What is effective?

What is your effective range? How far can you shoot accurately? And, perhaps, even more importantly: how far will you actually ever be called upon to shoot?  Let's talk about these things briefly while you look at the above picture.  For this post we will speak concerning handguns as this is far more applicable to the everyday responsible gun owner than, say, carrying your musket around everyday. (I have written extensively about CCW on my older blog and I will work on distilling or perhaps even reporting the content here).

Let's talk effective range and what that actually means. The great thing about good training is that there aren't many super-secret double meaning phrases or terms. Effective range is simply at what range are you effective? Even better, what is the maximum range you can be effective? 

This is highly personal and will vary from person to person and skill level to skill level.

Let's define effective for the sake of argument. Effective is not missing. You cannot miss fast enough to catch up in a gunfight. Which, brings up another component of effective: time. So, effective is not missing as fast as you can.  Or, in other words, shooting as fast as you can guarantee hits.  It's been said: fast is fine, but accuracy is final.

Your level of effectiveness will obviously change when you add distance to the equation. For example, at 5 yards you can be blazing fast and accurate. In fact, you have to be because there isn't much time or distance between you and your adversary. 1/10ths of seconds mean the world.

How far away can you guarantee hits? You're responsible for every single bullet that exits your gun whether you're being shot at or not.  If the threat is too far away, should you bother throwing lead you know will not hit its mark? What's the backdrop? Can you create distance? Do you have to close the gap and engage? Can you get to cover? So many factors to consider, there is no concrete answer except you cannot miss. 

Training plays a big role here. You can increase your effective range with good, solid training and frequent practice.  If you won a gun you owe it to yourself and your community to get training and a CCW permit (where required by law).

This plays into our next question. How far can you accurately shoot? Test yourself. Push your limits. This is not a speed exercise, but an accuracy exercise. See how far away you can hit center of mass on a silhouette. 

Train. And train outside your comfort zone. Anyone can spend all day at the 7 yard line and feel good about themselves. But what are you actually proving? You're only competition is yourself. You can't pick the skill level of your opponent, but you know yours and how far and hard to push yourself. Plus, if shooting from 25 yards becomes easy then that only helps your closer range shooting.

Train outside what's easy and comfortable. (Be safe about it) but train.

Oh, and if you're, wondering. The above picture is off-hand G17 9mm at 40 yards. Not perfect, but don't let anyone tell you it's not a practical shot. 

Good training.