Welcome Karllippard

It has been a long time since I shot .45's SA Colt's. Met Elmer maybe in Las Vegas at a quick draw contest. Thel Reid was there and I can remember who else now. I had to change to a sighted pistol for shooting distance at targets who shot back and redesigned the 1911 A1 for Marine terrorist use in 1987 as manager of Pachmayr. Today of course make guns and design them with my Combat NCO, a 1911 A2 variant. I have 5 patents on the 1911 now and maybe 12 more pending. Most of those allow people to shoot distance with the 1911 with Sear and Hammer designs that effect all guns made. Distance shooting that Elmer and Ed developed actually have a far reaching effect that is not today very clear. Pistols used in military and police were never considered effective or useful beyond 25 yards if that. Elmer tended to prove otherwise and of course so do I. For if we can make a pistol accurate and give it proper sights we can shoot far; and in a military condition it means life, or death. It means a man can defend against a rifle at range. Ranges 400 yards and beyond.  I am happy to report we have achieved success in that quarter and if not for Elmer my interest in doing it may never have come to my interest. I am so happy to become aware of your distance shooting and will do my best to attend.  

It always seems I'm sideways. Will try and sort that out.!!

All the best.

Al should really be excited when he reads your bio! He is a true 600 yard shooter! Hope some of the shooters here can get to know you. Chris

Looks like you got your avatar straightened out. Honored to have you on our forum. If you think you can make the shoot, I need to hook you up with Will for a proper invitation.
Thanks--
Al
PS I'll add your site to our Friends and Links page if you like.

I have been told imparting information pursuant to long distance might be beneficial to your shooting membership and I am happy to provide my experience on this complex subject.... What Elmer had was discipline. What I mean by this is discipline in shooting. He marked his target distance and calculated that to his pistol and shot the game he was after... But what does discipline mean anyway? It means you shoot the same every time. Shoot the same way every time. Second when you call a shot and you called it not good  relative to your shot placement, note that; even if the shot was good. You must judge where the impact should be, call where it was, and have the confidence to change your sight picture by knowing your gun and knowing yourself..... Only when you have repeatability can you advance your shooting performance... Now Elmer shot a lot, and that is where you gain experience from. A new shooter can advance quickly and shoot less by reading all he can on the subject and sort out what works best for him. In my youth at peak I shoot maybe 500 rounds a week with a .45 Long Colt. I wore out two barrels, a cylinder, hammers and various parts in the process which is a subject in itself...So you learn what you can do with a pistol and what your pistol has to contribute to you...once you get that package together; practiced good steady trigger pull; use the same grip; hold your finger pad on the trigger the same place; roll the same way with your shot; then you can start getting behind the gun and start looking at shooting further and what that entails....So lets say you you have that together, chase golf balls around well with your pistol and you now what to shoot further out. Well if you have fixed sights it is a problem.; you need to adjust those for a finer group further out; maybe change or add another gun. Second, you know are concerned with wind. You now have to know about bullet drift which is up and to the right on a Colt SA and up and to the left on a 1911 Colt. And even though you HAVE an adjustable sight, it doesn't elevate much and presents a problem when you shoot different distances even if you do adjust it....Elmer used a number of systems of sighting over his career and one has to choose what is best for him but let me help you out here on your SA .45 that will make you a star in a few minutes....First you have a big ramp sight on the front of your pistol; take a piece of masking tap and stick it to the flat surface going up the ramp. Now trim the sides off....Now here is what you do...Go online and find a free computer program such as "PointBlank". Go it there and enter the load you are using with all the details such a bullet, Ballistic Coefficient, primer, powder etc.; then  set in the program a distance you want to shoot; say 200 yards....Set the increments in the program selection box as 12.5 yards.....Let's say you shoot your pistol at 12.5 yards and it is dead on....you look at your computer print and it says to shoot 200 yards your bullet is 4" high at 12.5 yards. Okay go down your front sight blade about 1/4 the way and draw a pencil line on the masking tape. Now listen very carefully.... you keep your target in view the same as before and hold to point of aim as before but now LOWER your rear sight to the new line your drew on the front sight blade....Now squeeze the trigger.. if that distance you measure was 4" high your are 200 yard sighted........Ahhhhh! .......Now if you do this a lot and shoot the same ammo all the time (like you should), then you "could" file a line on the front sight to indicate any time you wish to shoot that far you just pull down the rear sight and shoot........Well this will get you started and if you have seen my Combat NCO sights you also know now how to use them.....So 400 yards? No problem you can shoot that whenever you wish; you are always ready... You say you can't see that line in the sun, just buy yourself some chalk in the children department and put a piece in your pocket in a color of choice; rub it in the line and wipe off your sight; you are ready.....Next time maybe we talk about wind or shooting far if you don't see well, bullets, powder or something else that may be of interest to you.....But today, you shoot 400 yards; all you have to have is discipline. You have been taught how to shoot; distance.....Get back to you when I can. On the bench building guns. kcl

When I first started long distance shooting I used the "Aim high" approach, even after reading Mr. Keith' s books it took a while for it to set in, the ...Ahhhh... as you put it, now the target/ front sight picture always looks the same, and the rear site/ front site relationship is all that changes. Halfway down, 400 yards. Base of the blade, 600 yards. (for example) I like the looks of the  NCO blade you have there, should be easy to get repeatable results, and from the perspective of the photo, looks to be a touch wider then the notch, not much daylight on the sides.  That for better sight alignment?

You are so right on all counts. And the width of the front site blade is what? 25-29" depending on your eye relief at 400 yards. Very little daylight on the sides of the front side blade in the rear. Less error in sighting. ...SO when you know the width of the front sight blade at various distances you can measure your target and know how far it is, AND use it to adjust for wind.......400 yards a man can generally see a target pretty well. Further it becomes hard to adjust and spot your rounds alone. Ammo in the auto's is pretty bad today and you need to have some good stuff coming out of the barrel at 860 fps plus to shoot accurately far.....The good news is the .45 (.452-.454) are good rounds once they are moving. They buck the wind pretty well and carry good FPE on arrival. I like the 45 LC better than the .44 mag personally close or far and of course .45 in the automatic as well.....While I still shoot a lot I don't have much time to shoot for fun. I am technically reviewing rounds shot for the gun to tell me what it is doing. Once satisfied there is always another one to do. A doctor if you will; examining the health of the guns I make.......I was tested open sight a few months back at 125, 200, 250, 313, 350, and 400 and had no difficulty with the sights. Only the ammo didn't perform. Love shooting far. I don't hold well on my right arm today and don't shoot pistols left so the prone or supported pistol these days present good results particularly at distance. And I really like the challenge. Fun shooting far and I hardly ever forget Elmer when I do. Our brief meeting and discussions have been long lasting as were our conversations on bullet shapes and big game rounds. kcl

I'm sure I will figure this out. Didn't know these comments were to me. A little slow on the up start! Karl

Huuuum, the skeptics were there....Buuut, so were some friends of Keith.
There seemed to be some contraversy over my 1911 A2 Combat NCO pistol. It says in the manual it can deliver "cover fire" to 600 yards. Then it seemed no one liked shooting groups at 600 and called for it to be done again, again, and yet again...We Keith people shoot distance. Kind of a fun thing we do. As in the Keith era the masses don't believe you can shoot past your nose and frankly most can't I guess therefore Keith people are full of it and guns really don't shoot past 100 yards.
However on 9/22/2012 at Whittington a 1911 A2 pistol, with fixed sights, recorded for record on film for TV, 8 hits of 10 on a regulation 600 rifle target using store bought Black Hills 230 grain ammo. Elmer would have liked it for sure. You know those automatics are not accurate. Riiiiight.
Well we got some air for Elmer Keith in the Podcast of Michael Dane. With conditions and fixed sights winged it for the record books. Not as impressive as I would have liked but record day is what it is and yesterdays scores are old news. Take what you get and thankful you got no more boomers than you got.
Fixed sights are a bear as you know as is shooting distance. Once you get to and past the 400 things start to get tough. You need a spotter; one that can read wind and knows his shooter. For when four 600 yard bullseyes can fit side by side on your front sight blade and the spotter calls for a foot left and the wind has increased and turned to 3 o'clock the mental math gets somewhat complicated. Suddenly it is "staying on the target" not a tight group in the X ring. Play days standing at the 600 shooting 12" targets casually mean nothing when a world record is being scored and 10 shots is it. You must go to work, and work lets be clear is what it was at Whittington. People don't care the sun is in your eyes all day, or the wind started at the five with 2 mph and increased to 21 mph around to three by second magazine blowing your hat off. You suck it up and shoot. Time to produce.
Well, Keith boys know a little about shooting distance, wind and what their gun can do. I had been on the 600 before. The 600 yard open fixed sight 1911 .45 acp world record is now in stone. Filmed for TV with three cameras on the line and one in the butts should for all time put to rest the notion a pistol can be shot that far not only for cover fire in combat but put to deadly effect. See what the interaction of shooter and spotter looks like in January 2013 on the Outdoor Channel "Shooting Gallery" with Michael Bane. I do not believe anything is as well recorded as this shoot. As I have never seen a man shoot 600 yards or anything close with a pistol before, I too will watch. For I never get to see the target I am shooting at, never see the pasters on target, never witness the interaction of shooter and spotter, and I long to do so myself.
My thanks to my crew, Soldier of Fortune magazine for being there and their two articles on distance shooting. And thanks as always to Elmer Keith who never thought I was funny when we talked distance shooting. All the best.