How hard is it to hit a human sized target at 2000 meters with a rifle?

What
factors need to be taken into account?
37 Answers
Profile photo for Keith Shannon
Keith Shannon
, Texas LTC, scholar of 2A constitutional law
Updated Jul 16, 2019 · Upvoted by
Ron Mueller
, Infantryman 11 Bravo, 211/212/214 EF EW Communications Operator, 651 Fire Fighter
and
Andy Duffell
, ex-forces armourer
I’ll give you a hint; only 8 soldiers, out of the hundreds of millions who have
served since the invention of the rifled firearm, have recorded a confirmed kill at
or beyond 2000 meters with any small arm. Chris Kyle missed out on being the 9th
such sniper by just 80 meters. Wikipedia editors start paying attention at 1250m,
and only 19 snipers in history have recorded a confirmed kill longer than that.

(Edit: August 2018 saw a 20th shot, Carlos Hathcock style: SAS hero sniper takes
out ISIS commander with just one bullet from over a MILE AWAY. Exact distance isn't
officially known yet)

So, here’s how you line up a 2000-meter shot. It starts with:

BALLISTIC ARC (BULLET DROP)

The primary determinants of the path of a projectile moving in a gravitational

field are the initial velocity of the projectile in the X (horizontal aka parallel
to level ground) and Y (vertical aka parallel to gravity) axes, the acceleration of
gravity (9.8 m/s^2), and the deceleration of drag, all occurring over the time of
flight.

The calculation of the velocity, position and time of flight of a bullet moving
through air at high speed are college-level differential equations, because the
drag on the bullet both affects and is affected by the bullet's velocity, so the
equation of drag force over time given an initial velocity (and thus the related
equation for velocity over time accounting for drag, and its integral for position
over time) is most elegantly defined as a function of its own derivative. This is
why your high school physics professor kept telling you to neglect or ignore drag
in projectile motion calculations for that class; taking it into consideration
makes everything much harder.

Luckily for non-engineers who likely didn't see this math even in college, the
calculation can be simplified to an algebraic formula for range or time of flight
using the caliber, mass, muzzle velocity and “ballistic coefficient” of the bullet,
and the density of the air (a function of temperature, barometric pressure and
humidity):

x = vt - (CρAv^2t^2)/2m

where x is horizontal range, v is muzzle velocity, t is flight time (which you have
to rearrange to solve for), m is mass, C is the ballistic coefficient of the bullet
(the relative aerodynamic “efficiency” of the bullet compared to an ideal model;
ammunition manufacturers will provide this number), ρ is air density and A is the
cross-sectional area of the bullet (pi*(diameter/2)^2).

This particular model simply assumes a linear deceleration from the muzzle
velocity, which is close enough to get civilian precision shooters in the
neighborhood and empirically adjust from there. You can rearrange the above to
solve for t given a known x (hint; remember your logarithm properties), or just
plug these values into a spreadsheet formula and goal-seek.

However, for 2000m, linear deceleration produces enough error to be way off. Here’s
a more complex model:

Cd=.5191mCbd2

CΔv=500m∗1.225Cdπ(d1000)24

t=erCΔv−1CΔvvx

This is a more accurate calculation based on the differential equation, which when
given accurate values for the following, tends to work pretty well:

Cb = ballistic coefficient of bullet (G1 method)

Cd = drag coefficient (the above equation hardcodes atmospheric conditions, namely

fluid density; the constant .5191 really isn’t constant)

CΔv = coefficient of deceleration (basically a useful substitute for the rather

complex equation on the right-hand side of its definition)

m = bullet mass in grams

d = bullet diameter in millimeters

r = range in meters

vx = muzzle velocity along the ground in meters per second (muzzle velocity along
the bore times cosine of launch angle; can be used to compensate for sight-in range
and resulting upward bore angle with the scope “level”)

t = time of flight in seconds

However you calculate time of flight, you then plug it into the high-school physics
equation for distance over time given acceleration of gravity - d=.5gt2 - to
calculate bullet drop from boresight. This calculation neglects drag entirely, and
that’s also acceptable as the amount of drag in the vertical from gravity really is
negligible relative to the frontal drag, even over this distance.

Now that you have the range and bullet drop, you simply compensate for it in the
scope by dividing one by the other; if you’re using yards of range and inches of
drop, dividing bullet drop by range and multiplying by 100 gives you minutes of
angle or MOA. If you’re using meters and centimeters, dividing drop by range and
multiplying by 10 gives you milliradians or MRAD (sometimes called MIL, but while
mathematically there are 2000π ~= 6283 MRAD in a full circle, other values for MIL
have been used including 6000, 6300 and 6400, and at 2000 yards it makes enough
difference). The units you use will dictate the type of scope you get.

You then compensate for the angle between boresight and optic; the scope is above
the bore, and is “looking down” at where the bullet will be at the distance you
sighted the rifle in. So the scope height and sighting in distance gives you
another MOA or MRAD angle which you can simply subtract from the bullet drop
compensation.

WINDAGE

Then, you just need windage. Assuming a constant wind speed and direction relative
to your bullet’s flight path, the wind will produce a constant force and thus a
constant acceleration of the bullet perpendicular to travel, much like gravity will
create a constant bullet drop. The equation for wind pressure given wind speed is
basically the drag force equation: Fd=.5Cρv2 , where C is the drag coefficient of
the bullet’s side profile. For simplicity, use 0.4 (drag coefficient of a
frictionless perfect sphere; our bullet is neither of these but it’s close enough).
Velocity is meters per second, so Fd will work out to newtons per square meter
aka pascals, making this a pressure calculation instead of force. You then need the
cross-sectional area of the bullet in profile to get the actual force in newtons,
which with the mass of the bullet gives you acceleration in the direction of the
wind, which then gives you deviation over the time of flight, that you can convert
to an angle and correct for in the optics.

Oh, and don’t forget that if the wind’s not exactly perpendicular to the bullet’s
path of travel, a component of it will be helping or hindering the bullet by
changing the speed of the relative wind, pretty much as if the muzzle velocity were
faster or slower by the amount of wind blowing in line with the barrel. The cosine
of the relative angle of wind, assuming your bore is “zero”, gives you the
component of wind speed required to adjust muzzle velocity. Then you have to go
back and do the ballistic arc calculations again with that new muzzle velocity.

GYROSCOPIC DRIFT/SPIN DRIFT

Now, in calculating bullet drop, we ignored drag in the vertical, which is usually
negligible unless you’re firing with enough elevation angle from level that the
bullet approaches terminal velocity on the way down from apogee; if you’re within
20 degrees of level with the ground, it probably won’t get there. However, over
long enough distances, the force of air drag in the vertical can induce gyroscopic
precession, also known as “spin drift”, which also has to be accounted for in a
2000m shot.

Simply put, the spin imparted to the bullet by the rifling will stabilize the
bullet around its long axis as it flies though the air, keeping that axis pointing
parallel to the rifle bore. So, as the bullet begins to descend from the peak of
its arc, it will still be pointing upward relative to its direction of travel, and
so the oncoming air will be pushing on the nose of the bullet from underneath. When
you push on a spinning gyroscope’s axis, what you get is a rotation of that axis at
a 90 degree angle to the direction of the force applied, based on the direction the
gyroscope is spinning. So, with most rifles having a right-hand twist, as the
bullet falls through the air, the nose of the bullet will be pushed to the right,
and like a plane’s rudder in the wind, as the bullet turns it presents its side to
the oncoming air, which will cause the bullet to veer right.

The calculations for spin drift depend on twist rate and muzzle velocity, which
gets you the spin rate in RPM, then the mass and diameter of the bullet give you
the moment of inertia, and the length of the bullet gives you the torque arm length
from center of mass. You then find the force applied to that torque arm by
calculating the component of the force of the relative wind that is perpendicular
to the bullet’s spin axis. The force of the relative wind is the combination of the
instantaneous drag force caused by the bullet moving and the drag induced by the
bullet falling, and the ratio of these gives you a compound force and angle of
relative wind relative to level. You add the bore angle at launch (which the bullet
is still spinning along, at least vertically), compute the perpendicular component
of the force of this wind, and then apply that to gyroscopic precession equations
given the mass, spin rate and moment of inertia of the bullet to determine the
precession amount.

Then, a split second later, that precession amount changes everything, making this
another differential equation most elegantly defined in terms of its own derivative
function.

CORIOLIS EFFECT/EOTVOS EFFECT

The Coriolis Effect, a major subcomponent of which is the Eötvös Effect, is another
element to consider, and it’s a weird one because it depends not only on which
direction you’re shooting, but where you are on the planet. Broadly speaking,
bullets that actually make it 2000m have to go fast enough that they are for our
purposes suborbital, requiring you to consider the effects of the bullet’s travel
relative to the movement of the Earth itself.

Generally speaking, the Eötvös Effect means that if you shoot east, the bullet’s
velocity combines with the Earth’s rotational velocity to increase centripetal
force of the bullet in the rotating inertial frame of the spherical surface of our
planet, causing the bullet to fly higher. Shoot west, and exactly the opposite
happens; Earth’s rotational speed in the other direction cancels out some of the
velocity for these purposes, and the bullet’s centripetal force against gravity
will be lessened, causing it to drop more over the same range. This effect is more
pronounced the closer the compass direction of your shot is to east or west, and
the closer you yourself are to the Equator.

Shooting north or south, there’s an additional lateral component to the effect more
directly attributable to Coriolis; shooting away from the equator, your bullet will
be travelling faster to the east than the ground it moves over, causing the bullet
to impact to the east of the target by enough over 2000m to miss by. Shooting
toward the equator, again the opposite happens; the ground is moving faster east
than the bullet is, so the bullet will impact to the west of the target. By how
much? Depends on the ratio between the distance inherent in a minute of longitude
at the shooter’s location versus the target’s, which means the closer you are to
one of the two poles, the more it matters.

So, on the northern hemisphere, shooting north will cause the bullet to land to the
right, shooting east will bring it high, shooting south will lead it left, and
shooting west will drop it low. On the southern hemisphere, reverse the north-south
behavior, but the east-west behavior is identical. The east-west differences are
more pronounced the closer you are to the equator; the north-south distances matter
more the closer you are to the poles.

Confused yet?

SUBTLETIES OF RANGING

Now, I’ve assumed so far that you just happen to know the exact range of your
target. In the real world, even in the relatively sterile and static environment of
a shooting range, targets are rarely exactly at the stated distance relative to
your muzzle. There are many tools you can use to obtain this range; few are totally
exact over this kind of distance.

The most accurate is a laser rangefinder, similar to what golfers use, but golfers
typically only need to know ranges out to about 500 yards; you want to go four
times further out. Most of the civilian rangefinders aren’t guaranteed to be
accurate longer than 500 yards, and aren’t guaranteed to give you a reading at all
beyond 1000. There are a few 3000-meter rangefinders out there, starting at $500
with the ones I’d actually trust at that distance costing more like three times
that.

Don’t have $1500 for a rangefinder? Fear not; you can use your scope’s subtensions
and more math. If you’re making a 2000-yard shot, you’re using a calibrated,
graduated scope that will allow you to measure the angular size of your target in
MOA or MRAD. If you know, or can guess accurately enough, the actual size of that
target, you can determine the range to target using much the same trigonometry as
the bullet drop compensation. Let’s say you get a good, front-on look at your human
size target, and you measure the width of his shoulders at .25 MRAD. The average
man’s shoulders are 46cm or .46m wide. Assuming your target is of average build,
this will be close enough. The MRAD ranging formula is just a rearranging of the
bullet drop compensation formula; actual size in meters, divided by measured MRADs,
times a thousand, is the range in meters. For this example, your target is 1840
meters out.

Keep in mind, when doing this range estimation, that this is what a typical
graduated MRAD first focal plane scope looks like at 8x and at 34x magnification:

Just for context, your target’s shoulders, at the stated range, would be the width
of one side of the hash marks on the vertical crosshair (from the vertical line to
the edge of the hash mark). If he’s 1.8m tall (5′11″), standing straight at this
range, he’s just a hair smaller than 1 MRAD total height (from the crosshair up to
the first full-length hash). And at this distance, if you misjudge range by even 10
meters, the difference in bullet drop between 1840 and 1850 meters is enough to
plant your shot in the ground at his feet, or shoot over his head.

Not rocket science, but pretty close, actually. Luckily for the amateur precision
shooter, all this math has been programmed into a number of ballistic calculators,
such as Strelok and the Lapua Ballistics app for Android (if you’re an iPhone type,
you’ll have to find your own). You’ll need the caliber, mass, muzzle velocity and
ballistic coefficient of the bullet, then the range to target, temperature,
barometric pressure, relative humidity, wind direction relative to the barrel and
average wind speed. The apps will make some assumptions about the rest of the
variables like profile cross-section, and will get you pretty close. Most
calculators I’m aware of don’t figure for spin drift, Coriolis effect, etc, but
there are a few.

The mile shot, 1760yd or about 1610 meters, is not an impossible shot if you know
what you’re doing, and you have enough chances. Here’s a YouTuber going for a
little more than that, 1820 yards (1664m), with a relatively inexpensive rig based
on a Ruger American Predator rifle chambered in 6.5mm Creedmoor. With scope, rings
and bipod, about $750 total investment at the time, though the rifle’s gotten a
little more expensive since then.

For context, the Arctic Warfare Magnum in .338 Lapua, which is a common high-end
precision shooting rifle and holds the #2 longest-distance confirmed kill as the
L115A3 in British service, streets for $8500, and then you’d put about a $3000
scope on it. So this guy’s going for the mile with a rig less than one-tenth the
cost of a purpose-designed precision rifle.

Anyway, the shooting (EDIT: my apologies, but it looks like this YTer’s account has
been closed due to YT’s new policy regarding firearm-related videos; below is the
same video on DailyMotion, which doesn’t embed into Quora):

Shooting a Mile with Ruger American Predator!? (1820 yards) - Video Dailymotion

Now, that’s 4 hits out of 12 shots. After his first shot based on precalculated
values for bullet drop given the ammunition he was using, his spotters recommended
a full MRAD up and another MRAD to the left, so he needed to get about 1.4 MRAD
closer to center (which at this distance was 2.33m or 2.55 yards off) just to get
in the neighborhood. He then needed another .6 MRAD up (.998m, 1.1yd) and
another .75 MRAD left windage correction (1.25m, 1.37yd) over the next two shots,
before his fourth shot made the first hit.
So his first shot, the one that, for a sniper, is usually the only shot, was over
2.66m low and almost 3m to the right, almost 4m off the intended point of impact
all together. That’s not just missing, that’s not even close. After his barrel
warmed up, the shot pattern started to rise and to spread out as the barrel became
more flexible. So, you don’t get too many accurate mile shots with one rifle in a
particular time frame.

What was off? Any of a number of things:

Neglecting the actual air density in the precalculation of ballistic arc, which
can’t be known ahead of time and is commonly based on average Earth temperature and
humidity in the temperate zones of 60*F (15*C) and 45% relative humidity at sea
level (~1000mbar). Cooler, less humid or higher-pressure air than that will be
denser, increasing drag, time of flight and bullet drop.
No initial correction for wind at all; even knowing the wind speed at the shooter’s
location and the target’s, over a mile of distance the wind speed and direction can
vary enough that averaging these two known data points is wrong enough to miss by.
No apparent correction for spin drift; the 6.5 Creedmoor is a very long bullet for
its diameter and mass, which increases ballistic coefficient but also the amount of
gyroscopic drift, as the oncoming air has a longer lever arm to push against.
Also no apparent correction for Coriolis Effect; this shot’s long enough for it to
matter. Given he was on the northern hemisphere in the U.S. for this video, for it
to be adding to the error we saw in the first shots, he would have been shooting to
the northwest.
All these factors would have to have been considered and accounted for correctly in
order for him to have made the target on his first shot. That’s in addition to
simple bullet drop due to gravity which he did account for, but most likely only
based on average performance of the 6.5 Creedmoor round in average or ideal
conditions; he would have had to adjust for any difference in temperature,
humidity, altitude etc relative to the conditions for which the bullet drop
calculations were made.

And this distance is 336m shy of 2000m.

That’s how hard hitting a human-size target at 2000m with a rifle is.

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