Impressive Sharps shot....question for the long range experts...

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saturno_v

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This video has been posted more than once on here during the years...it is pretty old

Dave Gullo hitting consistently a relatively small black plate placed on a Buffalo Silhouette at well over 1100 yards with a Sharps rifle and Vernier sights...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHUF0gZnwxM

I cannot even imagine that shot....the absurd trajectory, the bullet flight time, the iron sights, etc...


So why many says that a modern average hunting rifle with a decent scope is not even recommended for shots longer than 400 yards??

Why nowadays you need almost sci-fi equipment for making a consistent 1K hit???

I know it is all about skills....still this video is fascinating

So all the modern technology just help to turn more people into outstanding shooters???

What this Dave guy would be capable of doing, for example, with an iron sight Mosin Nagant in good shape?? Or your regular out of the box Savage or Remington??
 
You don't need all the scifi gear but it does make it a lot easier. Up until recently military snipers were shooting that far with a rifle and 10 powered scope.

That is some amazing shooting.
 
great shot! first i've seen that one. some guys just know their rifles and can shoot them.
 
i don't think those rifles are really at any sort of disadvantage. the key is consistency. my local club does 1000 yard black powder matches. no big deal. i'm certainly not a BP expert but i think some of them shoot really heavy projectiles that have much less wind drift compared to your typical 243-308 hunting rounds.


granted, when using iron sights, you need good eyesight or a high contrast target.

military snipers shoot amazingly large targets. E types are like 40" tall. in my latest order with the dillo dust, larue tossed their dvd infomercial of the 10th annual international mil/leo sniper competition. i was chuckling at the narrator talking about how small their targets were (they were huge).


modern hunting bullets sacrifice aerodynamics for terminal ballistics. and for best results, need to impact the target at certain velocity or faster to reliably expand or fragment or whatever. most of them won't shoot tiny groups like match bullets.

i don't have a super high opinion of modern factory rifles, but most of them should be able to hit a buffalo at 1100. that's gotta be at least a 4-6 moa target (i have never actually measured a buffalo)
 
Yup, I don't think a modern hunting rifle will have a problem hitting buffalo at 1100. I do think most calibers short of the mags will have problems performing terminally at 1100.
 
Big heavy bullets are a lot easier to put on target than light ones. I shoot 500 grain cast bullets out of my 45-70. They just keep on chugging along to where you want them and are much less effected by wind. Get a consistent load worked up with good powder and bullets, know your ranges, and no steel buffalo is safe! With my lighter loads, after I fire, I have time to unshoulder my rifle before I see my hits.
 
The rainbow trajectory makes hitting at a known distance possible, but at 1K yards misjudging range by a few percent can cause a miss by yards, not inches.
 
Shots over 400 yards are hard to make even with modern equipment. Any mistake in range finding equals a miss. If you are sure you can estimate distances over 400 yards with less than 10 yards in error you can make 1000 yard shots look easy. Since you can't estimate distances that well you are asking how come he can do it?
 
if you have a good range finder and know your rifle and can shoot,its just a matter of adjusting your sights,oh the devils wind and heat are there too. eastbank.
 

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Hunting is not only about hitting but also about humanely killing a living creature.

(this does not count for the hunting of the homo sapiens:evil:)
 
Let's clarify that I'm not talking about hunting but simply hitting the target (paper or steel plate) consistenty at extreme distances without the use of dedicated and expensive long range platforms with scopes sometimes costing almost as much as the rifle itself....
 
So why many says that a modern average hunting rifle with a decent scope is not even recommended for shots longer than 400 yards??
Click to expand...

That's easy. It all comes down to ethics.

Techically, sure you can hit a small target consistently beyond 400 yards. Realistically and ethically, though, you want all of your shots on a game animal to be killing shots, not wounding shots.

And on something like, say, a whitetail deer, the difference between a killing and wounding shot can be a few inches. At greater distances, the effects of human error are greatly magnified. This does not even take into account the lethality and ballistics of a particular cartridge.
 
That's easy. It all comes down to ethics.

Techically, sure you can hit a small target consistently beyond 400 yards. Realistically and ethically, though, you want all of your shots on a game animal to be killing shots, not wounding shots.

And on something like, say, a whitetail deer, the difference between a killing and wounding shot can be a few inches. At greater distances, the effects of human error are greatly magnified. This does not even take into account the lethality and ballistics of a particular cartridge.
Click to expand...

I clarify again that I'm not talking about a hunting shot....many thinks that a modern average hunting rifle is ot good at over 400-500 yards even for paper punching....

To take the example of that video....can someone do the same thing (hitting consistently) the same small black plate at the same distances with a modern Marlin lever in 45-70 and a decent scope??
 
Like others said, it is all about ranging. If you have a target at a known distance, and a reasonably accurate rifle, the shot is possible. The platform doesn't matter, so long as the caliber you are shooting is able to suficiently stabilize the bullet out to the range the target is. Shooter error, and to a lesser effect, wind, has much more to do with it than your equipment.
 
I do not hear too many people saying a modern rifle is incapable of hitting a target at 1000+yds. The complaints I often hear are about ethical shots on game. I get you are not talking about hunting, but most of the people I hear talking about why a modern .308(for example) is not acceptable for 1000+ are.
 
can someone do the same thing (hitting consistently) the same small black plate at the same distances with a modern Marlin lever in 45-70 and a decent scope??
Click to expand...

Probably not because you would run out of holdover in the view of your scope.
 
I probably missed it, but, what cartridge and caliber was used in the video?
Click to expand...

They do not say but from the look of it when he loads the rifle it seems to me one of the "long" buffalo cartridges like 45-90 or 45-110 or so.
 
Dave Gullo runs Buffalo Arms, probably the leading supplier to the BPCR community. I know I have bought a lot of stuff from him.
He has about 20 years experience and the best of equipment. It has won him a lot of matches at all ranges.
He used to show that 1878 Sharps Borchardt in his catalog (and another one nearly like it) but I do not see it in the current one. I do not recall the caliber, but he said he had fired it about 10,000 rounds.
 
It's easy enough on a bright sunny day at the range, when you have a stationary target at a known distance, and plenty of time to measure the wind, put the dope in your sights, and take the shot. It's quite another thing when you're out in the field, sometimes in less than perfect conditions, having to call range and wind and make your adjustments on the fly, and then hit a target that could move during the bullet's flight time, and hit it in a vital zone.
 
I am pretty sure that is NRA's Whittington Center in Raton NM

I lobbed a couple magazines worth of ammo out of my FAL at that Buffaloe........never managed to connect.

On the other hand as big as that buffaloe actually is, its not that hard to see.
 
Let's acknowledge that he has done this before, and has that rifle sighted in for that range. I have seen guys shoot all day trying to find their zero, bullet impact, etc, with the big bore single shot rifles. The trajectory at that range is more like a mortar than a rifle, and you have to KNOW your range, or have dusty ground and a clear, windless day to do your best. Try foggy, windy, rainy, etc, and you might never sight in. I know, I tried that once at Camp Perry. When I saw, later on a graph, that my bullets might have come in the pits at a 45 degree arc (likely injuring or killing the target pullers), I never took that rifle to Perry again. Shooting slow, high arc-travelling bullets is not for targets that have humans near them. I was glad I was nowhere near the target that day with my bullets.
 
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