Joseph Orlando
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Chapter 48 - Effective range of the 5.56mm NATO round
🕑 Added 2024-03-20 12:00:03 +0000 UTCThere was something simple and beautiful about all this. A man and his rifle. Sure, I was using a scope, an advanced optic system by most measures, but this wasn’t Star Trek level technology. I wasn’t transporting a bullet through space time to reach my target. This was truly skill based. Sending a bullet from point A to target B took skill. You needed to take so many factors into consideration to ensure you hit your target. The way you held the rifle, squeezed the trigger, the steadiness of your hand and body, the way you breathed.
Then there were the external factors to take into account, like the firing angle, distance to target, wind speed and direction, barrel temperature, ambient temperature and the expected bullet drop, amongst a few dozen other considerations that the skilled marksman needed to take into account, either consciously or unconsciously. On truly long-range shots you even needed to take into account the curvature of the Earth itself. Of course, the effective range of my current weapon was probably between 500 and 600 yards, conservatively, rather than the enhanced range of something like a Barrett .50 caliber rifle, so that last one was moot.
Thankfully, I had so many targets to ply my skills with.
