king of 2 miles
Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2017 7:59 am
there was a recent kerfuffle about this, with great promotion.
it reminded me of reading about william metford and sir henry halford.
as soon as it became apparrent that rifled arms offered serious advantages in increased range, the british military did everything they could to find limitations on this.
one thing they did was to offer prizes for performing certain tasks.
so a prize for doing something with a rifle at 2 miles was offered up.
obviously many of the rifle makers of the day showed interest, as in those days long range shooting was big business.
metford and halford both turned up with 50 cal muzzle loaders, and ended up being the only ones to fire, with such manufacturers as rigby giving up without firing a shot.
halford and metford used scopes, and got some hits, but many misses.
they decided that 2 miles was too far for reliable shooting to take place.
it does not sound like 2 mile shooting has advanced much since then.
there is a lot of air between a shooter and a target 2 miles away.
in the late muzzle loading and early breech loading eras, which overlapped somewhat, 1500 yd shooting was commonplace.
interestingly, the reason many of our shoots do not go over 900 yds is that the 577/450 martini henry could not be counted on to hit targets at 1000 yds. the brit nra solved the problem by reducing the max range of competition.
this was either to do with insufficient barrel twist, or bullet shape, allowing bullets to go unstable just after 900 yds.
meanwhile the turks were delivering reasonably accurate plunging fire onto the russians at far greater ranges with peabody martinis.
keep safe,
bruce.
it reminded me of reading about william metford and sir henry halford.
as soon as it became apparrent that rifled arms offered serious advantages in increased range, the british military did everything they could to find limitations on this.
one thing they did was to offer prizes for performing certain tasks.
so a prize for doing something with a rifle at 2 miles was offered up.
obviously many of the rifle makers of the day showed interest, as in those days long range shooting was big business.
metford and halford both turned up with 50 cal muzzle loaders, and ended up being the only ones to fire, with such manufacturers as rigby giving up without firing a shot.
halford and metford used scopes, and got some hits, but many misses.
they decided that 2 miles was too far for reliable shooting to take place.
it does not sound like 2 mile shooting has advanced much since then.
there is a lot of air between a shooter and a target 2 miles away.
in the late muzzle loading and early breech loading eras, which overlapped somewhat, 1500 yd shooting was commonplace.
interestingly, the reason many of our shoots do not go over 900 yds is that the 577/450 martini henry could not be counted on to hit targets at 1000 yds. the brit nra solved the problem by reducing the max range of competition.
this was either to do with insufficient barrel twist, or bullet shape, allowing bullets to go unstable just after 900 yds.
meanwhile the turks were delivering reasonably accurate plunging fire onto the russians at far greater ranges with peabody martinis.
keep safe,
bruce.
