Marksmanship is an essential military skill. And in truth, hitting a man-sized target out to around 300m isn\u2019t that difficult with a well-zeroed weapon.<\/p>\n
But hitting a target of that size at extreme ranges is a different story. Doing that takes extraordinary marksmanship skill.<\/p>\n
Wikipedia maintains a reasonable list of the longest verified sniper kills in history<\/a><\/em>. Two shots in particular on that list stand out.<\/p>\n They stand out because they were done over 140 and 150 years ago<\/span>, repectively.<\/p>\n In late June 1874, buffalo hunter Billy Dixon performed such a shot \u2013 at Adobe Walls, Texas. Dixon and a party of settlers had been besieged by a party of Native Americans under Chief Quanah Parker. The siege lasted 3 days. During the siege, Dixon \u2013 using a borrowed<\/u> Sharps .50-90 buffalo rifle \u2013 fired at a group of warriors near Chief Parker. His third shot dropped one of the warriors<\/a><\/em>. The siege ended shortly afterwards, and the settlement was thereafter left alone.<\/p>\n The distance for Dixon\u2019s shot is credited today as being 1,406 meters \u2013 nearly a mile. It\u2019s still the 11th longest confirmed sniper kill in history.<\/p>\n Dixon later worked for the Army as a civilian scout. He was one of only 8 civilians ever awarded the Medal of Honor.<\/p>\n 1400+ meters, with a borrowed rifle, on the 3rd shot.\u00a0 Amazing.<\/p>\n And IMO, there\u2019s one shot that\u2019s even more amazing.<\/p>\n During the US Civil War, Union forces blockaded the Confederate port of Charleston. During this blockade, Union forces occupied Battery Gregg; Confederate forces occupied Fort Sumner \u2013 1,390 yards (1,271 meters) away. On 5 December 1864, an unnamed Confederate sharpshooter shooting from Fort Sumner \u2013 believed to have been using a muzzle-loading Whitworth rifle firing hexagonal .451 cal bullets<\/a><\/em> \u2013 shot and killed a Union soldier at Battery Gregg<\/a><\/em>. This shot today still ranks as the 14th longest confirmed sniper kill in history.<\/p>\n Think about that:\u00a0 over 1,250 meters – with a muzzle-loading rifle.\u00a0 Also amazing.<\/p>\n No confirmed sniper kills in World War I, World War II, or Korea (and only one from Vietnam) are longer than these two amazing shots from 140+ years ago. For close to 100 years – until Marine sniper Carlos Hathcock\u2019s legendary shot in Vietnam in 1967 – these two shots from 1864 and 1874 ranked as the longest confirmed sniper kills in history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"