Extremely powerful revolvers, such as this Freedom Arms Model 757 chambered in .475 Linebaugh, are difficult to master. However, they are capable of excellent accuracy.

I recently received a letter from a reader who was very disappointed that his newly acquired 1911-style .45 ACP pistol would only produce 21/2-inch groups at 25 yards. He had expected much better accuracy and was now ready to send it back to the manufacturer for adjustment. His letter went on to explain that the gun was purchased for personal protection and he felt that one-inch, 25-yard groups would be beneficial for his new carry gun. While 21/2-inch 25-yard groups are not particularly outstanding, it is more than an adequate level of accuracy for a personal protection gun. In fact, my favorite Colt 1911 .45 ACP is only capable of 21/2-inch groups at 25 yards with most factory ammo. While better accuracy is always desirable, I'm not going to complain, as this gun has only failed to feed once, and that was after an unknown but very large number of cast-bullet handloads with soft-bullet lube fired through it. The feed ramp was so dirty, I had expected it to begin failing to feed a few hundred rounds earlier, and when I dropped in a magazine full of JHPs, the second shot hung up on the feed ramp. A three-minute cleaning job, and it functioned flawlessly for several hundred more rounds that afternoon.

I have complete trust and confidence in this gun and treasure its reliability. And furthermore, I would not trade a single ounce of its extreme reliability for improved accuracy! After all, in a defense situation, reliability is far more important than bull's-eye accuracy. And any defensive handgun that can deliver 1-inch groups for every 10 yards distance is more than sufficient.

On the other hand, serious slow-fire match-target shooters would find this degree of accuracy completely unacceptable. For example, a National Match pistol is required to shoot three consecutive groups, 10 shots each, into 2 1/2 inches at 50 yards with Match grade ammo. And frankly, most competitor's pistols will usually group under 2 inches, particularly if they take time to find the match-grade load that shoots best in their gun. And IHMSA (silhouette) shooters often get their specialty long-range single-shot guns to produce one to 2-inch groups at 100 yards, naturally with handloaded ammo.

But before we get to the specifics of how accurate a particular handgun should be, let me clarify that the standards presented here are purely mechanical. For instance, many magnum calibers produce heavy recoil and can be difficult to master and shoot well, but the guns are frequently capable of extremely good accuracy. And a gun that has poor sights, insufficient grips or a horribly heavy trigger pull (all very critical items to aid in good handgun shooting) may be very difficult to shoot well. The gun may be super accurate when fired from a machine rest. While a gun's shootability has much to do with how a given handgunner shoots, it has little to do with the gun's real accuracy potential. So we will focus on the actual performance of various guns rather than their shootability.

Factory premier-grade revolvers, such as this Smith & Wesson Model 629 Classic DX .44 Magnum, are often capable of 2-inch groups or less at 50 yards with select ammo.

Establishing accuracy standards for handguns is difficult, as they are designed for a variety of uses. And with dozens of manufacturers producing a myriad of popular models with varying degrees of quality, it is a difficult subject to cover in a relatively short article. Therefore we will discuss generally what level of accuracy a given type of handgun should be capable of producing.

FULL-SIZE REVOLVERS
Historically, revolvers have been fairly accurate platforms--as attested by many old cap-and-ball sixguns during the 1850s and 1860s--that often produced groups of under an inch at 50 feet! This is good even by today's standards. As sixguns began being chambered for cartridges, other problems evolved. Bullets had specific challenges on their way out of the chamber, through the barrel cylinder gap, past the forcing cone and finally into the rifling. Sometimes the throat and barrel groove diameter rarely matched each other. Often the throats were several thousandths larger than groove diameter, which gave the bullet a very unstable start and in the worst cases, allowed it to "tilt" before it engaged the rifling--resulting in poor accuracy. Other times the throats were smaller than the barrel groove diameter, which "sized" the bullet down so that it couldn't effectively engage the rifling, causing fusion and leading--again, the end result was poor accuracy.

These very problems have plagued most revolver manufacturers at one time or another. However, generally speaking, internal barrel and throat dimensions have been reasonable and many 80- to 100-year-old revolvers can perform very well with proper ammo. Years ago I purchased a Smith & Wesson military version Model 1917. It had plenty of external wear, but it had a good bore and appeared to have been carried much more than fired. With factory "ball" ammo, it performed poorly with 25-yard groups measuring 4 to 6 inches. After experimenting with several factory and handloads, I was finally able to get consistent groups measuring 11/2 to 2 inches.

Within the past 25 years, many credible reports have surfaced wherein sixgunners have managed to get scoped production revolvers to produce one-inch groups at 100 yards! Manufacturers represented have included Smith & Wesson, Colt, Ruger and Freedom Arms. When one considers all the "obstacles" that a revolver bullet must go through before it exits the muzzle, this is truly astonishing!

The author feels that the close tolerances maintained by modern computer-controlled machinery is resulting in more accurate production handguns than ever. This Smith & Wesson Mountain Gun chambered in .45 Colt delivers exceptional performance.

A couple of years ago, when Freedom Arms first introduced its Model 1997 in .357 Magnum, I obtained one of the very first production revolvers, scoped it and began testing with over 20 different factory and handloads. My goal was to obtain the very difficult one-inch group at 100 yards. This took great concentration and was one of the most exhausting shooting tests I have ever conducted. Trying to shoot a sixgun to this degree of accuracy, even with sandbag rests, is very difficult--at least for me! And with special bullet moulds from Veral Smith at LBT, I came up just barely short of the goal. Nevertheless, with groups just barely over one inch, I was more than happy with this sixgun's performance. (See the January 1999 Handguns for a complete report.)

There is only a very small percentage of "cream of the crop" factory-produced sixguns--where internal dimensions came out just right, and chamber and bore alignment are near perfect--which can produce this degree of accuracy. The average production revolver cannot produce this level of accuracy, but with today's precise tooling, the modern sixgun is more accurate than ever, with most producing 2-inch groups at 25-yards with select ammo. And generally if time is taken to find the right factory load--or to experiment with handloads--groups of one inch and under become possible.

And when we look at special factory-produced, premium-grade sixguns, groups can shrink even more. Examples include the aforementioned Freedom Arms Premier Grade single actions in both large and small frame sizes and Smith & Wesson's Model 629 Classic DX. These guns must meet strict accuracy criteria before they leave the factory. And while room will not permit me to give specific accuracy levels of each of these top-quality sixguns, I can attest that they are nothing short of superb, as I have owned and fired several of each make.