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At 4.4 miles, Wyoming team sets new rifle shot world record
- bjt2n3904 4y agoLong range riflery is a wicked fun hobby if you're into engineering and/or physics at all. The hardest part is finding a range that lets you shoot past 300 yards, is near your house, and doesn't require a pricey membership!
- leveraction 4y agoI didn't know there were so many firearms enthusiasts on HN. I had always (wrongly) assumed I was alone. Cheers to you all.
- aliqot 4y agoCheers my friend. Don't forget to buy more cleaning oil.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 4y agoWhat’s your favorite lever action?
- leveraction 4y agoI have lots of guns of every sort, but I collect old Marlins. I especially like the ones from the 50s in particular. They were never perfect, but the difference in factory quality from the old days vs modern stuff (especially the 70s and afterward) is amazing.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 4y agoRight on. I still haven’t tried a Marlin. My first lever action was an Ithaca 49R which is from that era and is a great piece of history. Completely agree on the difference in factory quality.
- ralusek 4y agoMy experience with software developers is that libertarian-adjacents are overrepresented among us as compared to the general population.
- sponaugle 4y agoIt seems there is a regular cross-section between technology interests and firearms interest. In most groups of the first type I find there is small group of the second, perhaps owing to the interesting problems to be solved in long range shooting.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- themodelplumber 4y ago> “When a bullet is in flight for that long, you have to take into account the rotational speed of the earth. What you’re shooting at isn’t going to be in the same place it was 24 second ago when you pulled the trigger.” Wow. Impressive work! I also noted the pitch differential between scope and barrel :O
- rabi_molar 4y agoIt's essentially a little bit similar to a mortar shell launch I suppose, at that distance? Reminds me of the fun I had trying to do ultra long distance shots playing Gunbound (South Korean MMMORPG that was similar to Worms) online. Very impressive.
- sbaiddn 4y agoImpressive, indeed [1], but its the easiest of the corrections they had to do. Its a standard classical physics question and has been included in artillery calculations since at least the late 19th century. [1] Id imagine that a bullet, being so light compared to a shell, is more affected by fluid flow than the coreolis force. That the correction was needed means they nailed the far more difficult fluid problem.
- chroma 4y agoCoriolis deflection is a rounding error compared other sources of inaccuracy. In their press release[1] they said they didn't account for it: > Scott made the wind and elevation call of 1,092 MOA up and 17 MOA left. (In our original release, I forgot to include that we added a 36 MOA left mechanical wind adjustment at the beginning of the day for a total of 53 MOA for the hit. Our calculation for spindrift was 93.80” right) We did not take into account the Coriolis, as much of that is lost in the weeds with respect to wind (6-9 mph), temperature rising (constantly adjusting elevation) and time of flight. The bullet’s flight path is over 2500 feet above line-of-sight and there is a lot going on up there that we are unable to predictably compensate for. If it had been an absolutely dead-calm day it definitely would be one more variable to try to address. MOA stands for minute of angle, which is 1/60th of a degree, so a 1,092 MOA adjustment is 18.2 degrees. It's insane that they managed to hit the target. 1. https://nomadrifleman.com/world-record-shot/ https://nomadrifleman.com/world-record-shot/
- exabrial 4y agoTwo quotes I thought were noteworthy: > traveling at a downward angle and about 600 feet per second as they reached the target zone. That is incredible. Some BB guns don't even fire horizontally that fast > Regarding it taking 69 shots to hit the mark, with all the variables that had to be taken into account, “we were thrilled it was so few,” Humphries said. To give an idea of how difficult this is....
- akerl_ 4y agoJust to clarify, I'm pretty sure they're saying that the bullet left the muzzle at 3,300 fps and had decelerated down to 600 fps at time of impact, not that it was moving vertically at 600 feet per second. So the fact that it was moving faster than a BB gun isn't really shocking.
- mod 4y agoAfter four miles, it's a little shocking to me. And I'm into shooting sports.
- Alupis 4y ago> ...of a 422-grain copper bullet... > The shot was made with a custom-built rifle chambered for the .416 Barrett cartridge That's a huge bullet that was specifically designed for low-supersonic drag and extreme long range. It has a huge amount of energy at the muzzle... (8,767.4 ft-lb or 11,887 J according to wikipedia[1]) so ~600fps down range, even at 4.4 miles, is not that surprising. The only surprising feat here is they managed to actually hit a target... which is quite incredible. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.416_Barrett https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.416_Barrett
- NaturalPhallacy 4y agoFor the non-gun people in here that is an absolute chonker of a bullet. The .556 (very common AR round) is 112. 9mm common in handguns is around 115. 422 grain = 27.35 grams / 0.9646 ounces.
- gbrindisi 4y ago7.08 km
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- below43 4y agoThank you!
- jonah 4y agoThis reminds me about the Ukrainian Snipex Alligator sniper rifle I read about recently. It uses 14.5-millimeter heavy machine gun rounds and it's claimed to be able to penetrate 10mm steel armor at 1,500 meters. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a41283557/ukraine-snipex-alligator-sniper-rifle/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a41283557/... https://snipex.com/alligator https://snipex.com/alligator
- RajT88 4y agoI was surprised to see a big red "BUY" button on that page. Surely it can't be that easy? Upon clicking, "This Account has been Suspended. Contact your hosting provider for more information."
- chasd00 4y agoIt’s not that big of a deal really. A guy in the high power rocketry hobby club I’m in has a 20mm cannon. It’s a single shot anti tank rifle basically. It’s pretty much impossible to use it in a crime because of how gigantic and heavy it is.
- ketzo 4y agoI don't know if that's supposed to be comforting, but "Don't worry -- this weapon is way too large and powerful for someone to use in mere petty crime!" does not exactly put one at ease
- zdragnar 4y agoWhy does that worry you? It's trivially easy to make an air gun capable of killing someone with parts from a hardware store and a bicycle tire pump. $20 in parts, give or take, plus the cost of the pump. Beyond that, manufacturing explosives is also easy with chemicals from a hardware store. Manufacturing stable explosives is a bit trickier, though not by much- it just limits the explosives you can make. Really big weapons are harder to use in petty crime, because they're really, really obvious when you carry them around, and petty crime isn't worth whipping the big guns out for- the bullet is probably worth more than what you could get off of most people walking the street.
- timcavel 4y ago
- spywaregorilla 4y agoIs this an engineering challenge or a marksmanship challenge? Like... Could you just fire the gun, then put the target where the bullet went an fire again and say its mission accomplished because the real goal is just setting up a gun that stable and precise and deterministic?
- Enginerrrd 4y agoBoth, combined with quite a bit of luck. >Like... Could you just fire the gun, then put the target where the bullet went an fire again and say its mission accomplished because the real goal is just setting up a gun that stable and precise and deterministic? No... slight variations in wind and atmospherics across that distance change too rapidly and significantly to make that viable. (Also, you wouldn't need to, you'd just adjust the windage/elevation on the optics and/or fancy rifle mount.) Also the when the bullet drops from supersonic to subsonic speed, there is a non-deterministic kick that it receives which dramatically reduces accuracy beyond that distance.
- spywaregorilla 4y agook wind aside, if that's true, how is it possible to aim it then? It can't possibly be true that you can precisely adjust your aim to hit a specific target if you can't even hit the same target by not changing your aim?
- msherry 4y agoThat's why this is such an impressive achievement!
- hamburglar 4y agoIt’s also why they succeeded on the 69th try instead of the 2nd.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
- TylerE 4y agoI wonder what the rules are? Naval rifle guns have achieved hits beyond 20 miles in combat
- Retric 4y agoLooks like +/- 2 inch accuracy which is well beyond naval guns at 20 miles. Custom guided artillery shells could probably hit that kind of accuracy at significantly longer ranges, but pure ballistic weapons simply aren’t designed for extreme accuracy at range.
- rjsw 4y agoIn theory it may not be possible for naval guns to hit targets 20 miles away. In practice it has happened more than once [1] [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Calabria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Calabria [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Glorious#Sinking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Glorious#Sinking
- Retric 4y agoShips are a lot larger than a 2 inch radius circle. Even +/- 30 feet is more than good enough for a long range naval shelling.
- sbaiddn 4y agoNaval shells have much lower surface to mass ratios. In the limit that that ratio goes to zero the fluid forces disappear and you're left with simple parabolic motion + rotation of the Earth. The fluid flow is the hard one!
- TylerE 4y agoYou’re grossly oversimplifying. Naval firing calculations include factors like the temperature of both the air and the barrel and minor variations in powder quality - and then of course both the thing you’re trying to hit AND the gun itself are both moving in 3 dimensions. Even WWII mechanical fire computers took 30-40 variables as input
- srvmshr 4y agoTwo interesting observations from this article: * I am more amazed at the quality of the scope that the shooter could place a bullet on a 8" bullseye at a distance of 7.08km. There must be something fascinating to it since, Rayleigh's criterion for resolving two points puts some physical limits to the aperture. To resolve a palm sized mark, you need a sufficiently large aperture on telescope & that's not easy to mount/operate. * This is one of the neatest images I have seen of the effect of rifling on the bullet, in addition to the thermochemical effect on the bullet tip. The tip at that distance & time of flight goes through sustained heating & there is some evidence of rapid oxidation - much like a piece of metal exposed for few seconds to blowtorch.
- twawaaay 4y agoI am pretty sure in this case the scope is used just like scopes on artillery. You would be interested how artillery scopes resolve from tens of kilometers? They do not.
- somat 4y agoartillery can rarely see their target. My understanding is they use a reference point they place near by and are good at turning offsets to this to the correct angle and powder charge to reach the target. it helps to have an observer that can see the target the can provide aim adjust feedback. Note that they can do direct fire missions where the target is sighted directly. but I think that is considered too damn close when that happens. Also note that tanks(a direct fire device) have been known to engage targets at 4+ kilometers. Probably a case of a large stable mount, and a good targeting computer. A fun fact, computing artillery tables was the primary task of some of the first electronic computers.
- wlesieutre 4y agoAnd before the electronic computers, we used mechanical computers! https://hackaday.com/2013/03/13/retrotechtacular-mechanical-targeting-computers/ https://hackaday.com/2013/03/13/retrotechtacular-mechanical-...
- jacobsenscott 4y agoWhat's the point of keeping the shooter anonymous?
- Jemm 4y agoWe used to break distance records in video games. The shooter would fire a shot and the spotters moved the target to where the shot landed then the shooter would fire again. Managed to get some amazing distances that way and break the game.
- harha 4y agoI just drew [1] the radius from my home for comparison, this is unimaginably far. [1]: https://www.calcmaps.com/map-radius/ https://www.calcmaps.com/map-radius/
- Gys 4y ago> it was nothing short of miraculous for the shot, the 69th attempt that morning, to land inside an 8-inch orange bullseye. Magical even to me. But statistically, if you try often enough?
- infotecht 4y ago69th attempt on a one-in-a-million shot (according to them) is pretty good!
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y agoNot that I want to condone violence or assassination, but on reading this my first thoughts were "wow, that would make certain things possible that are currently difficult-to-impossible". And also "Day of the Jackal".
- tunesmith 4y agoI wonder how the sound would work? I wrote a story where one scene had a rifle shot from just under a mile away. I don't shoot, and did what research I could under the deadline - characters heard the sound of the impact, and then the sound of the actual report shortly afterward. But I wonder if when it's that far away, if the report wouldn't have been audible at all.
- gibspaulding 4y agoThey mention in the article that by the end of it's flight, the bullet is flying subsonically and that their bullet is optimized for that subsonic flight so I wonder if that forms a significant portion of the flight time. If so you could have the sonic boom start to catch back up with the bullet and not get as much delay as at a closer range.
- thescriptkiddie 4y agoIt says it took them 69 attempts to hit the target. I wonder if that is repeatable, or did they just get lucky? The video gives the impression that the rifle was handheld, so they couldn't have dialed in shot like artillery. But if they had, what would the spread be like at that range? Would it even be possible to reliably hit the target? If not, is it literally just dumb luck?
- SkyMarshal 4y agoThe design of the bullet itself is interesting. Normally, longer and thinner is more aerodynamic, in any fluid, air or water - it creates less turbulence and drag. But here they found shorter and fatter works better for transonic projectiles: > The .416 Barrett cartridge is made by “necking down” a .50 Browning Machine Gun (BMG) round to accommodate the roughly .40-caliber bullet. It’s a relatively short, stout bullet that proved ideal for its purpose, Humphries said. > “Traditionally in extreme long-range shooting, we wanted long, skinny bullets,” he said. “However, we discovered that as a bullet crosses over into subsonic velocity, it flies better if it’s shorter and fatter.”
- colechristensen 4y agoBullets in flight have a few dynamical modes where they have a sort of wobble around the direction of travel. They all, when given enough distance, end up tumbling end over end which absolutely ruins accuracy though getting hit with a tumbling bullet is quite destructive for soft targets. I can totally see trying for a record being helped with a low aspect ratio bullet (er, short and stubby) though this is probably not what you’d actually do if you were doing anything but trying for records. Fun fact: if you don’t correct for the fact that the earth is spinning which requires knowing your latitude and compass direction, your targeting will be off by an amount measured in feet at this range. I spent a while developing external ballistics models for a similar use case years ago. The standard tome of knowledge is McCoy - Modern Exterior Ballistics https://a.co/d/8B6w0qL https://a.co/d/8B6w0qL
- jcims 4y agoWould you happen to know why so many high speed videos of bullets show them flying pitched up or down slightly from the direction of flight shortly after leaving the muzzle?
- colechristensen 4y agoThose are just the dynamics. The angle of attack sort of wanders around the direction of travel, this is the basics of how rifiling helps stability.
- xwdv 4y agoI used to think the movie “Wanted” was pure science fiction. Not anymore. It’s feasible someone could be sniped out from miles away. Must be a nightmare for security logistics of VIPs.
- HighPlainsDrftr 4y agoHah. I don't think its feasible for someone to be sniped at that distance. After 69 shots over hours on a good day, security would have well figured out they were under attack. If they didn't, the target probably would have been done with whatever they were doing and long gone.
- xwdv 4y agoWith enough inputs and maybe a test shot I think an AI could figure out the exact shot to hit the target quickly.
- HighPlainsDrftr 4y agoIt would be interesting to test. I think the key is figuring out very localized conditions across the path. Those change quickly.
- hamburglar 4y agoI would love to see super slow-motion video of the bullet at the end of its flight to see how it’s spinning. It must be significantly slower than when it exits the barrel. Cue slow-mo guys. Another very interesting thing to see up close and slow-mo would be the transition from supersonic to subsonic, but I have no idea how you’d even begin to get a camera set up to capture that.
- jwally 4y agoHonest question: Why does earths rotation matter? You and the target are both moving at the same speed throughout the bullets flight in the same direction - why should it factor in?
- aero-glide2 4y agoThe target moves at different speed because earth's rotation varies with longitude (highest at equator, 0 at poles). That's my understanding atleast!
- dmurray 4y agoShould you put the target due East or West to remove this effect? Or is it dominated by other concerns that would make you want a different direction (I don't know what - prevailing winds, having to find a 7km patch of empty space - neither sound so difficult in Wyoming).
- HighPlainsDrftr 4y agoWindy Wyoming as it's called. I live in the east side of the state - few hours away from where they did this. While Pinedale is generally less windy, don't kid yourself, it changes constantly. Add in they did this test at like 8,000 ft elevation. The temperature is constantly changing. I find it impressive they found a 4.4 mile stretch that was unobstructed, no risk to hitting something (person/critter) in that area. They found a ridge that allowed them a way to somewhat see the target. No real world application for what they did, but the effort, the science, the planning - impressive. I'm guessing they must have used GPS to find their location, and calculate the rotation of the earth. But even small changes - like repointing 1mm to the north or south would be huge over that distance.
- aero-glide2 4y ago*with latitude
- subhro 4y agoCoriolis effect. Google it.
- SkyMarshal 4y agoStructured barrels are a relatively recent development and interesting in and of themselves. One of the main objectives is to eliminate barrel harmonics that distort accuracy. The article didn't provide much info on the structured barrel used to break the record, so here's some from the only company I'm aware of that specializes in making them: https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2019/07/30/tacomhq-structured-barrels-better-in-every-aspect/ https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2019/07/30/tacomhq-struc... https://tacomhq.com/structured-barrels/ https://tacomhq.com/structured-barrels/ The Engineering Behind a TACOMHQ Structured Barrel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-7LKQYtU48 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-7LKQYtU48
- major505 4y agoITs amazing how much tech made firearms more acurate. This days I was watching 9hole reviews where they had a long range course up to 600 yards. He done it with every iteration of the AR-15. The last one was a WWST rifle (a moderized AR with super light materials), and the thing shot like a laser beam. https://youtu.be/-QoQznLh29Q https://youtu.be/-QoQznLh29Q
- NonNefarious 4y ago"He done it?"
- NonNefarious 4y agoUh-oh, some pro-illiteracy lobbyist has down-modded me.
- kragen 4y ago104 years ago the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Gun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Gun could shoot 120 km (75 "miles", in medieval units), but it definitely couldn't hit a 200-mm target. Not even in 69 tries. (Yes, it was rifled.) To me it seems like a more sensible way to hit a target from 7 km away would be to guide the projectile with movable canards, like the VAPP (or, as mentioned elsethread, the M982 Excalibur or XM1156 PGK). You could even do this with a bow and "arrow": once the "arrow" has gained 300 meters of altitude, it has a range of 7 km if its glide ratio is 24, quite achievable (though a regular arrow has a glide ratio of about 0). And you don't have to shoot it straight up, so you can get by with an even lower glide ratio than that.
- walrus01 4y agoOn the 60th or more shot is not a record, if you throw enough lead down range in the general aim, one will impact eventually. Something like a 2km repeatable shot done with 338 lapua and 26" barrel high accuracy rifle is much more real world.
- charlie0 4y agoIt's wheels away from being a tank.
- saeranv 4y ago> “The bullet is coming down so slowly, and at about a 48-degree angle, it was just penetrating into the ground without kicking up dust.” I have no shooting experience, but the arc they have to put into the shot to travel 4.4 miles (~7 km), seems so counter-intuitive to what I associate with shooting. Really impressive work by this team, to have all this calculated out so that they can hit it within 69 shots. I'm really curious what the success rate of their shot is. From the video, it sounds like the unsuccessful shots were still relatively close by, enough that they seemed confident in being able to still guide it in, so around 1/100 sounds about right, as a crude prior estimate.
- mike_d 4y agoOver water (completely flat) you have a maximum sight-line of 3.1 miles due to the curve of the earth. Not only is this shot unlikely to be repeatable, but it is downright impossible without a forward observer. The current record for the farthest sniper shot resulting in a kill is just under 2.2 miles for reference. With the power requirements to get a bullet out that far, all of the longest sniper shots are using effectively anti-material rifles (designed to take out a car engine, not a person).
- kubami 4y agoBoth of which they acknowledge: “It’s a one-in-a-million shot. They said it’s not statistically repeatable,” he said. “The amount of precision and time that went into that shot was simply amazing.
- oliwarner 4y agoA shot? Not to detract from the calculations and physical adjustments required to even get close, but a single bullseye at any other range doesn't impress. It's the grouping, three or more on top of each other. To maybe detract, this was the 69th consecutive attempt. Hmm.
- Sporktacular 4y ago"“It’s a one-in-a-million shot. They said it’s not statistically repeatable,” he said." So it's like they're admitting it's almost a fluke, and I appreciate how they're being so upfront about that. They made a follow up video about how it's more like YouTube basketball world records than competition level ones. But still a great achievement.
- wiradikusuma 4y agoNot trying to downplay this. But with 69 shots, isn't this like Worms computer games where your first shot is guesstimate, and the rest is just nudging the degree "up or down"? Or they use same approach that NASA uses to launch a rocket to ensure it lands on the moon? I.e some sophisticated calculation (which I assume part of the “some secrets” mentioned in the article).
- WastingMyTime89 4y agoIt’s mostly a pointless record however. 69 tries required to finally have the shooter put the bullet where the calculator said it should be. Just mount the damn thing on a robotised arm, give it an anemometer, a military laser rangefinder and a stabilised camera, it will hit shot after shot. That’s pretty much what a small calibre artillery gun is with a slightly higher calibre than their rifle because why bother with such an inefficient projectile anyway. And to be fair, at this point, given the extensive modification to the rifle, what they are doing is more or less turning it into a poor piece of artillery before shooting it in the worst way possible.
- lettergram 4y ago> it will hit shot after shot. That’s pretty much what a small calibre artillery gun is. I actually think there’s a lot more “luck” than that. The weather over 4 miles is probably enough to cause errors on a regular basis. Might only make 1/5 shots
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- notyourwork 4y agoAgreed, the OP you're replying to is entirely dismissive of the achievement in of itself. Lot's of things can be perhaps "better" without a human involved so why do we do any of them? Nascar and F1 racing, why are humans driving? Clearly an AI driven car can outperform any human on the racetrack, I'm not sure why we bother.
- WastingMyTime89 4y agoI think exactly the same thing of motorsport as I explained in another reply. These records are entirely based on technical advance in the equipment. The human factor is incidental. It’s even worst here because the limits set on the record are purely arbitrary. Why is a souped rifle, civilian optics cobbled together and a calculator significant when you could just use a higher calibre and a better designed gun? The whole thing is completely artificial therefor pointless to me. I mean there is reason they are beating their own previously held record by 46%. No one cares so no one is trying to beat them.
- ourmandave 4y agoForget expensive over-the-horizon missiles. Just put these guys in your boat tower.
- Terretta 4y ago> “It’s a one-in-a-million shot. They said it’s not statistically repeatable,” he said. > ... it was nothing short of miraculous for the shot, the 69th attempt that morning, to land inside an 8-inch orange bullseye.
- NonNefarious 4y agoI'm not saying it isn't impressive, but on the other hand... if you fire enough shots at something, you're eventually going to hit it. Where do you draw the line?
- HighPlainsDrftr 4y agoProbably when you run out of $$$. Think about it though, yeah they fired 69 shots. It took several minutes to setup each shot. I can't hit a target at 50 yards. Its tough to get the mind clear and the heart rate down, breathing under control, and then try to figure out if the siting is off or you are off. Hell, siting in a firearm is a challenge. Changes in ammo have effects. The environment is always changing. Anything at this range probably won't have any real world use cases. Nobody is going to try to shoot a deer at 4.4 miles. The military isn't going to use it in war. What you will see is a ton of data being shared. Someone else will set a record in the future. And we will get to see that data. It really is interesting. But I doubt you could take all the ammo in the world and randomly hit that target at that distance without a hell of alot of thought and planning.