 2007 (age 45) |
Posted on 05/01/2010 5:02:52 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
Hotshot sniper in one-and-a-half mile double kill Michael Smith
A BRITISH Army sniper has set a new sharpshooting distance record by killing two Taliban machinegunners in Afghanistan from more than 1 miles away.
Craig Harrison, a member of the Household Cavalry, killed the insurgents with consecutive shots — even though they were 3,000ft beyond the most effective range of his rifle.
“The first round hit a machinegunner in the stomach and killed him outright,” said Harrison, a Corporal of Horse. “He went straight down and didn’t move.
“The second insurgent grabbed the weapon and turned as my second shot hit him in the side. He went down, too. They were both dead.”
The shooting — which took place while Harrison’s colleagues came under attack — was at such extreme range that the 8.59mm bullets took almost three seconds to reach their target after leaving the barrel of the rifle at almost three times the speed of sound.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
You 'n me both. I was scratching my head
Yep, .50 cal 41” barrel muzzle loader. That style had exposed hammer action. Even with black powder, with 41” barrel it would have really taken advantage of the burn.
Miliary.com showed a sniper double kill but not sure of the distance. One guys head exploded with a red spray and the other got a gut shot. It appeared they were planting an IED
offhand 3200+
Impressive!
Thanks for coming, an educated, military vet and came in legally, a real addition to our society.
Have you read Michael Yon’s blog, he was embedded with several British units in Iraq & Afghanistan?
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/
yes sir
born and raised, moved over here after I left the military and I came legally unlike those others who disrespect this country and her laws
Me too and ditto the above.
Popped over to gunsamerica.com to see what was available. The L115A3 didn’t show up but the Barrett 98 Bravo in .338 looks very much like it. It’s a pricey weapon at $3800-$4200 without optics. But for what it can do, even at those amazing distances, it sounds like one whale of a rifle. My problem is that I’m a left-handed shooter. That makes it difficult to work a bolt action with any efficiency.
I don’t think the .338 Lapua can shove even anything heavier than a 200gr pill out at 3,200+ fps. My .338 WM with a 210gr pill is about 2850 to 2900, depending on how hot I load it, and the extra powder for the Lapua wouldn’t add more than about 300fps to that.
I’d guess they’re using the heavy HPBT match scenar bullets (they’ve got some awesome BC’s) and launching in the 2850-2950 fps range for a 250gr, 2650 to 2750fps for a 300gr.
There are some simply wonderful long-range, VLD pills in the 300gr range for the .338. The Lapua Scenar 300gr holds a BC > 0.740 while supersonic, and > 0.780 at muzzle velocities. If you’re looking for high-BC pills, you’re hard pressed to beat the .338 until you get into the .408’s recently designed here, or some of the very long 6.5mm’s (.260cal).
Snipers will have range cards (or more likely now) little computers/PDA’s with the ballistics computations in them.
What they have to know is the range - very accurately. At that distance, the bullet is coming down on a very steep angle; if you didn’t range the target correctly (as in, you’re off even a few meters close or far), the bullet will drop into the ground in front of, or behind the target.
Once they have the range to the target, their scopes are calibrated in either mil-dot (milliradians of subtended arc) or “minutes of angle” to allow them to do a little math (or have the PDA do it for them) and they dial in the required number of clicks on the scope to account for the required increase in elevation.
Sounds easy, right? Well, now we have to dope the wind. And that’s not easy. Either it was dead calm (which I doubt), or they were very, very good about doping the wind and dialing in a wind correction.
These fellas had some awesome range-finding skill or equipment in addition to some impressive wind-doping ability.
Doing it once, we could say “He might have just been lucky.”
Dropping the second guy seconds later? That proves it was skill.
Nice to have you here mate.
2007 (age 45) |
Well dog my cats! Not too shabby.
Laser range finders and PDA ballistic calculators could make the job a lot easier, but how do you account for wind over such a long distance?
That’s where the skill comes in. You can use a Kestrel wind meter where you are, but over such a long range, all you can do is read the wind from effects on grass, trees, smoke/dust, etc and make an educated guess. You then enter the info into your ballistics computer and it spits out a wind correction.
TFA stated that the wind was dead calm, but over a range like that, it would take some extraordinary luck for it to be dead calm over the whole path of the bullet.
To this day I am still amazed that in boot camp I was able to hit a target at 500 yards with just iron sights....
This kind of shooting is beyond my comprehension.
WOW
Tables here
For perspective, read .45-70 at Two Miles: The Sandy Hook Tests of 1879
Not always was good shooting optics, computers and high power purpose built rifles. Sometimes, it was just good shooting.
Enjoy.
You will need to buy land with that rifle, as no gun ranges I know of have 1 mile targets.
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