Podunkadunk said:
Bob, not trying to be a smarty-pants, but "first shot hit potential" is relative to the shooter! If you don't know how to shoot accurately, it doesn't matter what kind of pistol you are shooting.
Maybe I'm misinterpreting your post. Please clarify. Thanks.
Podunk
1st shot hit potential is an average of all shooters. While you can adjust to brand A and I can adjust to brand B, over time and over the course of years of shootout records, some guns will show up with having hit their target on the first shot and some guns will not. Over a broad range of time and events, 1st shot hit potential becomes a simple statistic, not related to a specific shooter, but still related to specific types of guns.
cp1969 said:
I don't know what you mean by first shot hit potential. Pointed or aimed?. . .
If you're talking aimed fire, I am puzzled how the 1911 would be any quicker to aim, especially with regular factory sights, than any other handgun.
There was a study done several years ago. I believe it was the FBI, but might have been military. Average shootout distance is roughly 21 feet. At close range, sights are not as important as at long range. They studied actual shootouts and weapons used. The gun that hit its target with the 1st shot most often was a Colt pattern 1911 format gun.
As to why it it easier to hit with than other guns, much of that is probably related to the trigger. Certainly the grip shape of the arm is considered one of the best ever designed and has been claimed (not by me) to be among the most "natural" pointing handguns ever developed. Prove it to yourself and walk out to your range, pull a revolver out of a holster, aim and shoot under stress condition speeds. The heavy DA trigger pull, will, under most circumstances, pull the first shot to the right for right handed shooters. Many simply miss a man size target. Pull a Colt pattern SA with its very light trigger and you have a much higher propensity to hit the target due to the fact that you won't pull the shot to the right. The fact that it also points naturally probably helps. Then compare other brands and other guns. Remember when you do this, you are on a range, no gun is pointed at you.
Again, same study, and actually in a couple others that I was reading, showed that guys with fewer bullets in their guns hit their targets more often. Revolver shooters, in a gunfight, often missed their first shot but had a substantially higher % of "hits" than guys with double-stack high-capacity semi-autos. Spray & Pray was a term coined in one of the studies I was reading because in shootout people with high capacity arms often just shot their guns out and hoped they hit something. People with low capacity arms aimed & hit targets at a much higher rate.
Sorry I don't have the studies handy, but you may want to do some searches on first shot hit probabilities with handguns, etc.
BTW, while I have Colt pattern guns, I have others as well, I'm not advocating one brand or type, just reporting the studies I've seen. I don't claim originality or anything else. I do know that many of the special forces folks have switched back to Colt pattern guns, and I have been told they can shoot anything they want.
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