Whoever did it, at least we know (s)he had to be part of a well regulated militia
Comment on THIS JUST IN: FBI suspects Kirk was likely targeted, more info to come
frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 hours agoThe shooting spot was about 250 yards away. That’s WWII sniping range, but not particularly far for modern precision rifles. According to Ryan Cleckner (US Army Ranger sniper), precision marksman training in the Army still uses iron sights out to 600 yards. A good setup these days can hit a dinner plate (read: a human head) at 1000 yards, and that’s not even pushing it.
They didn’t have to hit him the neck. They just needed to hit is general head area. They got lucky hitting the artery dead on, but any head hit has a very high probability of death.
There are millions of bench rest shooters with a bolt action rifle who could make that shot.
couldhavebeenyou@lemmy.zip 13 hours ago
MNByChoice@midwest.social 10 hours ago
That is the nice thing about the American Way. Just call up the neighboring states’ militias and ask who didn’t show up for drills and if any weapons are missing.
morphballganon@mtgzone.com 13 hours ago
Shooter was probably aiming for head and the bullet lost a few inches of altitude in the air
shalafi@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Shooter was also aiming down, which is not a thing one can typically practice.
The_v@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
If you have a regular 30.06 bullet with a rifle sighted in at 200 yards, it will hit around 5" lower than you aim at 250 yards depending on the gun and conditions.
If you have it sighted in at 300 yards and aim for center mass right the bullet will hit around 5" above where they are aiming.
In both conditions the bullet hits the neck area.
SGforce@lemmy.ca 11 hours ago
Also, I don’t know if people train for downward sloped shots. He may have over/under corrected.
The_v@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Not usually in my experience. Almost all target shooting is on relatively flat ranges. Especially not for ranges that short.
For those that don’t know, when firing down the slope the effect of gravity decreases the bullets velocity loss. So the bullet transverses the distance in less time and drops less over a given distance.
When firing up a slope the bullet loses velocity due to gravity. So it drops more due to the extra time it takes for the bullet to transverse the distance.