What is a good distance to shoot

[GRV]

Moreover, if there is anything at all in this world worth spending a great deal of care and time thinking about and critiquing, I would think that the question of what one's default lethal-force response to an individual who is trying to kill them or cause them grave bodily harm should be would be chief among them. Of all things that one could want to completely understand and be able to extremely articulately justify in great detail, that seems like it ought to be pretty high on the list.

[Kevin B.]

As someone who is a habitual "overthinker", to the point of it being intentional, I find criticism of overthinking pretty drab in general. We're not out on a battlefield right now where something needs to get done stat, or even in a class trying to maximize lessons learned with some limited time. We're all quite content spending whatever time we've allotted here BSing on the internet. Personally, I think that time is much better spent critically questioning and "overthinking" things than it is regurgitating the same old tautological viewpoints that anyone whose been on PF for more than a few months has thoroughly absorbed or agreed to disagree with. I may not have been on this earth very long, and I may not be an expert or even throughly experienced in much of anything relevant to this forum, but I do know a thing or two about learning, especially the way I learn, and over a number of years I've found my brand of "overthinking" pretty damn successful for my own personal learning. Undoubtedly, there are times and places where it is best avoided, or even harmful, but sitting around BSing on the internet, as it were, is not one of those times and places in my experience.

Fair enough. Good luck.

[GRV]

That's not meant to be an attack, nor to chase you off my back....... On the contrary, if you've got some concrete criticisms about what I've posted I'm very legitimately interested in that. That's why I post long ranty crap like that; so that people can cut me down, tell me how wrong I am and why, and so that I can accordingly prune my own thoughts.

I just don't find generic responses like "you're overthinking it" to be very helpful. It's far from the first time I've gotten that sort of thing on here, and I fully understand why.

[Steaz]

dove I think a consolidated way of saying what you were getting at is...real world self defense targets may (are likely to?) have, effectively, A, B, C, etc, 'scoring' zones, and it isn't a binary hit/miss. Most will teach or train or aim for a high center mas shot by default when presented with that option, and clearly a shot to the sternum right between the nipples is better than a hit around the appendix, but the latter certainly isn't a miss...or least it is isn't the same miss as hitting whatever your backstop is straight up without the bullet ever touching any part of the target.

[BehindBlueI's]

I still find myself wanting to go back to the failure drill question. Why is the failure drill vetted for as a default response over direct eyebox shots?

Because it's faster to the first shot, and first shot matters. Get yourself a timer. Stand at 5y. Pull and shoot for the body "A" box. Note time. Repeat with the head.

Now shoot a body shot and let the gun buck up a bit under recoil and get a head shot. Note the time. Compare to the first two times.

If the target is aware of me and is about to harm me, I want to get a shot on target, along with the accompanying muzzle flash and loud sound, to slow the attacker and hopefully reset his OODA loop due to pain, a lot of sensory input to adjust to, etc. I lose very little time from holster to the head shot taking a body shot on the way there, and my first shot breaks significantly earlier.

That's my take. More importantly, it works damn well when applied in real life. We can bench race all day, but if it works it works.

[GRV]

Sorry. I was an ass, and I'm going to STFU and just read to reset.

Steaz and BBI have summarized my thoughts very well, and the perspective I was coming from in my initial double-take.

[Saur]

dove - I suspect, for many of the reasons you mentioned earlier, that the "why" on the failure drill being vetted as the default response over direct eyebox shots is because its considered a more robust application of effective fire.

I think its a great Q... though it may deserve a separate thread; OPs has been thoroughly hijacked

[MGW]

I haven't read the entire thread so please forgive me.

I always thought that the reason behind the failure drill was because we are trained to shoot center of mass not center of kill. If two center of mass hits don't stop the threat plan B is implemented with a shot to the CNS.

Also, when a threat is fully mobile a first shot hit on the CNS is going to be a lot more difficult and create a higher probability of a miss. Misses don't really miss. There's always a backstop eventually.

I'm sure this has been covered already and again apologize if it's a repeat.

[1slow]

I think one reason for a failure drill over direct head shot is that the head moves around more. It may be easier to get a good high center mass shot, particularly on a moving target.