Cooper Challenge: 20 Shots 20 Seconds 20 Inches 1,000 Yards

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Perhaps this is just a fluke or some kind of placebo effect Giga, but if I breath deeply and slowly(Notice Jon did not say FAST breaths) for a minute or two before I attempt to hold my breath, I can hold it ten or more seconds longer without ill effects.
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It's no fluke, nor is it a placebo. Your experience fits my description of what happens just fine. I veered off into the how/why without explaining what the person actually feels.

You don't really notice when hypoxia (low O2 levels in the blood) sets in. I didn't beleive this either, and I've never subjected myself to low O2 tests, but after talking with pilots and skydivers it's very real. Mountain climbers at high elevations also experience such things.

When breathing steadily at high altitudes you do not notice that you're body is lacking O2. This can only be proved to you by a 3rd party -- some tests I've heard of are writing your name over and over. The penmanship skills will decrease as O2 levels decline but, because your CO2 levels are plenty low, your brain never notices this. Skydivers are sometimes put through such tests at high altitude to show them that their thinking skills and gross motor performance is not up to par w/out that O2 mask on. They take the masks off, start writing their name, and when they put the mask on -- WHOA -- the last few entries start looking really bad.

Basically, if both CO2 levels and O2 levels are low you'll never notice yourself that you're "in trouble". Mental performance and gross motor skills will break down without you noticing. Kind of like when you're drunk I suppose. You don't KNOW you're wobbling around until you smack into a wall or hit the floor.

Perhaps I'm splitting hairs though, because given shooting is such a low-movement activity and staying stationary and stable is key, it won't matter that you're only at 95% mental capacity for the last few shots. It will matter though if your CO2 levels are high because your brain will start making your body try to breath which is going to cause a slight shake or tremor. When the CO2 levels get really high (regardless of actual O2 levels) you pretty much look like you're having a grand mol seizure.

Does anybody have data showing the effects of hypoxia on shooting? That would be interesting.
 
you need to re read my last post as it flat says you will need to find out where you stand as your ability to retain oxigen WILL effect how many rounds you will shoot before you need to take a breath to keep your shots in the zone you want.
I have team mates that do about 25 seconds and I do less but know a few that do more.
We all will start out loaded with oxigen but will take even a breath per shot untill ever thing is right and that usually will be from the get go to the 3rd shot at the most as it will just be a position adjustment.

I really do not think you can use a scope and do what you want.
 
If you wanted you can get an oxygen saturation sensor and run some interesting tests on this. You just put your finger in the thing and it shows how much oxygen you have in your system. Apparently its fairly accurate. They use them in ERs all the time. Im not sure how much they cost but, im sure there are cheap ones out there.
 
I'd figure on giving Jay Young or Don Powell about $3-4,000 to build the rest, since it'd be a one-off proposition... Won't need a lot of fine machining, but will need to recoil straight and true, and return to the same point of aim when pushed forward. It'll need to be heavy, since there will be a lot of momentum working both directions.

For the action, I'd likely choose an AR variant in a .308 boltface, necked down to 7/08, 6.5/08 or .243, all fast twist - use Walt Berger's bullets... You position shooters don't notice it, but one of the major things that makes shots go "out" of the group is what you do to the rifle while it is recoiling, and a consistently recoiling rest will eliminate that... Most of y'all are happy with rifles that'll group .5 MOA, but if I showed up for a BR match with one of 'em, I'd finish dead last... We'd need a remote trigger release, since I doubt if we'd be able to smooth the trigger enough for a light touchoff.
 
the best way to achive quick multiple shots at a long range is to know as soon as the trigger is pulled the first time or every time exactly what has happened and fix it before the next shot.

here is a example for all of you to practice:

now when I do long range shots like you want to do the first thing is to get a very low position flat on the ground and that is a little different that a standard prone position as with the standard prone positin you are a little more elevated and less spread out.

now with a low position you are even more behind the rifle and instead of being more up on your elbows you will have more of the tricep region in contact with the ground.

after you have set your evelation by your position you will not really have to much to worry about in elevation as you are on the same breath for a few shots and your elevation will not change on you and if it does you now control it with your rear foot and toes.
what you do is to take your rear foot and instead on having your foot at rest you use it for leverage and if you need to bring your point of impact down just push foward with your toes and the oppisite for going up in elevation and that should only give you a problem if you have not had a controlled breath and your elevation is off.

now when you set up and take aim on your target you need to make sure that your rifle is moving up and down threw the target and it has to be straight up and down and if not any recoil is going to knock you out of position. you will notice it on the first shot as the recoil will take you up the target and that is correct.
If your rifle moves from center of target to the 1 o'clock position or worse fix your position before the next shot as that will never give you the groups you need to stay in the zone you wish.

instead of the normal moving your off in or out you just hop your gut a inch or so over as you should of been close before your first shot and it does not take much to adjust it.
so the rule of thumb is to get your elevation and windage position down so you do not have to do corrections as I have given you.

now for the fun part.
If you have done everything as I described this is what you will experience.
You will take a breath and then when your target appears you should pull the trigger as soon as the center of your target gets to where you want it and the rifle will jump with the recoil and if you have set your position right the rifle will come right down threw the top of the target and if it does and it should you pull the trigger before it stops.

with a human target type target a good reference point is as soon as the front sight starts to go into the head you are taking up slack in the trigger and pull the trigger as soon as the front sight comes level with the shoulder, BANG and then repeat.

your shots will be very fast or slow them down as they come.

now I will not cover things like lighting and technical aspects of doing it in the rain or a fog or if its darker that your want do to back lighting on the target as that is a learned thing that you will have to be shown.

Oh and the pulse ox have one on my desk at the hospital I work in but do not need it to do what I do and can tell you after I get your positions straightened out as to how I want you to take how many shots on a breath.
 
If you wanted you can get an oxygen saturation sensor and run some interesting tests on this. You just put your finger in the thing and it shows how much oxygen you have in your system. Apparently its fairly accurate. They use them in ERs all the time. Im not sure how much they cost but, im sure there are cheap ones out there.
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The cheapie ones don't work very well. FWIW, I tried the pulse oximeter on 3 runners with great lung capacity at work last night. None of them kept their SaO2 >90% after 15 seconds of holding their breath. We were all running at about 98-100% on room air normally before we held our breath, so I would gather that you would have some loss of acuity if you held your breath that long, and it wouldn't take much loss at 1,000 to screw up the challange. I usually work ICU, but next time I float to the ER where they have a vision chart I will hook myself up and see how long it takes for my acuity to deteriorate a few lines on the vision chart.
 
oh for me I use 3 shots on the average breath after I load up and if things are very good sometimes I will push it to 4 and those will be quick short breaths taken on recoil.
Once you have your rythem set for your condition and what works for you it will seem easy.

as a example I did not upset my rythem at the nationals last year but due to conditions I shot to fast and could of slowed down as at 500 yards I only had 28 solid hits out of 30 shots and was done in 40 seconds. in those conditions in practice I usually will load a 20 round mag and keep firing untill the 50 seconds are up.
My goals this year are to bring my 600 scores up to a 30 out of 30 instead of 28 or 29 average and increase my 500 scores to mid 30's.
that is if the conditions are right.

its more fun than a person has the right to have.
Will try it at 1,000 and let you know how it turns out.
 
Shouldn't there be a few rules established to make this meaningful? After all, it is conceivable to have a support designed and made to hold a weapon that would be able to do this feat relatively easily and mostly without human interaction other than pulling the trigger.

Example of what I am talking about:
1. To be a shoulder-fired rifle
2. Not in full-auto if it were capable of such
3. Not fastened to a permanent support or rest, but standard bipods may be used
4. The rifle may be rested on sand bags or any other similar support as long as it is not fastened, strapped, or weighed down
5. Fire 20 rounds and get 20 hits into a 20†circle at 1,000 yards

Any others that make sense?

Alex
 
Makes perfect sense to have those rules, Nando Aqui. After all, it's a COOPER challenge, so it's bound to be more focused on practical, human-performed performance, rather than a techno/dexterity exercise. Cooper's criticisms of IPSC as now played recognize the value of finding the limits of human dexterity with the handgun, after all. I, like he does, disdain the practice of using holsters that drop the pistol when you sit down in a car.

But I digress. As long as you have an aiming bull of at least 24 inches (for some sharp-eyed people) and preferrably of 36 inches, with reasonable contrast, I believe anything possible with a scoped rifle should be doable with iron sights. I speak from the experience of firing back-to-back 1,000-yard matches with glass and irons.

The most "purist" approach would to require it to be unsupported except for the rifle's sling. However, the modern application of sniper techniques seems to allow and even demand use of bags at least under the fore-end. It would be interesting to see which method works best for 1 shot per second.

I would also limit the rifle's weight to that of the heaviest standard US sniper rifle with its scope--19 pounds or so if the Discovery Channel (History Channel?) last week had the Gunny (Mail Call) getting the facts straight on the USMC M40 or whatever.

I also agree that recoil will be a MAJOR factor, with success most likely using a 6 to 6.5mm cartridge and the lightest VLD bullets that group well. at 1,000.
 
Alex, going back to your earlier post, you can't really say that 20 inches at 1000 yards is like 2 inches at 100 yards. A rifle pattern isn't like an ice cream cone, straight out. It is like the bell of a trumpet with a wider flair the further out it goes. The tiny errors don't just add they multiply. :confused:
 
1. To be a shoulder-fired rifle
2. Not in full-auto if it were capable of such
3. Not fastened to a permanent support or rest, but standard bipods may be used
4. The rifle may be rested on sand bags or any other similar support as long as it is not fastened, strapped, or weighed down
5. Fire 20 rounds and get 20 hits into a 20†circle at 1,000 yards

#1, sort of
#3 tripod, rather than bipod. Or are bipod-equipped rifles with a *third leg* buttstock attachment also forfeit?


nsv-12_7.jpg
 
M&M * wrote, inpart -
Alex, going back to your earlier post, you can't really say that 20 inches at 1000 yards is like 2 inches at 100 yards.
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100% true M&M - that's why in my second post, I wrote:
Barring environmental conditions such as wind, humidity, temperature variations, etc., and bullet drop and aerodynamics, which invariable are a factor at 1000 yards - - wouldn’t sighting in and holding on a 20†diameter target at 1000 yards be the same as on a 2†target at 100 yards?
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Of course it is not the same! I am just referring to what the target 'looks like', or how difficult it may appear. I also mention temperature variations, as I know that heat waves can cause a lot of sight distortion and may also affect the trajectory.

That having been said, I am really just trying to justify doing it at 100 yards because that's all I've got! ;)

* hope you don't mind M&M; it's a lot shorter a most people like 'em!:p

Archy - well...... not quite, but good try!:D

Alex
 
All this is why we want a .4 MOA rifle at 200 yards to shoot at a 2 MOA target at 1,000 yards, using a shooter-induced wobble area of .8 MOA or less (+/- .4 MOA from center).

This leaves a range-induced/atmospherics/mirage/barrel heating factor of .8 MOA "wiggle room."

Correct these figures if you have better data. These are educated/experienced guesses. Can a shooter rack of 1 round per second with a .8 MOA aiming/position variations error?

Unless the shooter corrects for mirage off the barrel, it may be *most* possible in a steady crossbreeze (at least at the line) of 3 to 5 mph. IF steady. A good shooter with a scope *could* read the mirage and adjust for wind by hold-off during the string.

Heavy rifle, good scope--adjust the shots per mirage trace??? This could get interesting. Anyone tried it yet?
 
Grump: I can't wait for some reports to come in! I'd like to see what kind of groups could be attained in early testing, from an AR-10 in .243, 6.8 or .308. I'd bet that some folks could do 40" groups on their first morning at the range, with hot barrels. Then it would just be a case of working it down to 20"...which could take months or longer. Probably after the throw of the string is figured out, the point of aim will have to be adjusted the other way through the 20 shots.
 
Alex, I would think that it wouldn't matter in a vacuum. Let me try to explain without using the calculus that I've forgotten over the last 30 years anyway.

The reason I say this is the general trajectory looks like an arch from the side, but from the rear it looks like a large spiral with little spirals around its border. You can see this if you stand behind somebody shooting a .45 away from the sun in the afternoon.

Well, the further away you shoot the more you have to elevate the gun so the more arch occurs, but this then gives the little spirals around the edges of the big spiral more difference in their timing. Basically the parts of the spiral which are going up don't go as far and the parts going down go further.
 
M&M -

Precisely! Well known and no question about about it - which is why I wrote, in part:
...and bullet drop and aerodynamics, which invariable are a factor at 1000 yards
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Again, what I am comparing is how the targets appear to us and how difficult (or easy) it is to hold on them, AND NOT how the bullet is able to reach the targets.

For example, .308 168gr, 2600 fps, when zeroed at 600 yards, will be 18" high at 100 yards, 37" at 300 yards, 0" at 600 yards, and will drop over 21 FEET at 1000 yards. A cross wind of 10 mph will make it drift almost 10 feet! (REF: http://www.snipercentral.com/308.htm)

All I am saying is that if there were no distortion, as may be caused by heat waves, for example, a 20" diameter target at 1,000 yards will look the same as a 2" target at 100 yards. That's all.

Alex
 
OK I get the point Alex. You are talking about very narrowly defined sight pictures. I was talking about gyroscopic effect and not bullet drop nor aerodynamics as a reason for trumpet shaped cones of fire.
 
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