O/T: Pirate Rifles

How about those bullshiatters at CNN, eh? Read the last paragraph of this CNN article:

Although technically not a lie, it is also nowhere near what really happened. Those CNN bastards do that kinda stuff ALL the time.

Correct. Last night 20/20 showed how routine the shots were for a trained sniper.

Take off the tin foil hats. :-)

No, I was talking about the March Hare and his bowtie. WTF? Do you not read? The response was to the simplicity of hitting a quarter at 100 yds, a 3/4" round target at 3600 inches.

Don't feed The Miller Troll. He thrives on this sort of s*it. He lies in the bushes until somebody misplaces a comma, and he pounces. He appears to have no other life.

OK, I might be wrong about a quarter. I meant 1" circle that is 1 MOA. It is easily achieved with either of my two PSL-54C rifles without any accurizing and using cheap Bulgarian surplus ammo still available at $85/tin. Sure one would need a bench rest to do this.

But that is not to start a discussion about sub-MOA shooting and handloading. This is just to illustrate that 25 yards head shot in absolutely nothing to write home about even using cheap civilian weapon with cheap ammo.

Pure writer's crap.

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Obviously I read it; how else would I have become aware that what you wrote was ambiguous?

BTW, you *still* need to check your math.

Um, probably not. This same story was posted on a guns newsgroup. Respondents agreed the only area where there might have been a problem was in the beginning when Childs said "The powder in the cartridge exploded in a fraction of a millionth of a second..."

Some experts said that was an exaggeration and others said, depending on the powder load, it was just barely possible.

If you have experience or information tending to refute the physics in the story, please feel free to share. Otherwise, just enjoy the story.

It was schlock writing in the first degree. BAD poetic license and over the top exageration for the video game crowd. Exactly what is a "fraction of a millionth"? Nothing you can pin down, just like the rest of the article. Hand polished bullets? Air catching on fire? What horse crap.

I'd be up the rest of the night.

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When a story makes me go "whoa, what a load of crap" then I have trouble enjoying it.

As for the comparison with Clancy, the difference there is that Clancy was accurate enough that the professional society for US Naval officers saw merit in his work.

I agree that the writing was not the best. The author could have spent more time on the smells wafting along on the gentle breeze he mentioned and, like any good romance novel, he could have told us more about what each of the actors was wearing and what each protagonist thought about the clothing of the others.

But as to your questions:

One-tenmillionth of a second is a "fraction of a millionth" of a second. Sniper bullets ARE hand polished (and hand-loaded and micked to tolerances of less than 1/1000ths of an inch). I don't know about the "air on fire" business, but I suppose super-heated air can do odd things.

Anyway, you don't have to stay up the rest of the night. Just find a reference or two that snipers use production-grade bullets, that .50 caliber bullets don't begin detonation in less than a millionth of a second, or that there are no flames exiting the barrel.

------ The velocity of solid explosives can exceed 390,000 fps. Assuming 2" of powder in a .50cal cartridge, all the powder could burn in

That seems to be close to the minimum burn time.

So is one hundredth or 5 hundred and forty seven thousandths of a millionth. Which is it?

Only by self deluded comic book droolers. Not even benchrest shooters are that lame. They polish the barrel and coat the bullets.

You "suppose" the writer might be exaggerating jes a tad for effect?

You find 'em. I got better things to do. Oh, and another one... I'll guaran-damn-tee you no shooter views the target being hit through his scope after launching a Ma Duece round from a shoulder fired weapon. But, go ahead and live the fantasy.

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Well, for openers, if flames exit the barrel that pretty much negates his millionth of a second as the powder would have been entirely consumed before the bullet left the muzzle thus no flames.

Watch high speed photos and you'll see no flames coming out until the bullet leaves the muzzle.

As for snipers and "production grade bullets", define "production grade". If you mean Chinese Army rejects, no, they don't use those. If you mean Sierra match grade, they do use those, or did a while back.

So what? Gunpowder is not "solid explosives", it is a propellant. In an ideal cartridge, grain dimensions and composition would be adjusted to sustain for the entire duration of the bullet's passage through the barrel the highest pressure that the firearm could tolerate. Burning all the powder in a millionth of a second would be very inefficient in that it would produce a pressure spike with rapid decline as the volume behind the bullet increased.

Which is not relevant to the real world.

It's also totally unrealistic for a real-world firearm.

The upper limit is obviously a millionth, anfd this value is less.

So in other words, it's equivalent to saying "in less than a millionth of a second" which is a measurable number. And that ls all thatr matters.

That's a cop-out. I know nothing, but your credibility is very low when you argue like this.

The thing is that there are discussions that merit putting in some research effort and there are some that do not.

How can one argue such bizarre logic?

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True. That's about the time I put the book down.

Enough that they (US Navy) questioned his sources for classified information.

Hell, the snipers in Nam' were getting kills from over 1,000 yards and with the high tech stuff they're using in Iraq, the range, accuracy and lack of recoil is flat incredible..

Check this out:

Please remove splinters before emailing

possibility of a skill requirement. You can have a rifle that could nick the butt-hole off a fly at one mile (eye-roll), but if the shooter can't hold steady, it's no better than a tossed biscuit. Try acquiring a target in ANY boat! I can hit a metal chicken (18" at 200 yds) with a 100 yr old bolt action rifle, but put me in a boat and all bets are off. I think I could do a kill maybe one out of 5 at 30 yds. I doubt even the best SEAL could do better. Jes speculation, but feel free to continue the fantasy.

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