Truth or Fiction?

You can "eliminate flyers" til you get to a one caliber group... one shot.

I know of one gunzine writer who was prone to photographing his targets with the gun and/or a box of ammo laid across the paper. Supposedly to show what he was shooting, really to cover up the shots he pulled.

depends on the day. sometimes when i bowl ill get a 190 and the next frame a 115. but thats neither here nor there... theres too many elements involved to get a group like that, and even on PERFECT conditions, that wont happen. ive dealt with some damn good shooters in my time and participated in many military competitions, nobody can be that precise. too much room for error.

I`ve seen many posts where people claim to shoot 1" groups at 300 - 1000 yards.

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I'm sure there are plenty of people that can really do it, but I have a feeling that the vast majority that brag on the internet are mall-ninjas telling fish stories.

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a .50bmg runs out long before that.

-cyanidegenocide


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A McMillan TAC-50 .50 BMG sniper rifle was used by Canadian Corporal Rob Furlong to bring off the longest-range confirmed sniper kill in history, when he shot a Taliban insurgent at 2,430 meters (2,657 yards)

-wikipedia

i stand corrected to a point. the same article lists the effective range at 2190 yards. sure the bullet will keep traveling but after you drop below super sonic you are really just lobbing lead and not shooting. i know of a child that was killed by a .22 caliber bullet and the shooter was 3.6 miles away. so i agree these amazing shots CAN happen but can they be repeated? just cuz a bullet can go that far doesn't mean its supersonic. the only reason i am arguing that is because when a bullet transitions from super to subsonic the sound waves stack up in front of the bullet and will destabilize it, obviously heavier bullets destabilize less BUT its enough to throw off a 1.5" group. btw how many sighters did the sniper take? could he have put all his shots between the fellow's eyes? seems thats about 1.5"

If you believe all the bragging stories about how good some people shoot, you'll also believe that I can shoot the freckle off a gnat's behind at 1000 yards with out the gnat ever feeling a thing....

A McMillan TAC-50 .50 BMG sniper rifle was used by Canadian Corporal Rob Furlong to bring off the longest-range confirmed sniper kill in history, when he shot a Taliban insurgent at 2,430 meters (2,657 yards)

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as an unfortunate witness, you dont really need to hit target with a 50 BMG to rip someone apart. the physics/ballistics of that particular round will shred a soft target apart without hitting it. call me a lair but ive seen it happen with the M2. regardless, what he did was great and that record probably will never be broken by man

and military manuals state the max eff range of a point target for the BMG is 1,550 meters. if he indeed got that kill they will have to update the books

What makes me laugh is how often you hear of groups at 1,000 yds that would literally set a world record. Seriously, what's the 1,000 yard 5 shot record? What ever it is, it's probably much larger than most posers would believe.

It's like comparing high school track records to Olympic times. Sure the Olympians are only a few minutes or seconds faster than a high school senior. It's not until you're running the track that you understand just how much faster that really is.

Do the math. Most of us are thrilled to death with a 1/2 moa rifle. That's still 5" at 1000 yards no matter how you slice it.

If you have the wherewithall to do better, good for you, but most of us could try forever with handloads, ammo sizing, bedding, triggers, etc, and not do better than that.

A basic rule of mine is to convert yards into feet. I have had people regale me with tales of their fantastic abilities and in their excitement they mistakenly say "yards" when they actually mean "feet". Others forget to mention that they were dreaming at the time.

I routinely shoot .308 inch groups at 1000 yards.

... of course we're talking about 1 shot groups.



People like to tell fibs, it's a fact of life.

A shooting buddy and I were out shooting bowling pins with my Garand. We quickly estimated the distance--I said somewhere between 170 and 200 yards, he said between 240 and 280. He pulled out his rangefinder and it was ~184 yards.

People just suck at telling distances. The ones that can shoot those crazy groups at X-hundred yards that I know of are the ones who can also tell you what their hand-rolled recipie happened to be that day, conditions, and what rifle, rather than the "yeah, I was shooting factory ammo, offhand..." type dudes.

Yeah, people lie.

You know there are times I agree wholeheartedly with this.

Then again I see amazing things at High Power events with iron sights.

Shooting 300 yards with a 36x scope and a good rifle (and especially important, good ammo) off of bags and a rest is a lot easier than most people think. My 13 year old can hit orange pop cans at 300 yards with a scoped (24x) AR-15 Varmint off of a bipod with suprising regularity. An inch @300 is easy.

This gets harder and costs more:



Whip over to www.6mmBR.com and set your goals a little higher!

600+ to a 1000 yards? Better have decent equipment, wind flags, and experience.

More rambling, and for the record, I don't claim to shoot well, just often.

Once you have an accurate gun, and loads worked up for THAT rifle, the things that set real skill apart from the internet lies are:

- Hitting targets at unknown distances. Those folks that can do mental Mil-Dot math in their head estimating distance and determining holdover and windage with mil-dot (or more elaborate) reticles. Go read Zak Smiths website and articles. It's quite do-able...but there is a skill to be aquired, and an innate skill required.

- Wind. Check benchrest.com or 6mmBR.com and go to a local shoot. There is also a lot of internet bravado over how much skill it takes to shoot over bags. In no wind, not much. Watch a benchrest match or see pictures of the 'Super Shoot. The whole damn place is filled with windflags, and these guys shooting aggs are shooting at 200 yards. Note how all the shots are fired between gusts of wind.

One poster mentioned 1/2 MOA is 5 inches at 1000 yards. That's before wind. I've never shot 1K (formally) but watched an event. My take on it is that the skill in judging wind was more important than the difference between equipment. If you can shoot 5 inches at 1000 yards in a 5-10mph wind, I wanna buy you beers until you fill my head with info!

An inch @300 is easy

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BS

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A lotta prarie doggers and target shoots would disagree.

Where do ya live M.O.A. (ironic...). I'm in Illinois, and if ya go to the ISRA range, I bet I could set ya up with bags and a rifle. Bet I could have YOU shoot such a group within 15 shots @ 300 (within 3 five shot groups).

On May 7th there is a 300 Yard Benchrest event @ 3pm there. (www.isra.org http://www.isra.org/range/2008_range_calendar.pdf). I'll bet ya (or any other poster here who can attend) $20 that a 1" group won't be good enough to win.

Trust me, I won't be the best shot (or shooting rig) there, but I expect to be 1" or hopefully under.

I like 10 shot groups. They are a lot more informative as to how well I don't shoot.

An old friend of mine, Tom Gilman, told me many years ago while looking at one of my screamer 5 shot, 100 yard targets, .085, that I should carefully staple one target over the last, shoot each 5 times, do that through 7 targets, then measure the bottom target to see how my rifle is really shooting. the older benchrest crowd will reconize Tom's name.

I had Hart build me a very accurate 6mmBR, I shot some unbelievable groups with that rifle and I shot some ugly groups with that rifle. Wind and mirage are a shooter's nightmare, it was topped with a 45X Leupold, had a 2 ounce jewel trigger. etc. It was either the best rifle I ever owned or the sorriest POS I ever owned, depending on its last group.

I am always amazed at the ability of the keyboard rifle jocks, but I never see them doing it at the range, I guess the great ones have their own ranges where mortal men can't go.

I can't recall the details but some one will bring up a link I'm sure. There is a well documented case where a Army scout back during the 1840's or 1850"s shot an Indian chief out of his saddle at some extreme range with his buffalo gun. It was in Texas I think. The army had a survey crew document the range and it was about 3/4 mile if I remember correctly.

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Billy Dixon at the battle of Adobe Walls.

He claimed over and over until his death that it was just a lucky shot.

At what point does curvature & spin of the earth take effect? As well as wind. It's possible that the wind can change between here, and there (2750 yds away). Too many variables involved to be doable... I would think...

as an unfortunate witness, you dont really need to hit target with a 50 BMG to rip someone apart. the physics/ballistics of that particular round will shred a soft target apart without hitting it.

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I'm sorry, but that's not even remotely possible when obeying the physics of our universe.

During what was called The Three Days Battle , that essentially ended the Lincoln county war, a Mcsween partisan named Jose Chavez ý Chavez made a documented 1/2 mile shot W/ a .50 Sharp's. Killling his man W/ one shot over iron sights.

that's about the best shooting I ever heard of, and I would bet luck had a lot to do W/ it.

Pure dumb luck??? Boy do I have a true story for y'all...

I was out on the back deck with my trusty crosman pellet gun one afternoon after school... just takin' pot shots at birds flying by... I wasn't even coming close... my mom comes out and says "you know what your father would do if he saw you doing that" I looked at my mom, and said, do you know what the chances of hitting a bird in flight are???? turned and shot a bird out of the air... go figure... could I repeat it??? ppfft!!! probably not... was pure dumb luck...

For the record... I handed the crosman over that moment, and haven't seen it since....

Yeah I think it is safe to say we've all heard some fairly tall tails when it comes to shooting and groups.

One of my favorites, that happens to be true, was told to me by one of my dad's older friends. He was on the Army shooting team in the '60s and has some pretty cool stories from some of the different competitions he was in.

But one of the better ones involves iron sights at 500 yards, 20 rnd slow fire. I forget the size of the group, but he won th match and also set a record. He's still got the certificate framed in his bedroom. He can still recall pulling shot 19 a bit low and left.

I doubt anybody can do it on demand...Taliv said it pretty well....we all have our days...both good and bad.

The only gun I have ever seen shoot 1" MOA @ 1000 yards is a tricked out Barrett.

I have shot a few good (3-4 inch) groups at 1000 yards...i have also shot a few bad (3-4 feet) ones. But I cant do either one just anytime I want to.