Good shooting
 

I checked John Walters book "The Luger Story" out of the library. At the start of chapter 15 he talks about a Heinrich Kelleter who scored a 559 X 600 firing at a 8cm diameter bullseye from 50 metres. In one of his 10 shot strings all struck the top half of the bullseye. Am I reading this right? 50 metres is about 164 feet. 8 cm is just a little over 3 inches. Is it possible to shoot this good offhand? He was using a 6 inch barrel with fixed sights. Pretty impressive.

It's difficult to believe.. but what do I know :)

For those of you who has watch biathlon, the standing up target there is 11.5cm in diameter @ 50m. That's larger than the bullseye Heinrich Kelleter aimed for at the same distance, and he didn't use a competition rifle with diopters..

"Is it possible to shoot this good offhand?"

It is entirely possible. We shoot handguns off-hand (two handed hold) at ranges out to 300-400 yds. regularly. It's just a matter of lots of practice, skill and getting to know the gun.

I've talked with many people who believe that handguns are limited in accuracy to 25yds, or so. Elmer Keith used a SA .45 Colt to break dinner plates at 500yds. It is documented by witness', that he hit a running Mule deer at over 500yds with a .45 Colt.

Ron

A wounded deer I hope?

At 100 yards, pistols sights tell rough direction, and 3" target is much narrower than sight notch. So, accuracy mainly depends on feeling, not sights at this distance. Another example was hip shooting, which totally depends on feeling.

At least one Olympic Pistol Shooting Gold Medal winner (air pistol? or .22?) was near sighted. I bet there were more. How could he win any competitive game without a pair of good eyes.... but he did.

From some interview videos, here is one tip. I thought I was going to try it, but I always forgot: use a string to tie a brick hanging on the front the barrel (make sure it's not a very light one :)), and hold this gun aiming target for some time, a few minutes to a few hours every day, practicing this for a year or two to control hand shaking. The logic was this: one day when you remove that brick, the gun is feather light, your arm is strong enough and there will be no shaking when shooting off hand. Same can be applied to rifle, two hands in rifle case, of course.

God knows :)