to have a pretty good idea of what needs to get done....and can recognize which of those object/s in our "bubble" that rightly deserve our undivided attention and which ones don't...and even better, can divide our attention enough to not get too stuck in the "tunnel". Hopefully most of us have enough SA and paranoia that they expand or contract that bubble to realistically match their ability to effectively use the tool they carry.
 
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The same works for pistols/revolvers, you practice at 25-50 yards your close combat 7 yard scores are gonna go up. You dont believe it, challenge a Bullseye shooter to a shoot on your 7-15 yard ranges.
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The basic problem, however, is that the scores frequently do not reflect success outside of a very narrow field. Bullseye shooting and the scores from that do not reflect tactical skills, but instead marksmanship skills. I advocate shooting at distance as a means of honing the marksmanship abilities, but one needs an additional skill set for close shootings. My $.02.
 
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