Wednesday, May 2, 2012

High Velocity

For several years I've been mildly fascinated by those .50 caliber rifles used by military snipers. Today, I saw a short video that cranked my interest up a notch. The video was sent as an e-mail attachment by a guy named Joe who was my pal in 6th grade. He sold me a European rabbit when we were boys. I named the rabbit Ozzie, and Ozzie outlived the friendship with Joe.

Anyway, my name is on Joe's contact list of members of our high school graduation class, which is how I happened to get this clip. It runs about 35 seconds in all. As it begins, a marksman is sighting in on an iron target about 100 yards down range. He fires, the round ricochets off the target, hits the ground a few yards in front of the marksman, bounces, and clips the earmuffs he's wearing. All of this occurs in two seconds elapsed time. If the ricochet had deflected a few inches differently, the sniper might've received a head wound from his own shot. I was listening through headphones... in two seconds, I hear the rifle fired, the clang as the round hits metal, the whine as the ricochet comes back uprange, and the pop as it hits the shooter.


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