Earlier I wrote about the entertainment industry giving magical powers to firearms.  More recently, the Discovery channel, on their new program, Future Weapons, did a bit about an "actual" 1.5 mile, one shot hit from a cold bore using the new .416 Barrett.  The shooter was depicted as firing his first shot ever from that rifle and hitting his target (a circle of about 5 feet diameter) at 1.5 miles.  My skepticism lead me back to Joe's exterior ballistics program.  Since Barrett had just sent us a write-up and the specs on his new cartridge, all I had to do was plug in his numbers.  I allowed, again, for the most amazing velocity standard deviation of 5 feet per second, with a 1/2 MOA accurate rifle/cartridge combination.  I reduced the effects of the atmosphere by raising the elevation to 3000 feet.  I enlarged the target to a 12 x 20 inch ellipse (roughly the one-shot kill area of the human body) and still I came up with a probability of a one shot hit (any hit) of about 8 percent at 1.5 miles.  The hit probability at that range on a 5-foot circle is about 58%.  Time if flight: 4.05 sec.  Extremely good, but you have to push the accuracy of the system to the edge of believability to get it, and with a perfect marksman.  It's certainly not what we're being led to believe by the TV producers.

Barrett's specs for the .416:

      Muzzle velocity: 3250 fps

Ballistic Coefficient: 0.943

           Bullet Mass: 400 grains – solid copper

I want one!  I wonder if they're going to come out with some light varmint bullets for it, or some frangible defense loads.  Heh.