A Canadian sniper set what appears to be a record, picking off an ISIS figh ter from some 2.2 miles away, and disrupting a potentially deadly operation by the terror group in Iraq.
Shooting experts say the fatal shot at a world-record distance of 11,316 fe et underscores how stunningly sophisticated military snipers are becoming. The feat, pulled off by a special forces sniper from Canada?s Joint Task Force 2, smashed the previous distance record for successful sniper s hots by some 3,280 feet, a record set by a British sniper.
The new record was set using a McMillan TAC-50, a .50-caliber weapon and th e largest shoulder-fired firearm in existence.
The McMillan TAC-50 is a .50-caliber weapon, and the largest shoulder-fired firearm in existence (McMillan Firearms) While officials would not say where the shot took place, the statement note d the command "provides its expertise to Iraqi security force to detect, id entify and defeat Daesh activities from well behind the Iraqi security forc e front line in Mosul."
Ryan Cleckner, a former U.S. Army Ranger sniper who served two tours of dut y in Afghanistan and wrote the authoritative ?Long Range Shooting H andbook,? called the feat an ?incredible? accomplis hment, one that owes as much if not more to the spotter?s expertise than the shooter's skill.
?The spotter would have had to successfully calculate five factors: distance, wind, atmospheric conditions and the speed of the earth? s rotation at their latitude,? Cleckner told Fox News.
?Because wind speed and direction would vary over the two miles the bullet traveled, the true challenge here was being able to calculate the a ctual wind speed and direction all the way to the target.?
Atmospheric conditions also would have posed a huge challenge for the spott er.
Cleckner said that while the ammunition that Canadian special forces use in the TAC-50 is ?off-the-charts powerful,? with some 13,000 foot-pounds of force when it comes out of the muzzle, the speed of a bullet , a 750-grain Hornady round, is not as important as the aerodynamic efficie ncy of the bullet.
?The key to having a sniper round travel that far and hit a small t arget has less to do with speed and more to do with the efficiency with whi ch the projectile moves through the air,? he said.
That?s because while sniper bullets exit the muzzle at several time s the speed of sound they eventually slow down to less than the speed of so und, and at that point they become less stable. An efficiently designed bul let reduces that instability, he explained.
Dennis Santiago, California-based firearms expert and instructor, said the partnership between the spotter and the shooter is critical.
"Equipment is just a starting point. The shooter on a military team will su rely be skilled enough to hold hard on the 'aimpoint' and fire the shot acc urately," he told Fox News. "The spotter member of the sniper team is respo nsible for telling the shooter the precise moment the atmospherics align wi th the calculations they've made. When it comes together, it's 'mission acc omplished'."