So, I'm pretty curious here - What do people feel like is an adequate level of 'precision' and/or inherent accuracy for a carried handgun (I believe both terms mean the same thing here, I could be wrong)? I have my own opinion on this subject (of course), but I am curious as to the thoughts of other folks doing a lot of shooting.
ETA: With the caveat that any carry gun should be 100% reliable even if that means sacrificing some accuracy for reliability.
-Rob
I feel warm and fuzzy at or better than 2" @ 25yd.
And, I'll tack on an additional question, is that with high-grade ammunition (defensive/match grade), or do you want close to that with off-the-shelf box stuff like Lawman, Blazer Brass, etc?
Personally, I generally start to feel warm and cozy about 2-2.5" @ 25 yards with quality off-the-shelf box stuff and I feel really comfy and sleep well at night at <2" @ 25 yards with match grade and quality defensive ammo. Which is one of the reasons I was still shooting revolvers so much, because I was getting great groups at 25 with defensive ammo (like 1.25" at 25 yards slowfire with my old Colts...).
Now I find myself thinking of picking up a Glock and I worry, because last time I shot Glocks for groups (G17s and G34s), the guns didn't appear to be mechanically much better than 3" or so at 25 yards with high quality ammunition. My shooting skills haven't gotten better recently...why compromise the mechanical component too?!
Ugh...this does keep me up at night.
-Rob
Bench shooting a rifle is easy, how does one bench rest a pistol to obtain truly accurate results? Do they make a holder for pistols like they do rifles?
Well there is the Ransom Rest (http://www.midwayusa.com/product/252...-shooting-rest) - Which back in the day (I still remember this), all the gun rags shot the pistols they were reviewing on the Ransom Rest for group size. In other words it used to be held as a standard. But I haven't seen a review using one, nor have I seen a Ransom Rest in the wild in about 12 years or so. But just bench shooting, maybe from sandbags, with a focus on good sight alignment and a clean trigger press, should get you close.