Reach Out and Touch Someone By Eric Brashear To the regular world, this iconic slogan typically means to call long distance. In the gun world, it can mean only one thing: Sniper. From 1777, when the Colonists hid in trees to pick off British officers, (the longest shot being 400 yards) to snipers in the trenches in World War I to today – snipers have come a long way. The longest kill shot on record during a battle was made in 2009 by Canadian soldier Corporal Rob Furlong with a McMillian TAC-50 Sniper rifle. The .50 caliber round traveled almost 27 football fields (2,657 yards to be exact) to take out its target. Let’s put that into perspective. If you were standing in front of Mandalay Bay and you took off like a shot, you would fly past Luxor, Excalibur, New York New York, Monte Carlo, CityCenter, Cosmopolitan, Bellagio, and you would probably land in the fountain at Caesars Palace. That’s more impressive than Mark Wahlberg did in the movie, Shooter, with his Cheytac M200 Intervention against a can of stew. But as Mark Wahlberg’s character Bob Lee Swagger said in the film, “the long shots generally go places you wouldn’t want to have to go afterward to confirm,” so technically Rob Furlong’s shot is the longest documented kill shot in combat.
However, a new report in 2017 states an unnamed Canadian Sniper, using a McMillian TAC-50 broke the record for the world’s longest kill shot in combat at an astonishing 3,871 yards.
What does it take to be a world-class sniper? It takes patience, a lot of training, and the right equipment (including the round fired). The Cheytac uses its own proprietary .408 caliber round at the cost of about $7 each (versus a standard .308 round that cost 1/10 of that). The .338 Lapua is a more conventional round and the choice for many snipers, but the .50 cal is gaining in popularity as the choice for long-range sniping, including the record holder Corporal Rob Furlong. Want to try a Sniper rifle? We have several rifles to choose from including the McMillian TAC-338, the Accuracy International Arctic Warfare Sniper rifle, and the Barrett .50 cal just to name a few. Try your skill (and luck) trying to hit the 500-yard target at Shoot Las Vegas’ 100-acre outdoor range.
Eric Brashear is the founder and self-proclaimed Big Shot at Shoot Las Vegas Shooting Range in Las Vegas Nevada. ShootLasVegas.com