This rings a UL alarm for me. All Olympic rifles are .22 long rifle caliber, an extremely poor choice for a sniper weapon. It would also be virtually impossible to identify what specific type of rifle a .22 bullet was fired from without a microscope. Bullets are also deforemed when striking a target, unless of course they are the magic type as used to assasinate JFK.
Well Padeye, I don’t recall the exact details, but I did see the guy that the movie was based on, he did an interview on one of the big network infotainment shows, 20/20 I think. He said the story is true as depicted in the movie. I don’t know the calibers of the rifles, but the sniper was legendary for his insanely accurate long shots, nobody could get near him. Supposedly this was the class where they competed, the longest ranges of competition, and they had special rifles made just for this class. And the pacifist guy recognized the bullets because they were some unique quality, they had the only 2 guns of that type in Yugoslavia.
Anyway, go rent “Shot Through the Heart” and watch it yourself, it’s worth seeing.
“New?” Ever see the sniper rifles of the Civil War? Scopes as long as the very heavy barrels (like, 2" diameter for a .54 bullet).
‘New’ was how the Red Army propagandists sold it. Not me.
The longest distance compeated for in Olympic target shooting is 50m. This is done using very specialised .22 caliber rifles, one of which sits in my wardrobe about 10 feet from me. These rifles can be used to shoot in 100m competitions but this is uncommon and not an Olympic sport. At distances over 100m they are inacurate and frustrating to shoot. The bullets are too small and the wind blows them around too much.
The amunition used is specialy made for low velocity ans accuracy. I’m not sure if you could recognise it from any other .22 amunition from the spent bullet although the makers mark is usually on the shell. The low velocity would make them a very poor choice for a snipers weapon.
I have a great deal of difficulty seeing this story as anything else but Hollywood bullshit.
Target shooting is done using other calibers at distances up to 1000m. I know that 300m shooting is very popular in Switzerland.
i don’t have much to add to this, other than to recommend a book: “Point of Impact” by Stephen Hunter. It’s a fictionalized account of a guy who’s the top sniper of the Vietnam war, and who, after coming home and living on his farm for 10 years or so gets double crossed and framed by a quasi-government agency. The moral: The LAST guy you really want to have pissed at you is the best sniper in the world.
It’s fiction, but the sniping stuff is very well done, and very accurate.
Oh, as for the History Channel: Their standards of accuracy seem to be whatever the standards were for whatever program they are showing. It could be very good, or complete fiction. They show a lot of ‘historical movies’ that are complete fabrications (recently they aired ‘Where Eagles Dare’, which I don’t believe is based on any actual historical incident), and some of their documentaries play fast-and-loose with the facts. Basically, I think they just air whatever they think people want to watch and they can justify by finding some sort of ‘historical’ angle.
The same can be said for the Discovery Channel, TLC, etc. These are supposed to be channels aimed at learning and science, yet they repeatedly show pseudo-scientific crap on angels, ghosts, Graham Hancock’s flakey Egypt theories, etc. Of course, being that these channels are run by Hollywood producers, they probably think that these programs ARE good science.
Yep, I agree, you are so wrapped up in demonstrating your special “expertise” in this area that you can’t see the story at ALL.
I doublechecked and perhaps the word “olympic” was not correct, and who really gives a shit except pedantic olympic shooters? I found an article with interviews with Vladimir Sarzinsky, the sniper whose true story became “Shot through the heart.” It says he was on the Yugoslavian Rifle Team, which perhaps I assumed to be the same as the olympic team. Obviously they compete in more than the olympics, at different distances and calibers.
You can read the article yourself at:
http://detnews.com/1998/entertainment/9810/04/10030170.htm
So I guess HBO just made this up. Except they didn’t invent the story, the story of Sarzinsky first appeared in Details Magazine.
The details quoted about the movie aren’t accurate. The protagonist (Vlado) doesn’t recognize a bullet fired from his former friend’s rifle (Slavko); his former friend was using a military rifle for sniping.
Vlado refused to fight, but a sniper was killing people on his side, including non-combatants, and no one could find him because the shots were being taken at such incredible distances. In the course of hunting the sniper, Vlado discovers that it’s Slavko, and kills him after sneaking across the lines to try to convince him to stop.
It’s a good movie (by HBO), and the restraint with which it’s done makes the claim “based on a true story” more plausible.