“I know what you're thinking, punk. You're thinking, ‘Did he fire six shots or only five?’ Now to tell you the truth I forgot myself in all this excitement. But being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world and will blow you head clean off, you've gotta ask yourself a question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?”
—Dirty Harry
That movie was a long time ago and today there are even more powerful handgun cartridges available for the big bore pistol shooters. But what does a big, loud, high recoil have do to with snipers? Nothing! However, if we look at the ballistic table again, we can see just how powerful today's sniper rifles are. Table 1 compares the velocities and energies of the .44 Mag rifle cartridge to sniper cartridges. Table 2 compares the time to target and the drop from the bore of the .44 Mag to the same rounds.
You can see that Harry's .44 Magnum develops 1,650 pound-feet at the muzzle. The .308 at 500 yards has almost as much energy and at 1,000 yards still has one-third the energy of the .44. The .338 Lapua 250-grain Scenar and .300-grain Match King unbelievably have more energy at 1,000 yards than the .44 Mag at the muzzle. Even the hottest hand load for the .44 Mag can only generate a muzzle velocity of approximately 1,400 fps.
In this table you can see that the .44 Mag is not even close to the sniper cartridges in time to target: 13 seconds to reach 2,000 yards and the drop is dramatic—a negative 20,496 inches at 2,000 yards. For you math freaks that's 1,705 feet, or 568 yards. One MOA at 2,000 yards is 20 inches, so the drop would be 20,496 divided by 20—equally 1,024 MOA of elevation. Can you say “impossible hold over?” Sniper rifles and their cartridges are simply awesome examples of man's ability to find a better way to fight his enemies. Feeling lucky, Harry?
