Russian snipers “outdid” the Americans in long-range shooting. Russian sniper sets a record for aimed shooting range Longest shot from a pistol

When talking about the best sniper shots, the first things to consider are the range and accuracy of the shot. Based on these criteria , Guns&Ammo magazine ranked the eight longest and most accurate shots, officially registered.

Today, more than ever, modern weapons allows you to hit distant targets. However, one of the record-breaking shots was made more than 50 years ago, which also speaks of the importance of the skills and professionalism of each sniper. All ranges are given in yards (1 yard = 91 cm).

Eighth in the ranking- Shot by an American veteran of the war in Iraq, Sergeant Major Jim Gilliland (1367 yards). Shot fired from a standard M24 rifle using standard 7.62x51mm NATO ammunition in 2005.

In seventh place- shot by an unknown representative of the Norwegian military contingent in 2007 during the armed conflict in Afghanistan. Rifle - Barrett M82A1. Ammo: Raufoss NM140 MP. Range - 1509 yards.

Number six- British Army Corporal Christopher Reynolds and his accurate shot in August 2009 at 2026 yards. Rifle - Accuracy International L115A3. Ammo: .338 Lapua Magnum LockBase B408. The target hit was a Taliban commander nicknamed "Mullah", responsible for a number of attacks on coalition troops in Afghanistan. For his shot, the corporal was awarded a medal from the hands of Queen Elizabeth II of England.

Number five- Sergeant Carlos Hatchhawk, shot at 2500 yards. The date is February 1967, during the Vietnam conflict. The historic shot that made the sergeant a hero of his time was fired from an M2 Browning machine gun. Ammo: .50 BMG. Hatchcock is still a legend today American army— he ranks fourth in the list of snipers who hit the maximum number of targets. At one time, the Vietnamese placed a reward of 30,000 US dollars on his head.

Fourth place- American Sergeant Brian Kremer and shot at 2515 yards. Date: March 2004. Weapon - Barrett M82A1. Ammo: Raufoss NM140 MP. During his two years in Iraq, Kremer fired two successful shots with a range of more than 2,350 yards.

Third place (bronze) - from the Canadian, Corporal Arron Perry. Shot range: 2526 yards. Date: March 2002. Weapon - McMillan Tac-50. Ammo: Hornady A-MAX .50 (.50 BMG).

Second place (silver) - a shot at 2657 yards, again by Canadian Corporal Rob Furlong, which coincides in date with Arron Perry’s record. The weapons and ammunition are the same.

First place (gold) - an unsurpassed record by Briton Craig Harrison. During the Afghan conflict in November 2009, he hit his best double shot at 2,707 yards. The defeat of the target was documented - two Taliban machine gunners were killed in succession. This record makes Harrison the best of all time.

While the sniper has a long and colorful history, last years, thanks to advancements in technology, the range and accuracy of weapons have improved, allowing for more shots to be fired. Pocket computers, devices that collect information about weather and atmospheric quality, and laser rangefinders are all there to improve a shooter's accuracy.

Curious what the longest sniper shot ever was? Most of the longest sniper shots recorded in history occurred at the beginning of this century, although the fifth long shot was made back in the 60s!

5. Sergeant of the Artillery Regiment Carlos Hatchcock

Sergeant artillery regiment Carlos Hatchcock

This US Marine is still considered a legend, and rightly so. In more than forty years, only four other snipers have managed to beat his record, which was set in 1967. With an M2 .50 caliber Browning machine gun and a telescopic sight, he shot down a Viet Cong guerrilla from a distance of 2,286 meters. His record remained unbroken until 2002. Hatchcock's shot was 2286 meters.

4. Sergeant Brian Cramer

Beretta M82A1

Kremer takes fourth place with a shot at 2,299 meters, barely beating Hatchcock's record. This US soldier used the Beretta M82A1 and was a member of the 2nd Ranger Battalion in the Iraq War. He was not, however, the first to break Hatchcock's record. Kremer's shot was taken in 2004, two years after Corporal Rob Furlong and Master Corporal Aaron Perry broke Hatchcock's record in 2002.

3. Master Corporal Aaron Perry

TAC50

In March 2002, this Canadian soldier from the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia, Canadian Light Infantry broke Hatchcock's old record of shooting a MacMillan Tac-50 from 2,309 meters during the Afghanistan War.

2. K April Rob Furlong

Canadian Forces sniper Rob Furlong

Furlong was also a Canadian infantryman as Master Corporal Aaron Perry, and managed to break a comrade's record in the same month during the war in Afghanistan. Perry set his record, Furlong beat it with a catch at 2429 meters, a very long shot indeed, during Operation Anaconda. Furlong used the same type of weapon as Perry.

1. Copral Craig Harrison

Copral Craig Harrison

And the winner in the category of longest sniper shot In November 2009, British Mounted Corporal Craig Harrison fired an Accuracy International L115A3 during the war in Afghanistan, his bullet traveling an astonishing distance of 2475 meters, again significantly ahead of the previous record holder. This was not an accidental achievement. Harrison creatively modified his equipment to achieve the level of accuracy and range required to fire a shot at such great distances. However, Harrison does say in his reports that he owes some of the credit to good weather that was optimal for long-range shooting.

It's still quite amazing that Hatchcock retains fifth place in the record books after all these years. You'll notice if you check other sniper records, most of the top 11 took their shots during the 21st century, with only one other exception, perhaps the most compelling of the lot. Billy Dixon, a civilian buffalo hunter, posted a photo with a .50-.90 caliber Sharps carbine during the Indian Wars in June 1874, he shot at a distance of 1406 meters. Dixon still ranks 9th in the ranking in terms of sniper shot range. Not bad for a guy drawing on 19th century technology!

New distance record sniper shooting belongs to the team of Vladislav Lobaev, a Russian weapons manufacturer whose high-precision sniper rifles were adopted by the FSB and FSO of Russia.

The record was set on September 28, 2017 at a training ground in the Tula region in Russia. Effective shot fired Andrey Ryabinsky from a distance of 4,170 meters on a target measuring 1x2 meters, from a rifle SVLK-14S "Dusk" cartridge caliber .408 Cheytac.

To set a new long-distance shooting record, Lobaev Arms specialists modified the rifle and modified the cartridge. This made it possible to accelerate a bullet weighing 30 grams to initial speed at 1000 m/s.

As Vladislav Lobaev himself reported, 4170 meters is slightly more than the recent record of colleagues from North America— they recorded a shot at 4,157 meters. However, this is not the limit. In the coming days, Russian gunsmiths plan to set a new record - 4,200 meters!

Lobaev's team except production precision weapons has already distinguished itself with previously record shooting - they set it in April 2015. After this event, debate flared up on the Internet about whether live shooting at such distances makes sense. Some particularly knowledgeable “experts” claimed that the bullet supposedly loses all destructive power and falls on the head like “pigeon droppings.” Let's leave these statements on their conscience and on the conscience of the developers computer games, where “experts” draw their knowledge, and in order to find the truth, let’s turn to reality.

In June of this year, in the Iraqi city of Mosul, Canadian sniper from the unit special purpose Joint Task Force 2 killed one of the ISIS militants with a precise shot ( terrorist organization, banned in Russia, CIS countries and Europe), attacking Iraqi army soldiers. The most remarkable thing about this story is that the shot was fired from a distance of just over 2 miles, namely - 3,540 meters!

Canadian sniper in Iraq
(c) dinardetectives.info

The command of Canada's special operations forces did not disclose the name of the sniper and the circumstances of the battle, saying that the fact of the shot and the elimination of the militant was confirmed by documentary satellite photography.

It is only known that the sniper used a rifle McMillan TAC-50 with ammunition .50 BMG (12.7×99 mm), the sniper position at the time of the shot was in a high-rise building, the flight time of the bullet was about 10 seconds. At the same time, the shot had a strong demoralizing effect on the terrorists and actually disrupted the offensive, representatives of the Canadian military department reported.

The previous record for a “combat” sniper shot was set in 2009 in Afghanistan, in the Musa Qala region. Then Corporal Craig Harrison, a special forces sniper from the UK, shot McMillan TAC-50 eliminated 2 Taliban machine gunners from a distance 2,475 meters.

Harrison said that a day record shot the weather was almost perfect and absolutely no wind, and visibility was excellent. It took him 9 sighting shots to then accurately hit the target with 3 shots. The bullets fired by the corporal from a sniper rifle reached their targets in 6 seconds.

There is also information about the alleged absolute record firing range from a sniper rifle - 3,850 meters, which was established last year Jim Spinell from the American company Hill Country Rifle. But this is not a “combat” shot, but partly high accurate shooting in “peaceful” conditions, the world record now belongs to the team of Vladislav Lobaev.

The experiment was carried out on agricultural fields Kaluga region.

The world record was set by Russian snipers who hit a target located almost three and a half kilometers away from the firing position. The incredible result is now being called a new victory domestic weapons and are even going to apply to the Guinness Book of Records. Our field shooting masters beat the previous group record by 100 meters, and the professional sniper record by more than one thousand.

The fire experiment took place on the border of the Kaluga and Tula regions near the regional center of Tarusa. It was here that sniper Vladislav Lobaev, together with his team, decided to carry out an ambitious task - to break the world record in rifle shooting.

This is an exclusive shooting - of a record nature. This is not group shooting - this is shooting to hit, at least one shot,” says Vladislav Lobaev, designer of sniper rifles.

By the way, Vladislav Lobaev himself is an athlete and enjoys long-range shooting. In addition, Lobaev developed the latest sniper rifle, which now bears his name. A few years ago, a man created the first private company in Russia serial production precision weapons. After many achievements in the development of weapons to go to a new record - already in sniper business- Vlad, one might say, was forced by the Americans.

We are talking about a video that appeared on the Internet in which four foreign cowboys of advanced age hit a target at a distance of 30 football fields - that's about three thousand three hundred meters. Among domestic masters, the foreign experiment aroused suspicion and turned into a challenge.

Already here, in Russia, a distance of three thousand four hundred meters is a hundred more than that of the Americans. In other words, the territory for the experiment is comparable to 32 football fields according to FIFA standards. Or a little less than any runway at Domodedovo Airport. And in Moscow itself, this is almost the same distance as from Manezhnaya Square to the Belorussky Station - the entire Tverskaya Street. Find your way around rural areas The rangefinder helped. It was with his help that points for the sniper and targets were chosen in the fields.

The main condition of the experiment is the absence of obstacles at the entire distance. Only the field in the Kaluga region turned out to be like this. The target was set three agricultural fields from the firing position. The participants had to get here through plowed soil and mud.

The target itself measures one meter by one meter. The shield was dug right into the remains of last year's hay.

Mission Impossible. 3400 - simply no one has done it. If this happens, it will be a world record,” says Sergei Parfenov, master of sports in bullet shooting.

In Vladislav’s hands was a complex rifle, the likes of which have no analogues in the world. The sniper created the weapon with his own hands. In total, the athlete has six different models in his weapon range. By the way, this sniper rifle is called “Twilight”. Its caliber is 408 Chey Tac, muzzle velocity is 900 meters per second, length is 1430 millimeters, barrel length is 780 millimeters, weight is more than nine and a half kilograms.

True, to achieve the record, in order to increase the range, the weapon had to be modified: the bar for the sight was increased, the rear part of the barrel was moved higher. In addition, even the bullets had to be loaded with special ones - with a pointed tip that, like lightning, cuts through the air.

The first few shots were encouraging - although they didn’t hit the target, they definitely caught up with the Americans. And in order to overtake, it seems that all the conditions at the shooting range coincided - sunny weather and even the wind subsides from time to time. After some time, the bullet still pierced the target.

According to Vlad Lobaev, this result is still better than the American one and is worthy even of the Guinness Book of Records. Note that the previous record was set in Afghanistan by professional British military sniper Craig Garrison. In 2010, using an L115A3 Long Range Rifle of 8.59 mm caliber, which has a standard firing range of about 1,100 meters, he hit a target located at a distance of 2.47 kilometers.

Russian sniper Andrey Ryabinsky, in a team with spotters Yuri Sinichkin, Evgeny Titov and Vladimir Grebenyuk, set a world distance record aimed shooting from a sniper rifle. According to a blog post by the Russian arms company Lobaev Arms, the range of the accurate shot was 4210 meters.

For accurate shooting, the SVLK-14S “Twilight” rifle was used, specially designed for the maximum possible range of an accurate shot. According to Ryabinsky, the bullet covered a distance of 4210 meters in 13 seconds. For targeted shooting at such a distance, experts took into account many factors, including wind, Atmosphere pressure, derivation, temperature and rotation of the Earth.

Derivation is the deflection of a rotating bullet after a shot. The deflection occurs perpendicular to the plane of the oncoming air flow. The displacement of the bullet coincides with the direction of the rifling of the barrel of the weapon from which it was fired. For the SVD sniper rifle, the deflection is up to 60 centimeters when shooting at a target at a distance of one kilometer.

Many modern sights for small arms derivation is taken into account constructively. In particular, the PSO-1 for SVD is specially mounted so that after the shot the bullet goes slightly to the left. In artillery, this phenomenon is either included in the firing tables, or is also taken into account constructively.

The SVLK-14S sniper rifle is available in three calibers: .408 Chey Tac (10.36 x 77 mm), .338 Lapua Magnum (8.6 x 70 mm) and .300 Winchester Magnum (7.62 x 67 mm). A .408 caliber weapon was used to shoot at a record distance. Shooting was carried out at a target one meter wide and one meter high.

The length of the rifle is 1430 millimeters with a barrel length of 900 millimeters. The rifle is equipped with a longitudinally sliding bolt. The mass of SVLK-14S is 9.6 kilograms. The accuracy of fire from a rifle is 0.3 arc minutes.

The previous world record for accurate shot range was set by the American M300 sniper rifle. It was 4157 meters. Meanwhile, in June 2017, a Canadian sniper set the record for a confirmed successful accurate shot made in combat conditions. Using a 12.7 mm TAC-50 rifle, a Canadian in Iraq killed a militant at a distance of 3540 meters.

Correction: Initially, the news stated that the SVLK-14S sniper rifle is equipped with a five-round magazine. In fact, another rifle of this family, the SVLK-14M, is equipped with such a magazine. The SVLK-14S was deliberately left single-shot by the developers to maintain maximum accuracy and firing range. We apologize to the readers.

Vasily Sychev