Cecil Boone

America’s big advantage in the Revolution, says popular American history, is the American tradition of marksmanship.  The British, marching in their red coats through the woods, were hapless targets for backwoodsmen with Pennsylvania and Kentucky rifles that could score aimed hits on man-sized targets from four times the effective range of the British smoothbore muskets. 

While the conventional narrative is simplistic (the average Continental Army soldier was not a backwoodsman or a marksman), it’d seem that the Brits have managed to even things out; a British sniper has scored the longest-ranged kill in the history of the rifle:

Corporal of Horse Craig Harrison fired his consecutive shots from such a long distance that they took almost three seconds to reach their targets.

This was despite the 8.59mm bullets leaving the barrel of his rifle at almost three times the speed of sound.

The distance to his two targets was 8,120ft, or 1.54 miles – according to a GPS system – and about 3,000ft beyond the weapon’s effective range.

The 35-year-old beat the previous sniper kill record of 7,972ft, set by a Canadian soldier who shot dead an al Qaeda gunman in March 2002.

Not one hit at a mile and a half; three consecutive ones:

Speaking about the incident, Cpl of Horse Harrison said: “The first round hit a machine gunner in the stomach and killed him outright. He went straight down and didn’t move.

“The second insurgent grabbed the weapon and turned as my second shot hit him in the side. He went down, too. They were both dead.”

The serviceman then fired a third and final round to ensure the machine gun was out of action.

Can America put up with this usurpation of our heritage?

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