Record 2-mile sniper shot kills ISIS militant in Iraq

A Canadian soldier in Iraq has killed an ISIS militant from more than two miles away, shattering the world record for a confirmed sniper kill in military history.

Canadian sniper shatters record, kills ISIS fighter from 2 miles away: Report

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Unreal shot, good for them!

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Miss My Buddy crsides!!

That was an amazing shot that required expert skill. A bullet that travels for 10 seconds before impacting the target has to have some luck involved also.

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Makes you think ISIS may be mistaken about which side ALLAH is on.

10 seconds to reach the target seems like a long time for a target to stand still in anything that resembles an "attack." I guess it was a bad day for the guy who stood still.

Way to go!
I am so grateful for our Friends and Allies.
Canadians, many thanks from the bottom of my heart for your support.
Hand Salute!

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I do admire the skill required to caused the bullet to arrive at the designated location.

My thoughts return to the claimed Civil War quote The last words of Union Army General John Sedgwick, when talking about Confederate sharpshooters were about 1,000 yards (900 m) away.

Bekeart

Those Canadians have three of the five longest shots ever! Including this one, the absolute longest.

And here I was, feeling proud of hitting targets at 25 yards.

With a shot like that it's usually sitting or leaning when the shot is taken, to allow the in-flight time.

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Canadian JTF2 sniper team with a McMillan took the world's longest sniper shot record with a 3,540 m (3,871 yd/ 2.20 mi) confirmed kill. The action took place in Iraq against the Islamic State. As for confirmation, apparently there were both observation posts and videos of the event.

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The Canadian sniper was using a McMillan TAC-50 sniper rifle according to Canadian site "The Globe And News" but no mention of the ammo used.

Oops,took too long getting this typed>Thanks PPS1980

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I guess they know now not to stand still for 10 seconds.

I saw a video once of a Canadian sniper talking about ammo. He said, when they could get it they would rather use U.S .50 cal. ammo over their own because it was a little hotter load. Plus they would set the rounds out in the sun to warm them up.

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Hyena Road is a 2015 war drama written by, directed and starring Paul Gross.Gross stars as Pete Mitchell, a Canadian military intelligence officer who recruits a team of snipers led by Ryan Sanders (Rossif Sutherland) in an effort to track down a mysterious Afghan fighter known as the Ghost. The film blends real footage shot by Gross in Afghanistan with action footage filmed in Canada and in Jordan.

The McMillan TAC-50 is shown in the movie
Hyena Road - Internet Movie Firearms Database - Guns in Movies, TV and Video Games

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The team usually observes a designated target for some time prior to the shot. This is to learn their habits and not be taken by surprise between trigger pull and impact.

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Does anybody know what's the muzzle velocity of such a round?

It travelled 3 and a half kilometers and had enough energy to be accurate and kill.

Around 4.000 FPS maybe?

I don't think they were attacking. Maybe on their way to fight but they still had some distance to go

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

"Why those hosers couldn't hit Amy Schumer at this <CRACK! - SPLAT! - THUMP!>"

I recently read a book on modern sniper training in the US military, don't remember the name now. The author said that Ranger Battalion sniper competition is so fierce that a common challenge is to have candidates shoot at 1000 yards, open sights, with an M-4. That is about a 44 foot drop at that range. Can you imagine.

Now that is impressive. The 50 cal when it has to be done right. No fuss no muss no more.

Thank you,

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I thought Paul Gross looked familiar and then remembered he was a Mountie in "Due South".

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Mike
S&WCA #3065

3450 meters equals roughly 11318 feet. I think the ammo generates more than 1132 fps, don't you? I'm having trouble wrapping my head around 10 seconds for it to get there. But there I go thinking again. No matter, it's STILL a VERY impressive shot.

Bill Mahnke

Well thought out, sir. But that would be the "average" velocity through the 3.450 meters, right?

I suppose it must exit the muzzle at a whopping 4.000 fps or so and it gradually slows down during flight.

Sheesh, just ten seconds? Maybe he was posing for a selfie?

Can't imagine shooting 1000 yards, open sights.
I remember shooting while in Army Basic so many yrs ago, 300 yards, open sights with an M-14. Wasn't easy to consistently hit the torso size target down range...even in the prone position.

As I have no idea which .50 BMG round was used (there are several) nor its bullet weight and ballistic coefficient, nor the barrel length of the rifle, this is just an educated guess based upon several rough assumptions - the bullet was traveling below Mach 1, roughly around 800 ft/sec. Drop at that distance from the muzzle would be very great, around 1000 feet, requiring a high departure angle (about 400 MOA or around 7 degrees). And indeed, the time of flight would be close to 10 seconds. If I knew the bullet weight, BC, and MV I could calculate the bullet velocity, drop, and flight time at that distance fairly accurately.

What isn't given is how many shots at man-size targets have ever been taken at that range and missed? The slightest error in range estimation or cross-speed of the wind and Coriolis effect miscalculation would cause a miss. Luck (or in the case of the target, bad luck) played an extremely large role in that shot being made successfully.

I read that it was "less than 10 seconds".
How much less, they didn't say. So there is some wiggle room with that velocity equation.

Post 20 mentioned bullet drop. Used formula for falling body from physics class.

1 Second ***** Path Drop - 16 Feet
2 Second ***** Path Drop - 64 Feet
3 Second ***** Path Drop - 144 Feet
4 Second ***** Path Drop - 256 Feet
5 Second ***** Path Drop - 400 Feet
6 Second ***** Path Drop - 576 Feet
7 Second ***** Path Drop - 784 Feet
8 Second ***** Path Drop - 1024 Feet
9 Second ***** Path Drop - 1296 Feet
10 Seconds ***** Path Drop - 1600 Feet

AMAZING!

Bekeart

Clarification Update: These drops are calculated for flight time - NOT the distance from muzzle as usually graphed.

Not open sights, but my dad shot 1,000 yard matches in the 60's with iron sights. He used a Model 70, 30-06 with peep sights, and put 9 shots in the X ring and one in the 10 the time I went with him to Camp Perry.

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To the Canadian sniper: nicely done!

Not exactly.

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Hi folks hope this helps...From Fox:

FoxNews.com - Breaking News | Latest News | Current News

A Canadian sniper set what appears to be a record, picking off an ISIS fighter from some 2.2 miles away, and disrupting a potentially deadly operation by the terror group in Iraq.

Shooting experts say the fatal shot at a world-record distance of 11,316 feet underscores how stunningly sophisticated military snipers are becoming. The feat, pulled off by a special forces sniper from Canada’s Joint Task Force 2, smashed the previous distance record for successful sniper shots by some 3,280 feet, a record set by a British sniper.

"The Canadian Special Operations Command can confirm that a member of the Joint Task Force 2 successfully hit a target from 3,540 metres [2.2 miles]," the Canadian military said in a statement.

While officials would not say where the shot took place, the statement noted the command "provides its expertise to Iraqi security force to detect, identify and defeat Daesh activities from well behind the Iraqi security force front line in Mosul."

The new record was set using a McMillan TAC-50, a .50-caliber weapon and the largest shoulder-fired firearm in existence.

Ryan Cleckner, a former U.S. Army Ranger sniper who served two tours of duty in Afghanistan and wrote the authoritative “Long Range Shooting Handbook,” called the feat an “incredible” accomplishment, one that owes as much if not more to the spotter’s expertise than the shooter's skill.

“The spotter would have had to successfully calculate five factors: distance, wind, atmospheric conditions and the speed of the earth’s rotation at their latitude,” Cleckner told Fox News.

“Because wind speed and direction would vary over the two miles the bullet traveled, the true challenge here was being able to calculate the actual wind speed and direction all the way to the target.”

Atmospheric conditions also would have posed a huge challenge for the spotter.

“To get the atmospheric conditions just right, the spotter would have had to understand the temperature, humidity and barometric pressure of the air the round had to travel through.

Cleckner said that while the ammunition that Canadian special forces use in the TAC-50 is “off-the-charts powerful,” with some 13,000 foot-pounds of force when it comes out of the muzzle, the speed of a bullet, a 750-grain Hornady round, is not as important as the aerodynamic efficiency of the bullet.

“The key to having a sniper round travel that far and hit a small target has less to do with speed and more to do with the efficiency with which the projectile moves through the air,” he said.

That’s because while sniper bullets exit the muzzle at several times the speed of sound they eventually slow down to less than the speed of sound, and at that point they become less stable. An efficiently designed bullet reduces that instability, he explained.

Dennis Santiago, California-based firearms expert and instructor, said the partnership between the spotter and the shooter is critical.

"Equipment is just a starting point. The shooter on a military team will surely be skilled enough to hold hard on the 'aimpoint' and fire the shot accurately," he told Fox News. "The spotter member of the sniper team is responsible for telling the shooter the precise moment the atmospherics align with the calculations they've made. When it comes together, it's 'mission accomplished'.

A couple of thing about 50BMG ammo. Ball ammo (750 grain) is 2700 fps and most factory target rounds follow a similar set of guidelines. the 625 grain is faster from the muzzle, but the lower Ballistic Co-efficient is lower so it slows down faster.

At Thunder Valley Range in Ohio, people firing the Hornady A-Max bullet suffer strange flight paths @ 1000 yards. The ground has lots of little aluminum cones at about 700-800 yards. I don't know why they came loose but they did! (maybe loaded too fast, or wrong twist?) The A-Max 50 cal. bullet has a BC of over 1.00, They used to think that 1.00 was perfect, Old Joyce taught the world something about Physics!

I can only afford a good 50BMG rifle if I hit the Lottery! So pray for my gun collection!

Ivan

Think round numbers. 11,000 is about 10 times farther than 1,000.

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To think that there there are elements on both the far left and far right that think they can take on the modern military. People that can make 2-mile shots tend to take all the fun out of revolution and just being plain ornery.

Shot from an elevated position. Search youtube for"2 mile shot with 338 lapua" for some amasing shooting

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Are you confusing 11,000 feet and 1000 yards(3000 feet)

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When your comrade is hit by a 2 ounce projectile from a distance so far away that the rifle report is not heard until well after the target is dead-is the high definition of "psyc opps" in my view.

"The spotter would have had to successfully calculate five factors: distance, wind, atmospheric conditions and the speed of the earth’s rotation at their latitude,” Cleckner told Fox News."

I have a new excuse when I miss a deer this fall at 75 yards--"I miscalculated the speed of the earth's rotation at my latitude."

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Another photo of the sniper team and weapons on msn.com today

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The "rotation of the earth" for my 308 rounds is 3/4 MOA or 7.5 inches @ 1000 yards. They didn't mention "Spin Drift", it has to do with the barrels rifling. It is 1/8 MOA (1.25") to the right for my set up. Depending on the direction you are facing, that 7.5" could be left, right, up, or down, then add or subtract the spin drift. For 2.2 miles it isn't just "X3", it has to be completely re calculated (and is pointless for 308! But my 338 might have a chance [maybe ]) They have cell phone apps that do all of this faster than you can enter the info!

But at 75 or 100 yards, it is maybe 1/32".

Ivan

Not knowing the specifics of the ammo, it's impossible for us to calculate the exact trajectory. However, if it started at about 2,800FPS at the muzzle, it will have slowed down to around 1,000FPS by the time it reached the target. It would have taken about 6.5-7 seconds to get there. At around the 3,200 yard mark it would have transitioned from super sonic to sub sonic. That can induce some wobbling and further degrade the accuracy of the shot.

I'm sure the sniper/spotter in question here would agree that there was some luck in the outcome. Even so, it's an amazing shot. It's even more amazing that he took it.

Everyone likes to talk about the rifle, but that pales in importance to the optic. What scope did he use? What magnification? Most US snipers use scopes that are between 10x and 16x.

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The Schmidt & Bender PM II (USMC turrets) is issued to JTF2 for use with the TAC-50, although each team has the option for other choices so I can't say for sure what was the case in this scenario.

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Fantastic shooting.

My brother was on a self propelled 8" howitzer. He said 2 miles is almost point blank range. LOL Said they might not get a direct hit, BUT, with an air burst anti personnel round 1 shot lotta kills

Most don't realize how significant the Coriolis effect is (rotation of the earth while the bullet is in flight) when shooting at extreme distances. And it also depends on the direction you are shooting. The effect is much more significant if you are shooting North-South than East-West. Long renge artillery really has to account for it precisely to hit anything.

Thanks for the tip! Just wanted to mention that this movie is available on Neftflix. Haven't watched it yet, but intend to.

I am watching now on my iPad. VERY GOOD!

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Probably using Rusty's drywall mud bucket...

Thanks for that tid bit. S&B makes really nice optics. The 56mm objective is the right size for a 5-25x scope.

EDIT: Or maybe they have the 4-16x50? That would be more likely.

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