doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Long Range shooting

The longest I ever shot was 500 yds using iron sights and prone. I seldom got out of the black, but it was not a big deal. Big difference between 500 and 1000 yds, Real shooting starts at 1000 yds.

I was a Marine, got drafted into teaching hand to hand because I had done some fighting and the Corps liked my shooting skills. But I was a pilot and my life depended on my flying skills not on hand to hand or shooting. I tried to avoid doing either of the latter. However I still have a fascination for the skill of long distance shooting. If the conditions are right I could see the track of the bullet down range.

A lot of guys during Vietnam got drafted into being a sniper because of their shooting skill. Many got no sniper training because of the pressures of the war. Now the young men are getting real training and shooting the Barret which is a popular rifle. I used to try to pick the brain of my young sniper friend. He had little to say about the calculations as his partner would feed the data into a computer and give him the solution. The hardest part of his training was the conditioning as you can't be breathing hard and shoot precisely.

Pooch, I got started shooting smallbore silhouette, then large bore. So running a scope up, down, and sideways, was essential to be consistent.

There, I met up with some guys that shoot "UKD" matches.
UKD is "Unknown distance" shooting.

All the skills of sniper training, but no electronic do-dads.
Keeps it fair for everyone, and prevents an arms race atmosphere.
You range using mil-dots, do you calculations on a note pad, dial in your dope, and send it.
A match might have 10 stations of different sizes and ranges, all unknown to the shooter.

The last one I shot had uphill and down hill lays for the shooter, with up hill and downhill targets. It was a very difficult course of fire.
Imagine laying headed downhill on a middle aged spread, and then attempt to shoot uphill across the ravine, while wearing bifocals.
If you like to shoot, and like to fiddle with optics and rifles, I highly recommend finding a local group of guys that shoot it.

The first time you dial in some numbers and hear a solid "WHACK" a couple seconds after you fire, you'll be hooked.

Not a site but try to get your hands on the full volumes of the Varmint Hunter magazine. No longer publishing as of 2016 but they were putting out 4 magazines a year since 1993(4). The magazine was the holy grail to accurate guns and how to build them as the DGJ is to us sxs shooters. They had an honor role of shooters in the 500yd, 1000yrd, 1500yrd and 2000yrd club who had shot some type of varmint at that range (usually gophers or prairie dogs). And many, many articles on ballistics, the guns, building them, etc.

I have every issue except volume 1 and I have learned more from the articles than I could have reading any other published magazine.

It's hard to think about shooting long range without higher math, ranger finders either laser or optical, dedicated sniper rifles or calibers. To be fair we now think of long range as 1,000+ meters. But consider WWII snipers who used 03A3 to such great effect. It was up to the shooter to figure it out in his head or off a predetermined chart then adjust on the fly using what was a regular rifle with a simple scope added to it. Those guys were amazing to me.

Hathcock used mirage to estimate cross wind velocities at various ranges to the target. He would focus the scope at a particular distance and watch the mirage. He said that the velocity of the wind would be one half the value of the angle of the mirage waves from vertical. For example, a 22 mph crosswind at 9 or 3 o'clock would have mirage waves angled at 44 degrees.

I read that the latest mile and a half kill, the one in Mosul with the .408 CheyTac, took approximately three seconds for the bullet to reach the target. That's staggering when you consider the bullet's BC of .949 and the MV of 2,850 fps.

A good friend once had a neighbor who was a WWII veteran. He had killed a German sniper in a tree who had his unit pinned down. He had been told to flank the sniper out of sight and then come in from the rear and try to find him before he got shot by him. He did so, and killed him with a M2 carbine at close range just as the sniper saw him. When he fell out of the tree, the sniper's rifle fell so hard that it broke the scope's claw mounts off. G.I. brought the rifle home with two cartridges, 9.3 x 74 !!! It was not a standard military issue Mauser, but was sporterized and the stock had been hand carved with oak leaves and acorns.

SRH

The numbers were sounding off to me. My .260 Rem with the Hornady A-max, BC of 0.585 at 2850fps mv will make 1000yds in 1.99 seconds. I ran the Cheytac numbers: 419gr,BC .949,@ 2850 fps mv. Time of flight to 1.5 miles(2640/ rounded to 2600yds)= 4.68seconds and still retains over 1000 ftlbs of energy.

Maybe not 3 seconds but...
Very Impressive numbers.

John

Beautiful rifle John!! Can you give us some details?

Muzzleloaders, George Gibbs (now made by Pedersoli) and John Rigby and other great English makers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvpYxh-qe9Q

High scores and rifle used.

http://ibb.co/jmoPyv

Thanks,John. That's even more impressive.

There's an old saying that nothing good can happen to a boll of cotton after it opens, until it is picked. Similarly, a lot can happen to a bullet in flight in 4.68 seconds. None of them good.

1000 ft.lbs. @ 1.5 mi. Unghh!

SRH

pooch,
I don't know if you are interested in 19th century longrange shooting but the original World Championship match shot on Creed's farm (hence Creedmoor) on Long Island in 1874 was well documented in the New Yorker magazine and many other places. It was a match of national attention. The Americans defeated the English/Irish using cartridge rifles (mostly Remington Rollingblocks) while the Irish shot John Rigby Muzzleloaders. It was a dramatic match, won on the last shot by an injured American. You can read about it in many places including Ned Roberts' "The Caplock Muzzleloading Rifle" among others (or is Muzzleloading Caplock Rifle? I can never remember).

Anyway, today, we still practice this sport with the same cartridge rifles (NRA Black Powder Target Rifle) and USMILT(or something like that) for muzzleloaders. This fall, 10 of us will be traveling to Adelaide Australia to compete for the World Championship which happens every 2 yrs.

The NRA version allows for muzzleloaders, but caters to cartridge rifles. There are a number of matches around the country (I shot a regional 2 weekends ago in Lodi Wisconsin). The nationals will be shot at Raton New Mexico in August this summer.

Here is one place to read about the muzzleloading side of things. http://www.lrml.org/

FWIW, flight time of a Blackpowder bullet out to 1000 yds is between 3 and 3.5 seconds. You get to pull the trigger and roll over into the spotting scope and watch for dust to come out from behind the target. It is truly a blast (pun intended).

HEY! I was at that match! I shot poorly but I've won it twice in the last 4 yrs.

In this video, my shooting partner is making an 8 on Target 4.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N327UhNah_s