# 1000 yard handgun shot



## afroduck (Oct 23, 2012)

There, i said it. Could you hit something the size of, say, a shipping container with a regular handgun in either 9x19, .45ACP, 10mm or .50AE? This is one of those let-your-imagination-run-free threads. 1k yards with a pistol.


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## Bisley (Aug 24, 2008)

Yes, given a spotter and enough shots.


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## sgms (Jun 2, 2010)

Anything can be done, but I wouldn't want to be paying for the ammunition I would need to get it done.


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## SouthernBoy (Jun 27, 2007)

Elmer Keith killed a mule deer at 600 yards with a Smith and Wesson .44 Magnum. Took his first four shots to walk them in and then the last two to put the animal down. A mule deer is a heck of a lot smaller than a shipping container but then again, the loads you mentioned, save for the .50AE are not in the same category as the .44 Magnum.


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## rex (Jan 27, 2012)

Hehe,talk about holdover,wow.If the round will throw the bullet that far,yeah,sight referencing is the beech.

Southernboy,do you know the grade of Elmer's shot,as in level or downhill?


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## Steve M1911A1 (Feb 6, 2008)

I do not believe that the exterior ballistics and the trajectory of a .45 ACP bullet would permit a 1,000-yard hit, but I've never tried it.
I have made 200-yard and 300-yard hits with a .45, for instance on a torso-size rock, but I had to "walk them in." Once I learned the correction for the particular rock, I could do it on demand.


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## landis_lawton (Oct 23, 2012)

1,000 yard hit with a handgun ????? Our Heavenly Father can make any thing possible but He would for sure have to be involved in that shot. As a former Marine Scout/Sniper, that would take some doing if you take into account everything that is involved with a shot at that distance.


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## DJ Niner (Oct 3, 2006)

I've accomlished 3-hits-for-5-tries on a steel IDPA silhouette at 200 yards with a Glock 34 9mm (stock but for night sights), with the two misses being very close. A shipping container presents a target at least 5 times as large as a silhouette, so I see no reason to call it impossible.

As said above, a spotter would be needed, and I'd also request it be scheduled on a calm/windless day. Having a brushy mountain/hillside rising up behind the target (to provide plenty of alternate aiming points) would also be helpful.

I should try to find a plowed farm field on a cleared quarter-mile section here in ND to try such a thing. A dusty dry-dirt field surrounding the target would allow for spotting misses fairly easily.

EDIT: Even better; a flooded/muddy farm field in the spring! I'll ask a few locals if they know of a place where this could be tried -- safely.


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## rex (Jan 27, 2012)

I agree with you about a mountainside or large hill for reference,the sky just doesn't cut it.

You need more than a 1/4 mile though,that's only 440yds.That's a good place to start though.

I wonder about the trajectory of the 45 like Steve,maybe a light hot round but ball is going to nosedive pretty bad.Probably have to use the sun around 2 or 3PM (depending on your lattitude) as an aiming point?Interesting topic though.


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## sonja (Sep 16, 2011)

I have a very simple answer - no I could not.


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## SouthernBoy (Jun 27, 2007)

rex said:


> Hehe,talk about holdover,wow.If the round will throw the bullet that far,yeah,sight referencing is the beech.
> 
> Southernboy,do you know the grade of Elmer's shot,as in level or downhill?


I think he made the shot across a gulley or small valley and the deer was on the upward slope on the other side. I can't recall if I read this in "Shooter's Bible" or an issue of "Guns and Ammo". Come to think about it, it could have been Skeeter Skelton talking about it in "Shooting Times".

In the early 1980's, I managed a shot at 200 meters (that's 656 feet) on a handgun metallic silhouette range. My target was a hanging ram. Missed the first shot and hit on the second. The gun was a Ruger Super Blackhawk three screw, using 240gr JHC Sierra bullets over 23 grains of 240, open sights from a rest.


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## rex (Jan 27, 2012)

Nice shot,I had a Super but a New Model.

I vaguely(sp?) recalled that when you said it but I'll be damned if I can remember where I read it also.The reason I asked is I'm sure some don't realize a 400yd shot up or downhill at a 45 degree angle means you're really only shooting 200yds,and alot of those type shots normally end up blowing right over the target.

Thanks for the response though.


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## SouthernBoy (Jun 27, 2007)

rex said:


> Nice shot,I had a Super but a New Model.
> 
> I vaguely(sp?) recalled that when you said it but I'll be damned if I can remember where I read it also.The reason I asked is I'm sure some don't realize a 400yd shot up or downhill at a 45 degree angle means you're really only shooting 200yds,and alot of those type shots normally end up blowing right over the target.
> 
> Thanks for the response though.


All factory three screws were new models. I bought mine in 1973.

I am going to venture the guess that Keith knew what he was talking about and did in fact make that shot at the distance claimed. I would have never taken a shot at a deer much beyond 50 yards with my hunting handguns because I would not want to risk wounding and having to track the animal down. I did take a deer at 45 yards with a Ruger Blackhawk (that's a .357 Magnum and mine had a 6 1/2" barrel). My handload was a Norma JHP over 16 grains of 2400. The bullet did what it was designed to do and pretty much emulsified the major blood vessels at the top of the heart.


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## DJ Niner (Oct 3, 2006)

rex said:


> I agree with you about a mountainside or large hill for reference,the sky just doesn't cut it.
> 
> You need more than a 1/4 mile though,that's only 440yds.That's a good place to start though.
> 
> I wonder about the trajectory of the 45 like Steve,maybe a light hot round but ball is going to nosedive pretty bad.Probably have to use the sun around 2 or 3PM (depending on your lattitude) as an aiming point?Interesting topic though.


You are correct, of course; sorry, I wasn't very clear on the description of the area I'd like to find/use. I'd probably set-up just inside the corner of a full square mile section, shooting diagonally into the cleared dusty/muddy 1/4 section (toward the opposite corner). This would allow access control for safety, maximize the area around the target for spotting, and increase the chance of keeping all bullets in a single square-mile section (as they'd be coming down at a relatively steep angle, I'm thinking there wouldn't be much of a ricochet hazard on soft, dusty/muddy farmland).


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## DJ Niner (Oct 3, 2006)

Hmmm. Might have been a *teensy* bit optimistic on the difficulty of this task.










Holdover needed will be about *207 feet.* Gulp.

4-second flight time to get to 1000 yards.


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## tacman605 (Oct 11, 2012)

Years ago while training the Afghan Police in Kabul at the ranges there was an old Russian BMP that sat about 800 meters from the firing line. We would often shoot at it with Beretta 9mm's just to see. The ground was dry and dusty enough that you could walk your shots in. Once you got the holdover right, and it was a lot of holdover, most could hit it on a regular basis.

Granted the round virtually had nothing when it got there but it showed that it could be done.


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## DJ Niner (Oct 3, 2006)

Well, good to hear it can be done at 4/5ths the distance, under the right conditions.

However, I will note that (according to the chart, above) the drop/holdover doubles when moving from 750 to 1000 yards. :smt107


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## rex (Jan 27, 2012)

Cool info,the 45 holdover must be insane!


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## Steve M1911A1 (Feb 6, 2008)

...Well, for the very furthest you can shoot, you'd have to use an angle of 45° from average horizontal-unless the bullet will enter the stratosphere, in which case 55° worked for the Germans who shelled Paris during WW1.
If you launch a .45 ACP slug at, say, 850fps, and at 45°, I am not convinced that it would even approach 1,000 yards.
*DJ Niner*, do you want to do that calculation?


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## rex (Jan 27, 2012)

That would not surprise me Steve,I can see that bullet almost falling out of the sky shortly after it starts the drop.

It would be cool to see the ballistics for a 45.Years ago I ran into data on popular handgun and rifle calibers that was like this,the longest possibility,but I lost it a long time ago and don't remember where I found it to begin with.


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## DJ Niner (Oct 3, 2006)

Steve M1911A1 said:


> ...Well, for the very furthest you can shoot, you'd have to use an angle of 45° from average horizontal-unless the bullet will enter the stratosphere, in which case 55° worked for the Germans who shelled Paris during WW1.
> If you launch a .45 ACP slug at, say, 850fps, and at 45°, I am not convinced that it would even approach 1,000 yards.
> *DJ Niner*, do you want to do that calculation?


Well, I ran the numbers, and I have to admit I was surprised. The 'ol .45 with hardball did a lot better than I thought it would!

First, a bit of info on the program I'm using: you enter the bullet weight, ballistic coefficient, and the muzzle velocity, and the program outputs the departure angle needed to reach maximum distance, along with what that distance will be. So, here's the info on the .45 ACP, 230 grain FMJ, 850 FPS:










1926 yards (I believe that is the measurement to first impact); quite a bit better than I thought it would be!
More than a mile, and darn close to 2000 yards! But as long as the bad guy stays on the far side of those 20 football fields, he is safe.
However, if you are within a couple more football fields, you are still in danger (?) from a 9mm armed opponent!
(well, whatever "danger" is projected by 22.3 ft/lbs of bullet energy). To save yourself from a bump on the head, all you have to do is 
watch for the muzzle flash; from that point, you have about 21 seconds to get under cover or leave the area completely:










Note: While playing around with the program, I detected what I believe is a problem with some of the computations, and I've sent a message to the programmer providing details, in hopes he can explain what is going on. In the meantime, I think most of the info above is pretty close to correct, in an "average-of-averages" way (I ran the numbers 50-60 different ways, and only a few combinations came up with weird results).


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## rex (Jan 27, 2012)

Cool,thanks for the info DJ.The 45 is surprizing,I expected a larger gap between it and the 9.


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## paratrooper (Feb 1, 2012)

I'm thinking it would take more than a handgun round to kill a shipping container. :smt033


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## Steve M1911A1 (Feb 6, 2008)

I'm surprised at the departure angle of 32.5°, rather than 45°.
I'm also surprised at how close the .45 would get, to 2,000 yards.

At a terminal velocity of about 300fps, the bullet might even cause some damage!


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## niadhf (Jan 20, 2008)

Best i have done is on a whitetail vitals sized steel target at 420 yards with a G-19. (well, and the 45-70, but you said pistol)


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## DJ Niner (Oct 3, 2006)

rex said:


> Cool,thanks for the info DJ.The 45 is surprizing,I expected a larger gap between it and the 9.


So did I. Apparently, that heavy-bullet momentum really helps it "carry."



paratrooper said:


> I'm thinking it would take more than a handgun round to kill a shipping container. :smt033


Probably wouldn't even chip the paint at that range, but I bet you could hear the "Bong!" when it hit!



Steve M1911A1 said:


> I'm surprised at the departure angle of 32.5°, rather than 45°.
> I'm also surprised at how close the .45 would get, to 2,000 yards.
> 
> At a terminal velocity of about 300fps, the bullet might even cause some damage!


Raise a knot on your noggin', that's for sure.



niadhf said:


> Best i have done is on a whitetail vitals sized steel target at 420 yards with a G-19. (well, and the 45-70, but you said pistol)


Darn good shootin'!


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## niadhf (Jan 20, 2008)

DJ Niner said:


> Darn good shootin'!


Darn good work by my spotter. Of course we wefe hittin a human sized target at 305 first. And the 420 with the -G-19 was not a one shot like the H&R Buffalo Classic was (45-70)


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## Gorris (Oct 8, 2012)

I think this could be done. I wouldn't be able to do it, I have problems with the 50 yard shots. :anim_lol:


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## borris (Oct 28, 2012)

Well it all depends on how BIG the shipping container is , is it a cardboard mailing Box Or a over sea's container @ 53' by 102" Dat's A Good Question . I Don't Think I Could Do it either Way with a H.G.


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## Steve M1911A1 (Feb 6, 2008)

*Gorris* and *borris*... Are you guys related? :smt033


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