The bullet traveled 3,450 meters—over two miles—and took less than 10 seconds to reach its target: a fighter for the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) in Iraq.
Those are the details of the world record-breaking shot fired by a Canadian sniper, who has eclipsed the previous longest-confirmed kill by almost 1,000 meters.
A member of Canada’s Joint Task Force 2—part of the U.S.-led coalition that is taking the fight to ISIS in Iraq—made the kill during an operation that took place within the last month in Iraq, sources told The Globe and Mail. The identity of the sniper and his observer was kept anonymous for operational security reasons.
The sniper used a McMillan TAC-50 sniper rifle—the standard long-range sniper of the Canadian military—and fired the shot from a high-rise building in an undisclosed location. Firing from such a distance, the shooter would have had to account for wind; the round dropping as it was fired from a higher location; and even the curvature of the earth.
