Close, Medium, Far: Manage Your Sight Picture for Max Accuracy

Winchester's Becky Yackley explains how your pistol sight picture should change when the distance to the target does.

posted on June 29, 2022

Becky Yackley is many things: champion competitive shooter, hunter, writer, Winchester brand ambassador, mother and expert mentor. She's been helping women of all skill levels achieve on the firing line for years, and she's happy to share her secrets. Top among those secrets is the fact that your sight picture—meaning the way that your handgun's sights relate to one another and to the target—needs to change just a little depending on how far away you are from your target.

In this video from Winchester Ammunition, Yackley will shoot from three distances: one that's nearly close enough to touch, one further back and one a full 150 feet away. These various distances are called "target presentations," and that's relevant both for competitive shooters and for self-defenders. At very close ranges, as Yackley notes, your sight picture is really secondary to what you need to do, which is essentially treat the gun as if it were your index finger, point, and then shoot. (Hence the term "point shooting.")

Further back, the sight picture becomes increasingly important, because the margin for error becomes narrower. Once you've retreated to 15 yards, it becomes important to align the sights side to side and top to bottom before squeezing the trigger. So what does that look like in practice? Let Yackley walk you through the steps of close, medium and far and you'll start to get the (sight) picture.

Latest

Top Selling Handguns 2024 Lede (1)
Top Selling Handguns 2024 Lede (1)

2024's Top-Selling Handguns

The year 2024 was exceptional for the array of handguns offered to law-abiding citizens. Which was America's favorite? Checkout the Top 10 list here, as compiled by GunGenius.

New Guns 2025: Charter Arms Double Dog

NRA's American Rifleman got a first look at the new Charter Arms Double Dog. Check it out here.

What’s the Difference: Bolt Throw Angle

Does the bolt throw angle on your rifle matter? What’s the difference between the different angles?

 

What’s a Scout Rifle?

You may have heard the term, but what’s the actual definition of a scout rifle? Should you want to own one?

The Armed Citizen Reload® January 17, 2025

Read more about three women who successfully fended off attackers with their firearms.

New Guns 2025: Heckler & Koch CC9 Pistol

It's a concealable 9 mm pistol from H&K, but what makes this new gun most notable?

Women's Interests



Get the best of NRA Women delivered to your inbox.