OK, will try this again, my computer froze like a tastee freeze last time. Had a long explanation post but screwed it up.
Sorry Footmobile, it was pure luck. At that range a one mph wind shift moves the bullet over 25 inches. A one moa bullet and one moa gun still shoots a group over 27 inches, which is bigger than the human body. What this means is that even if he did everything right he would still miss some of the shots. The angle of fall on the bullet is great enough that he must estimate the range to within 20 meters or the bullet will pass over head or fall in front of the target. Now add in the human factor of the shooter having to do everything right. He can not nudge the weapon at all to settle it in his shoulder while firing, a very common shooters error that is not a problem until you get to the 900 to 1000 meter mark. He can not get a muscle twitch, adrenalin cannot be racing the heart or the pulse will take the sights from below the target to over the top of the target. The shooter must fire exactly right. A very hard thing to do, even top shooters throws shots at 1000 yards, or 914 meters. With that and multiple wind shears, mirage dancing, and other environmental conditions, well, lady luck was smiling that day. Now if the target is alive and standing then he is in constant motion and that is erratic motion at best. Time of flight would have been about 3 seconds; a lot can happen in that time. Saying that shots like that are the norm for anyone is not realistic and for those that make those claims, such as regular head shots at 1000 meters I give them a bullet and say show me. No one has yet been able to do that.
The 82d guy that fired a Barrett shot at almost 2000 meters admits that it was luck. He stated that he observed a group of Iraqis and held Kentucky holds, both elevation and wind, and fired. He hit one and now that seems to be the expected norm with the Barrett, not happening. Yes the McMillan is a far superior weapon to the Barrett, but nothing can change physics.
Now then, as to the question of, “who makes the shoot”. The shooter is the monkey on the trigger and the observer is the more experienced sniper. He is the one that is indexing the target, doing final range computation and then figuring the rest of the environmental effects on the shooter’s zero. Once that is accomplished, he will watch the wind and compute winds for the range computed and watch for wind shears, he computes dominate wind then computes winds changes for other wind shears that modify the dominate wind. If the target is a mover he then computes the wind effect on the shooter’s normal lead and gives the shooter his final hold. If you want to see what I mean come to our range and what the interaction of the shooter observer when we are running a course. The observer can make the shooter miss the target.
On Hathcocks shot with the Ma Deuce, even he admits, in his book, that it was luck and that the one always quoted was fired on a VC kneeling in the same mud spot that he had just zeroed the weapon.
OK, settling down and waiting for incoming.
