Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns CCW firearm effective range?

With all the sub-compact, and micro compact pistols on the market what's should minimum effective range of these pistols and still be good to carry? Does going up in caliber size with the small conceal carry handgun help add to the effective range of the pistol?

Don't know about others but to me the shootability of the handgun is the deciding factor - sights, sight radius and trigger being the big factors in that. Also,the mechanical accuracy of the piece will definitely be a factor.

My Kel-Tec P32 with the tiny grip and those little dots of paint for "sights" is getting to be pretty useless after about 10 yards.

But the Kahr CM9 with its patridge sights is easily good for fairly precise shooting out to 25 yards, meaning I can keep it in the black of an NRA standard bullseye target at that range. If I had to make a long shot at a man sized target, like say across a big movie theater, I'd definitely give it a try.

A Kimber 1911, especially with target sights, is good to stay on a 12" square target out to 100 yards once you know where to hold.

I noticed in my examples here that the caliber does go up with each one, but that's just coincidence. A S&W Model 15 .38 Special would be right alongside the 1911 in shootability.

Most encounters of the serious kind take place at 7 yards or less in a matter of seconds just FYI. I use that as my guideline but do want to be able to hit a man sized target COM at at least 25 yards.

�effective� range of the shooter/gun combination is quite simply, whatever distance you can hit. As for the effective range of the cartridge itself, there are just about half a jillion factors to determine if it�s �effective�. So I just boil it down to this. If I hit and the bad guy doesn�t go down, it wasn�t effective

your Questions dealing with two separate sub-questions, ACCURACY and EFFECTIVE RANGE or how far away the pistol will still remain effective at dropping an opponent.
the longer the site radias is the easier it is to accurately aim a pistol but even short barrel pistols can be accurate, so while your small defensive pistol might be easily able to place 5 shots in a 2" circle at 25 yards off a good bench rest hold, your never going to be able to do that off hand with most smaller pistols and the common crappy sights.
ID be mostly concerned with my ability to stop a violent opponent at under 20 feet
you also want to remember you might only get a second or two to defend yourself and might only get one or two shots off, you generally won,t be selecting the time or place or conditions, and your opponent will try to use every advantage he or THEY CAN, theres no way you can assume a single opponent.
now the question becomes, can you reasonably expect to stop an opponent with a single or only a few randomly placed center mass hits?
the best advice Ive heard and what Ive tried to follow is "don,t carry anything you would be very hesitant trust your life too in a gun fight"
or put a different way, if you knew you would be involved in a confrontation involving you either killing an opponent or him killing you,in the next two months, would you still select your current carry fire arm?
chances are excellent, that most of the guys that carry 32 and 380 , and 38 caliber pocket pistols would want to upgrade , to a 357, 40, or 45 caliber and a pistol with a bit longer more accurate reach with a bit more authority

Ok with my Sig P238 in 380acp and Springfield XD's in 45acp I can shoot them about the same @ 7yards. Now at 15yards they both shoot good BUT the XD's in 45acp shoots better and at 25yards its all XD's 45acp. Dose a 1/2inch for barrel help that much or is it the bigger 45cal bullet that helps get more range?

All my CCW weapons are zeroed at 25 yards, they will work up close and still hit "minute of crackhead" at 50 yards.

Gunner

I'm nt much of a threat beyond 50-60yds witha 4" bbl semi

You'd be surprised.

Gunner

It's a combination of the 45 and the sight radius being more better. And you also may simply shoot the XD better.

I may be able to take your Sig and shoot better @ the 25 than you do with your XD. There are too many variables to definitively state why one shoots better for you than the other.


Travis

I have other, larger pistols, but I just bought a Keltec p32 for its carry ability. I figure having one is better and it will be a lot easier in summer to carry. miles

I like that - always seemed better to have a gun with you. "effective" to me means that the bad guy stopped doing his bad things - whether he was turned into blood, guts and steam or whether he was ROTFL at the sight your tiny gun while you exit stage right.

A concealed carry gun is primarily to get you out of a life-threatening situation - not subdue a squad of ninjas at 25yds.

I won't carry a micro/sub-compact that won't "just about" keep up with a full size/compact at 25 yards. It mostly comes down to the sights. The Sig P938 and the Springfield XDS have good sights so they hang in there well enough for my purposes. A J frame doesn't come close to meeting my criteria, at least in my hands.

I'm not at all sure any .380 class pistol can be very effective at any range. I've never seen anybody shot with one or the 2 inch .38's that ever died, or were stopped during a determined assault. While I've "heard of it, it isn't common.
Even the bigger, much more powerful guns sometimes don't do the job with body hits.
The worst case scenerio would be the guy that takes a body hit or two and keeps fighting. Can you, under stress, reliably make a head shot with that gun ? Will it penetrate the head or hit hard enough to put him down ? Alot of the toy guns won't do this. E

I have a shooting buddy who I've seen drop 8" steel plates at 75 yards with well over a 50% hit ratio with an officer's model 1911. And yes, offhand with iron sights. I'd say the mechanical accuracy of the majority of handguns will allow a center of mass hit out to 100 yards.

Honestly I can't think of a scenario where one would need to use a conceled carry handgun out to that sort of range outside of an action adventure movie, but the guns are generally much, much more capable than the shooters.

I practice at ranges from 5 to 50 yards. Even with a J frame, I could eaily hit a man sized target.
With any of my full size CCW handguns, I could pop yo azz at 100 yards with just about every shot.

This is one reason I find myself relying on the various J frames for BUG use and not primary carry, I cannot hit crap past 10-15yards. Going to a glock 19 or similiar I find I have 90% of the "hitability" of any handgun I can pick up.

Lots of variables there. For my wife, about the only semi-autos she can operate the slide on is .22's and the Sig P238 (.380). Going up in size to a 9mm or larger would reduce the effectiveness because it would become a club in the event of a misfire, assuming she could get it loaded in the first place. She has a Ruger SP101 revolver in .327 Fed for swatting BGs in the house and a Ruger LCR .38 Special for concealed carry. (Took her class today, CCW permit app is days away.)

A hit with a small bullet is more effective than a miss with a cartridge of any size. "Effective range" starts with "effective". If you can't shoot it for whatever reason, choose something else.

Just MHO, but one should consider their environment. My lifestyle, habits and choices ensure that my contact with undesirables is very limited. I don't need a double-stack .45 and a back-up, extra mags or speed loaders for both and a knife and pepper spray and whatever else. Most would get left at home and thus become the definitive definition of "ineffective". As a result I frequently carry my .380 Walther PPK as I did today for a trip to Parker. Weekdays I have to drive through Denver on I-25, generally before sun-up. There are some amazingly stupid and unpredictable people on I-25 so my CCW choice is a 9mm Browning BDM with 13 +P rounds in the 15-round mag and a spare mag loaded the same. Between that and my Kimber .45, with only 7 rounds and a spare mag, which I often carry on weekends while in my wife's vehicle, I feel about equally protected.

Tests on water jugs are pretty effective in demonstrating the difference in cartridges. My tip-up barreled Berretta 950 in .25ACP is a great pistol for deep concealment but it is also very disappointing when it come to water jug results, where my .44 Mag Super Redhawk with fast 240g bullets rules. Does stepping up in powder capacity and bullet mass and velocity increase effectivity? Of course, but at the cost of additional recoil and increasingly lower managability. Consider the following ammo selections I use for defensive purposes:

.25 ACP, 35g Gold Dot (Speer) @ 900fps = 63fpe
.25 ACP, 35g Glaser Blue (Glaser) @ 1100fps = 94fpe
.22 WM, 45g FTX (Hornady) @ 1300fps = 169fpe
.380 ACP, 85g JHP (Magtech) @ 1082fps = 221fpe
.38 Special, 110g FTX (Hornady) @ 1090fps = 285fpe
9mm Para, 115g XTP (handload) @ 1178fps = 354fpe
.327 Fed, 85g Hydra-Shok (Federal) @ 1400fps = 370fpe
.45 ACP, 185g FTX (Hornady) @ 1000fps = 411fpe
.45 ACP, 230g Hydra-Shok @ 850fps = 369fpe

If you guessed that more fpe on a water jug at defensive ranges has a more dramatically destructive effect, you would be correct. Just for fun I calculated (roughly) the ranges at which the various loads above have the same energy as the .25 ACP with Speer's 35g Gold Dot load has at the muzzle (63fpe):

0 yds = .25 ACP / 35g Gold Dot (Speer)
100 yds = .25ACP / 35g Glaser Blue (Glaser)
280 yds = .22 WM / 45g FTX (Hornady)
625 yds = .380 ACP / 85g JHP (Magtech)
705 yds = .38 Special / 110g FTX (Hornady)
710 yds = .327 Federal / 85g Hydra-Shok (Federal)
775 yds = 9mm Para / 115g XTP (handload)
965 yds = .45 ACP / 185g FTX (Hornady)
995 yds = .45 ACP / 230g Hydra-Shok (Federal)

Granted, there is a lot that determines bullet effectivity including construction, mass, diameter, impact velocity and target material, so fpe is a rough yardstick at best.

Myself, I tend to be a believer in use what works for you, that any gun is better than none, as is one you can shoot well versus one you cannot, and that fatter, faster, heavier bullets are more likely to make me smile in bad times.

Most of the upper level CC small autos of today are very very accurate in and of themselves. Our ability to hit stuff with them is the variable.....huge variable.

I find that when I practice with any of my handguns, revolvers, autos, or small CC autos that when I start shooting at ranges like 100-125 yards I can get surprised. If my trigger break is clean it is surprising what you can hit at that distance. If I flinch, it can be very embarrassing when you are wide 20 yards. Practicing at these longer distances makes shooting stuff at 50, 25 or 7 yards feel a lot easier.

Last weekend I was shooting a Glock 27 at about 130 yards at a post. The first shot was one of those embarrassing ones with about 15 short and left, while the next 3 were relatively close. Close enough to hit a deer at that range.

Watch Hickok45 on UTube shoot a Glock 26 at an 18" gong at 230 yards and hit it a lot of the time.

Try and see if if helps.

Shoot accurately quickly and ONLY if you have to...while looking for an exit rather than a confrontation.