Just saw the movie "Shooter"

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MCgunner

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Okay,know, it's Hollywood. :D But, being Hollywood, I was looking for technicals in that movie I could take issue with. I suspect more than I noticed was wrong with it. First off, though, I have a question of really long distance shooters. Does the Coriolis effect really have to be taken into consideration at extreme long range? I find that a bit of a stretch, but then, I've never hit anything past 400 yards. LOL If so, wouldn't the angle matter. Seems like if you were shooting parallel with the equator, there'd be less error, windage anyway, I mean, if it's really true.

Another question of rifle smiths. As I understand the bolt gun, I think his was a Remington, it is striker fired. Cocking the bolt pulls the striker back and the sear engages. If you pull the firing pin out of the bolt, will it still cock? Will it then go "click" when you pull the trigger. I'm thinking since there is nothing there for the sear to grab, it won't, but then, maybe the firing pin is separate of the sear, but I don't think so, but then, maybe the firing pin is separate of the sear.

One thing I'm thinking is true, nobody could shoot a sub 2" group at 1000 yards. I don't know what the record is, but that sounds like a record group done on a perfect day. LOL If it's possible, I'm quite sure it's not probable for a qualification group, not routine anyway.

The movie was good, if not believable. I mean, most action movies, movies of any kind, aren't based in reality. LOL I did like the fact that right up until the end, you didn't know what twist it was going to take, who was going to "win".
 
The guy in the movie didn't just remove the firing pin, he replaced it with a shorter one.

His rifle was a Cheyenne Tactical job, chambered in .408 Chey-Tac (as far as I know). If any cartridge could manage a 2 inch group at one thousand yards, it'd probably be .408 Chey-Tac or .416 Barrett.

From what I recall of Zak Smith's replies to previous topics on the subject, YES the Coriolis effect does come into play, but not significantly enough to worry about it on its own.
 
1) Yes, coriolis effect is a substantial concern at ultra-long ranges. Many high-end ballistics programs, like the one that comes with .408 CheyTac M200 rifles, compute solutions which take the coriolis into consideration.

2) His rifle was a CheyTac M200 in .408 CheyTac. But bolt rifles do operate as you understand. In the movie, Swagger does not claim to have removed the firing pin, but rather to have swapped them among his rifles. It is conceivable that, for example, a Remington short-action firing pin housed inside a CheyTac magnum-length bolt would not be long enough to hit the primer, but would still have correct geometry to catch the sear. Likely? No. In the realm of possibility? Yes.

3) I don't recall the record 1k yd group, but I think it's actually close to that 2" number. I know matches are routinely won by people shooting in the 6-7" range, so it's not inconceivable that, once in a blue moon, the stars would align for some lucky benchrest shooter.
 
The guy in the movie didn't just remove the firing pin, he replaced it with a shorter one.
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I guess I didn't catch that. I thought he said he'd removed the firing pins. My stupid DVD remote is messed up, so I can't fast forward to that scene. At least DVD players are cheap. If I can't get a one4all type remote to work with it, I guess I can replace it. I don't watch enough movies to justify that, though, LOL! Rare is the movie I wanna watch anymore. My son-in-law is home on leave from Iraq and gave me this movie to watch. I probably wouldn't have seen it, otherwise, not really a movie kinda guy.

Seems they must have studied their facts pretty well on this movie. From what I know of over 400 yard shooting, the dialog sounded informed. I did wonder about that coriolis effect thing, though. Since they were talkin' head shots at extreme range, I guess it does matter.

Oh, one thing else, I'm wondering if it's possible to get 200 yard accuracy out of a rim fire rifle with a pop bottle taped to the muzzle as a silencer. I reckon my old Remington is accurate enough to make the shot with nothing for the bullet to travel through first, but penetrating a plastic bottle right off has to affect accuracy to a degree that I don't know if those head shots would be very possible. That seems like a stretch, but I did make me such a silencer when I was a kid out of the "anarchist's cookbook". Used an old .22 scope and shot through inner tube rubber. It worked at squirrel hunting ranges, but 200 yards? That's about 9 times further than I ever shot my rig. Uh, perhaps I shouldn't admit doing that, but the evidence is long gone, LOL!
 
The max range for the .408 is 3500 meters , about 1000 meters beyond the .50 cals. It was developed by computer for the best ballistics possible. They then built a rifle for the round. It carries something like .95+ BC. I saw some pictures of some guys grouping. it looked to be about 2 foot groups ,then you find out he was shooting at 2500 meters. Said he didn't have optics big enough to shoot another 1000 meters! Hey MCgunner, I have shot to 1250 meters and can't remember ever hearing of the Coriolis. I honestly can't imagine what real effect it would. I guess I'll have to research it a bit. Though I'm not ever likely to shoot far enough to notice it's affect. Blitz
 
Another thought, seems like the bottom of the plastic bottle might be too thick to get a 200 meter shot. As to silencing, a single shot can be quieted with a condom pulled down snuggly and taped on. It worked on a buddies 270 without a front sight blade. It wouldn't work on mine with a front sight blade. It was very quiet but funny to watch. The condom does a quick expansion and then releases the gases slowly. Blitz
 
Another thing, that pop bottle would likely have to be taped such that the bottom of the bottle was directly perpendicular with the bore axis. If the bullet it it at any angle at all, seems like it'd add a lot of instability to the bullet. In the scene, he just yanked it off and looked like it was duct taped on.

Hmm, maybe that's what that condom was doin' in the parking lot at Academy the other day. I sure wasn't gonna pick it up to inspect for bullet holes. EEEEEwwwwww.
 
If you google cheytac and youtube, they have the bald guy from future weapons making hits on a plate at over 2500 meters.

with most cartridges, at that distance the trajectory is like that of a five iron, pretty good going out then it rolls over pretty fast.
 
Funny. I have had that video since it hit the stores and have not watched it yet. Maybe it will be worth watching.
 
Not being any kind of long-range shooting expert, I'm sure that a lot of mistakes blew right past me. One thing that did annoy me, though, is when he sighted in on the Spam can from 1000 yards, and the image of the can filled the entire field of view... I mean, c'mon. What kind of scope was that? Ten thousand magnification?
 
Actually, it was a denty moore beef stew can and was supposed to be at 1760 yards. He was testing if he could hit it. Yeah, that scope didn't look like the 200" Mount Palomar rig. LOL. Not only that, show of hands, now many people here could hit a beef stew can from a mile with anything built by man? LOL I'd think it was as much a hardware problem as software and doing it would be a best one out of 50 for the best shooters with the best rifles. Don't know that, just a guess. Well, it is Hollywood. I'm sure snipers can take a man out from that range. That Canadian guy did in Afghanistan with a Barrett from some ungodly range, but to hit a 6" tall can from a mile? Well, it was a decent movie. LOL I just think they got a little carried away. If it'd been a B27 and he hit somewhere on the black, I can believe that.

Yeah, rimfire, it's worth the time to watch. I'd even have spent money on it at the movie, though I know the wife wouldn't go. :rolleyes:

I don't do too many movies and usually they're ones with Jack Nicholson in 'em cause the wife likes the guy for some reason. "The Departed" was pretty good, though. She didn't seem to appreciate that one as much as I did, LOL!
 
Here is a nifty little science experiment to see the coriolis effect: swing a weight (like a plum bob) parallel with a straight reference point (like lines on a tile floor). See how long it takes for the weight to start swing across the line on the floor. It doesn't take long at all. That bullet could be in the air for several seconds.

when he sighted in on the Spam can from 1000 yards, and the image of the can filled the entire field of view
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"Super-scopes" are my second biggest movie goof pet peeve, second only to random hammer cocking/ action cycling noises.
 
They were doing that pendulum thing when I was attending Texas A&M back in the day. I was taking a...okay, this will date me...Fortran IV course (waits for laughter to stop) at the engineering building and they had it hanging from the ceiling in the building's atrium swinging all semester. I was under the impression it was supposed to rotate around a full 360 in a year. I don't know why that would be, though. Someone that probably didn't know told me that. Heck, I was a Wildlife and Fisheries Science major, had no clue about the physics behind that. I still have a hard time understanding how the rotation of the earth could affect my toilet.:confused: I understand something big like a hurricane, but a toilet????
 
Did anybody else notice that his bolt wasn't closed when they are identifying target areas. Then when the truck goes down the road his bolt is closed. Thats the only mistake of the movie I noticed.
 
Of topic a bit....
They were doing that pendulum thing when I was attending Texas A&M back in the day. I was taking a...okay, this will date me...Fortran IV course (waits for laughter to stop) at the engineering building and they had it hanging from the ceiling in the building's atrium swinging all semester.
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My school had one too. It wasn't very accurate though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foucault_pendulum
 
... I still have a hard time understanding how the rotation of the earth could affect my toilet. I understand something big like a hurricane, but a toilet????
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A bit off topic, I know, but that whole toilet and sink rotation due to the coriolis effect is a myth. Google for coriolis or check snopes.com for references.
 
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