Rifle vs. Pistol: A Data Driven Approach

When you ask a gun person if they’d rather shoot a rifle or pistol in a self defense situation, the smart ones will always say rifle.  Unfortunately they’d be wrong.  The real answer depends on what exactly you plan on using it for and your current skill level.  Engagement range will drastically affect these choices as well.  Keep reading to find out how to choose the best tool for tactical shooting.

This article will be an in depth discussion on choosing between a rifle and a pistol for tactical applications.  These might be room entry for a SWAT team, or simply protecting your loved ones from a home invasion.

Rifles and pistols are simply tools, one is not inherently “better or worse,” they just have different applications in which they excel.  Obviously, if you are in a denied environment, or you do not wish to advertise that you are carrying a weapon, a pistol is going to be your default choice.

Conversely, if you are in an a situation where accuracy at distance is required, and you have no need to conceal your weapon, a rifle will be your go to.  However, where does that leave us in that fuzzy area where we aren’t far from our target but speed and accuracy are both important?

Speed and Accuracy at Distance

This one is going to surprise you.  For well trained shooter at close distances a pistol will generally be faster, but less accurate.  Blasphemy you say! Well I would like to draw the courts attention to exhibit one, the VTAC “El Prez” drill.

The shooter in this video runs the drill several times.  His best string is 7.04 sec with one shot in the C zone of the target.  This is very good shooting for a rifle, and you generally won’t find your average guy capable of this speed and accuracy, but here is where the math comes in.

In order to compare speed of a rifle drill to a pistol drill we need to measure in accurate hits per second, and wouldn’t you know it, USPSA hit factor scoring is exactly that, and they have a database of thousands of scores for this very drill.

For El Prez, each hit in the center A zone is 5 points, a C zone hit is 3 points for minor scoring which is what we will be using.  See below for the math behind the rifle run.

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El Prez

12 total shots = 11A, 1C = 58 of a possible 60 points

58 points / 7.04sec = 8.57 hit factor

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Now, if we run that through the USPSA calculator for Pistol Caliber Carbine (PCC), which are basically AR-15’s in pistol caliber, we see that a 8.57 hit factor works out to a 68% which is ok by USPSA standards, but pretty damn amazing by normal people standards.

Now if we run those same points and time through the calculator for a production gun (most stock pistol in USPSA) you get around 6 percent higher score.

This means that for the same speed and accuracy you get a better score, and this translated into layman’s terms means that iron sighted pistols are more difficult to shoot quickly and accurately for this drill.

So that’s it huh?  Rifle is always better?  Well this is the part where I say maybe and point out a bunch of caveats.  Check out this video where the shooter shoots a limited gun (very customized, in 40 cal or bigger) and then shoots a PCC.

His raw time on the limited gun is 5.24 sec and his raw time with the PCC is 5.28 sec.  From a raw speed perspective he is faster with his pistol, but when we look at his hit factor we see an 8.77 for the pistol, and 10.22 for the PCC.  This means the increase in accuracy of the PCC made up for the loss in raw speed

This leads me to my first rule of thumb.  When your target is likely to be further than 5 yards it’s best to choose a rifle for speed and accuracy.  At closer contact distances, a rifle will be generally be slower to bring to bear.

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Speed and Accuracy at Contact Distance

We know that rifle is going to be faster and accurate at further distance, but where should we start to transition to a pistol?  Well lets look at the data.

We will look at a very close range USPSA classifier called, “Can You Count.” Here the furthest distance to target is 10 feet.  Now lets compare two imaginary runs, one with a production gun, one with a PCC, both arbitrarily set at 10 for the hit factor.

Now lets run those same numbers for our production gun.

We can see that there is only a 1.4% difference between the two, vs a 6.1% on El Prez.  In layman’s terms this means that shooting the PCC on this stage at the same accuracy and speed as a pistol will get you a better score. Said more simply, it is harder to shoot a PCC vs. a pistol on Can You Count.

This brings us to our next point, pistols can be much faster to transition between targets at 5 yards and in.

Real World Considerations 

This has been an interesting little thought experiment and there is some good data in the classifier system that USPSA uses, but there are some other considerations as well.

We know from a previous article covering accuracy in real world engagements that there is a severe drop in shooting ability when you are on a two way range.  The chart below indicates as much as a 50% drop.

This leads to choosing a weapon system where accuracy is more easily attained, the rifle.

We also need to consider the our ability to retain the weapon.  Grabbing a pistol is much harder than a rifle simply because a rifle is less movable once mounted in the firing position.  A rifle also has a long forend to grab a hold of, where a pistol does not.

Lastly there is always the ever popular caliber debate.  There really is no question between a rifle an pistol.  The rifle will always have more energy in the round, but practically in the moment that really won’t matter.  Getting shot with a rifle won’t exactly kill you quicker it is just more likely to kill you eventually.

Recall from on of my earlier articles that we are really aiming to induce the psychological fear of agonal wounding, and to some extent pain compliance.  There are really only two ways that bullets kill, central nervous system damage (head/spine injury) and loss of blood.

Both pistol and rifle affect the central nervous system the same way, but a rifle can cause more internal loss of blood due to a larger temporary cavitation effect.

Final Thoughts

All of this is to say that you shouldn’t discount the benefits of a pistol given the right situation, and we should also keep in mind that scores at a competition are good data, but that doesn’t always translate to the real world.

Finally, I hope you realize that a pistol is a very solid choice for self defense, and at close ranges it can be your best choice.  I encourage you to practice with both and choose the appropriate tool for you based upon your abilities, and the data I’ve just shown you.

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