CHASING THE LONGEST SHOT EVER
You didn’t come here to shoot a mile because we didn’t turn on the lights this morning to build a rifle. So, when Gordon Wollman, a financial advisor from Huron, South Dakota, racked back the bolt of his Desert Tech SRS one more time to tack hammer his fifth consecutive shot into a two-foot by two-foot piece of paper from 1,930 yards away to set a benchmark record at one of the most prestigious long range schools in the country, we knew we were on to something.
But before we could get to the end of last week’s press release from Whittington U (the aforementioned school) in Raton, New Mexico, Mr. Wollman had already gone back-to-back-to-back on a three-foot by three-foot piece of paper from 2,850 yards out with his Desert Tech HTI.
Put your calculators away. I’ve already carried the zero. That’s three consecutive shots from 1.61 miles away and you ELR heads should recognize the cadence. Back in November of 2009, Craig Harrison of the British Army’s Household Cavalry, went back-to-back-to-back from 2,707 yards to set a Guinness World Record for the longest confirmed sniper shot in history.
It was during the War in Afghanistan in the Helmand Province when he spotted two Taliban machine gunners. There was no wind, mild weather and absolutely clear visibility. He used nine .338 lapua magnum rounds to walk in the solution and the next shot dropped the first bad guy. The second shot ended the threat. The third shot disabled the machine gun and ended the threat for good. According to JBM ballistics, each of those rounds required 6.017 seconds of flight time and dropped a total of 396.8 feet.
Hold on. We’re just getting started.
Less than three years later, two unidentified Australian snipers in the same war in the same place reportedly reduced their soft target from 3,078 yards which is 1.74 miles away for those of you keeping score at home. And now we’re chasing an unconfirmed report wondering who really has the mythical, sometimes mystical, long distance record while trying to sort through an alphabet of governing bodies who may or may not differentiate between military applications, hunting and professional precision shooting.
The ISSF (International Shooting Sports Federation) goes out to 300 meters. The High-Powered XTC (Across the Course) and NRA High-powered Rifle Competition stops at 600 yards while the NBRSA (National Bench Rest Shooters Association), Full-Bore Target Rifle Competition in the UK and long-running Palma Match extend to 1,000 yards. Heck, the Powder Keg started with a 1,200-yard cold bore shot and the Precision Rifle Series’ Heat Stroke featured a 1,720-yard stage.
That’s when Nick Young, founder and resident rifle savant at Desert Tech, decided enough was enough. He loaded up his HTI chambered in .375 Cheytac and made his way to the nearest 3,080 patch of long range history he could find. He brought along Russ Wallis as spotter, a handful of witnesses and Craig “Sawman” Sawyer, former navy Seal operator, sniper instructor and Top Shot instructor, to help with the documentation which can be found here.
And by the time you get the sneaky suspicion that the guys at Accuracy International, McMillan, Chey-Tac and Barrett are taking extended lunch breaks, too, we find out about this guy named Billy Carter at, of all places, Whittington U using all 31 pounds and 53 inches of his M200 Intervention to go back-to-back at 3,650 yards (2.07 miles) to set their record for the under .50-caliber category and, wait a minute, who knew there were different categories for calibers which seems obvious enough until we run into the Sawman again.
Once and for all, he is going to set the record straight. In January of this year, Mr. Sawyer announced that on national TV he is going to first drill a 2-mile shot before making a quite remarkable 3-mile (5,280 yards) shot once we take the curvature of the earth, coriolis effect and gyroscopic drift into account and hope someone remembered to plug in the doppler radar. But look in the fine print. Better yet, check out the picture I found below. He’s going to do it with the elusive 14.9 SOP with its 70-pound barrel and now we’ve officially blurred the lines between high-powered rifles, light artillery and the easier solution of a radio and unmanned drone and, to top it all off, invited every Wahlberg wannabe into the conversation.
Welcome to the Chase for the Longest Shot in the World.
To be continued, apparently, indefinitely . . .
