It takes a lot of practice to shoot a snub nose revolver they are just accurate as a longer barrel revolver but not as shootable. Were you to put both a long barreled and short barreled revolver in a solid rest you will find that they are both about the same for accuracy. It gets even worse when you go up a step to the snub nose 357 magnum. With the small grips they become a handful. I shot combat pistol matches for quite a few years. I think I tried about all the guns out there. I had all of the Glocks and six or so 1911's I had several Sigs and HK's and all of the Rugers both revolvers and autos. The 1911 is awful hard to beat for defense or target shooting. I had an Auto Ordanance to start with but the barrel lug cracked so I put a Springfield Armories barrel in it and customized it with the help of a gunsmith friend of mine. That pistol became the most reliable auto I ever shot. I once fired over 5000 rounds through it over a couple months with no malfunction of any kind I quess I put about 30000 rounds through it while I had it. We tightened up the slide a couple times and changed the recoil springs several times. I think I had three different barrels on it. I finally got so burned out on reloading that I sold all the competition guns and gave it up. I was reloading 700-850 rounds per week and even with a progressive reloader it just got to be to much. I shot steel silhouettes and bowling pinns and all sorts of combat matches. We shot with the police dept and FBI and Federal Marshals in Pierre SD. If I could afford it I would go with the Kimber if not the Springfield would be my choice in 1911's The Ruger 45 auto is a very good shooter as is the Sig 220.