I’ve been aware since I was a junior shooter that the sights sit above the centerline of the barrel, and if there are obstacles between gun muzzle and target, those obstacles can stop the bullet. I was firmly reminded of it in my worst of ten stages in a shooting match last Sunday. The stage was titled “Escape From Haiti” by the creative designers of the Florida State Sunshine Games IDPA match held at Central Florida Rifle & Pistol Club’s welcoming range in Orlando. Since it was deemed too dangerous for shooters to fire from the back of an actual moving truck as they ran a gauntlet of “armed looters,” the targets were arrayed across a broad space, some of them 25 yards from the shooter, and the contestant had to leap onto a board supported by heavy springs to simulate the movement of a “truck.” It felt more like shooting while standing on a raft in high seas. Firing across an arc of almost 180 degrees at half a dozen targets, many partially obscured to represent them being behind cover, the shooter had to engage three of them over a high wooden wall in front of the bouncing platform that represented the truck’s cab.
Well, when I got done, cleared, and unloaded (and checked for seasickness), a review of those six targets showed four of them hit solidly – and two, in the center, missed cleanly. The big green dot of the fiber optic front sight of my S&W Performance Center Model 625 revolver had been on target each time the hammer fell, the rolling shooting platform notwithstanding. I figured it out as I walked back uprange after scoring. Atop the wooden “truck cab” wall behind which I’d fired were two distinct bullet dings. The sights had been high enough that the gun below them obscured the fact that the wood was in line with the bore. The round-nosed full metal jacket 230 grain bullets from my Remington-UMC ammo had hit the wood at 845 feet per second, deflecting upward enough to barely pass over the heads of the targets, according to observers.
Live and learn. In a famous police countersniper incident, a cop on a roof had to take a shot from some distance behind the parapet. His crosshairs were comfortably above the edge of the wall, but his .308 rifle’s barrel wasn’t. The bullet hit the wall in a puff of concrete dust, instead of the gunman it was aimed at. Fortunately, the police rifleman spotted the hit through the telescopic sight, bolted another round into the chamber, and got back to business. One wonders how many deer hunters have tried to thread a bullet through a tangle of branches and into some venison, only to end up saying, “How could I have missed that buck?” Very likely, the same syndrome at work. Those who use AR15s and M4s, whose sight planes are considerably higher than their bore planes, need to pay particular attention to this. I didn’t, and it cost me a huge point loss. Compared to a police marksman on a roof – or a fighting American in Iraq or Afghanistan – I got off pretty cheap from the mistake.
Live and learn. Live long enough, and you forget and get reminded.
Shooting from replicated bouncing truck. Top edge of wooden structure at left is below line of sight, but level with bore, and in a moment…
…it will get dinged twice (arrows), deflecting bullets to a point a few inches over the targets downrange.
Reminds me of the “tree lounge”, a climbing tree stand where you can recline in comfort while you deer hunt….You’d be surprised how many hunters have shot their feet!
@Jes – yikes!
@Mas – great post and yet another reminder of the limitations of a square range when it comes to truly getting to know our guns. Man, I’ve got to spend more time out in the desert. :-/
At one of my first three gun matches, I engaged a target partially obscured by a no-shoot with my carbine. I remembered the sight off set but in my haste aimed low instead of high, drilling two holes into the no-shoot’s shoulder.
I also shot an IDPA match with a 357 snub and had problems with close in head shots due to the offset.
I’ve seen plenty of holes below rifle shooting ports where a shooter brought up the sights but did not bring up the barrel enough.
Thanks for sharing, Mas! This is good stuff to remember.
I was reminded of that when I shot the bed of my truck with a scoped Ruger 10/22. I used the bed as an impromptue rest shooting across it. I fired heard a metallic thlank, and wondered why I missed the easy, short range shot. The .22 bullet embedded in the edge of the bed told me what happened. I was lucky I didn’t blow a hole clean through the side, or suffer a nasty richochet.
Same sort of lesson re-learned was provided to me several years ago during muzzleloader season – only it was a 10 point buck I missed at close range as a branch was in the LOB but not the LOS. I thought about taking the branch home and hanging it on the wall, but it was already a painful memory without doing that.
Thanks Mr. Ayoob for sharing your lessons-learned for our benefit.
I remember when I shot a hole through the fender of my ATV with my .30/30. I had shot at a rabid fox, which heading down the dirt road, forgot I had left the gun cocked with a round in the chamber, tried uncocking in while driving, gun went off…….. stupid. But, learned my lesson.
Fox got away.
With the current trend of high scope mounts and semi autos with the gas system above the bore and optics, this is good justification for the “sight axis as close to the bore axis” rule. I’ve seen students at military small arms courses shoot the bench and items off the bench because they were unfamiliar with this concept.
On a couple of occassions I’ve been shooting at targets with various rifles and using a foam pad as a rest and hit the foam pad. A friend of mine also shot his truck bed with his 22 when he was using it as a rest. Both he and I were using scopes and through the scope everything looked clear. Better to happen on the range than in a real life situation.
Thanks for the sharing your humility, Mas. This is, tangentially, a lesson in the difference between cover and concealment. It doesn’t take much to change the ballistic *path* of a bullet, but it’ll still punch through.
Somewhere on teh intarw3bz there’s a photo series of a man shooting his AR over his car roof. He’d had a revolver laying on the roof, and the bullet his the front edge of the revolver cylinder. Nasty.
Reminded of lad from our camp who fired at a coyote from his truck seat. Had medical slip due to surgury to hunt from truck and was successful in shooting the mirror off of the truck! LOB below LOS on 22-250 of course. Made quite a tale back at the camp and also a good lesson. $514 for new remote heated mirror!!