The TrackingPoint 338TP, the Linux rifle that's accurate up to a mile

I grew up in rural West Virginia, and I don't remember learning how to shoot. All I know is I was certainly shooting well before the time I was 8. I grew up in a gun culture, with many relatives in the military, and I went to school at West Virginia University, which won its 16th NCAA Rifle Championship in 2014. In short, I know guns and I know just how hard it is to shoot accurately at extreme ranges such as 1,000 yards. Even at my best, I was never able to do it reliably.

Or rather, it used to be extraordinarily hard to hit a target consistently at 1,000 yards or more. Now, thanks to Linux, TrackingPoint, an Austin, Texas business, will allow almost anyone to hit not just 1,000-yard targets, but also ones that are up to 1 mile, 1,760 yards, away.

This isn't science fiction or a stunt done that only works under indoor rifle range conditions. TrackingPoint Precision-Guided Firearms have been enabling shooters to hit targets beyond any range they could hit on their own for several years now.

This newest model, the 338TP, nicknamed the Mile Maker, which was introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January, just extends this rifle line's range up to a mile. It works by using a combination of technologies.

First, the 338TP uses the .338 Lapua Magnum long-range rifle for its base. This rifle started as a design for a US Marine sniper rifle. Then, to acquire the target, the rifle uses a laser to enable you to "tag" your target. More than just a laser-targeting system, its sensors also track wind speed, direction, temperature, and barometric pressure. As serious shooters know, all of these factors must be taken into account for an accurate shot at great ranges.

So is it really that accurate? It works well enough that the US Army is testing it. In one review, it was found that users of an older model were getting 70 percent first hit accuracy at 1,000 yards. A trained military rifleman, not a sniper, would hit about 5 percent of the time.

Of course, for that kind of accuracy, you're going to pay a real premium. While final pricing hasn't been set yet, the 338TP won't go on sale until the second quarter of 2015, and it's expected to price out at over $40,000. Even the entry-level TrackingPoint rifle, the Precision-Guided Semi-Auto 5.56, starts at $7,495.

Oh, and the ammo: You get 200 rounds with the rifle, which runs at about $8 a round. When you're shooting at a distance, everything, and I mean everything, counts for accuracy, including the ammo.

You can also get smartglasses, the Shotglass, and Heads Up Display software, which can be used with smartphones and tablets, to let you shoot at targets without actually sighting from the rifle itself.

The 338TP certainly isn't normally what you think of when you think of a Linux-powered device. It just goes to show how Linux can be used to make almost any device better.

The Tennessee Sgt York Musket, the Tennessee racoon rifleman that’s accurate up to 150 yards

“Father would do his hunting every day, and if he had any blacksmith work he had to catch up with he would do that of a night. He was a good shot. He loved shooting very much, and always won every match. His advice was always to be accurate in shooting. He would always advise me to take more time and study this more. I grew up with him, hunted with him and worked in the blacksmith shop with him.

I read about Frank and Jesse James. I thought if Frank and Jesse could be crack shots I could too. I used to gallop my horse around a tree with a revolver and muss up that tree right smart. And I got tolerably accurate, too.

March 1918-That first Army rifle they issued me was all full of grease. Of course I didn’t like that. The rifles we used in the mountains were always kept clean. They were muzzle-loading rifles, cap and ball.

They make their own guns there in the mountains.
They are the most accurate guns in the world, up to 100 or 150 yards.
I would rather have had a clean army rifle than a muzzle loader for what we were going to use them for, on account of the repeating shots, but they are not any more accurate than the muzzle-loading rifles.

The Greeks and Italians came out on the shooting range and the boys from the big cities. They hadn’t been used to handling guns. And sometimes at 100 yards they would not only miss the targets, they would even miss the hills on which the targets were placed.

In our shooting matches at home we shot at a turkey’s head. We tied the turkey behind a log, and every time it bobbed up its head we let fly with those old muzzle loaders of ours. We paid ten cents a shot and if we hit the turkey’s head we got to keep the whole turkey. This way we learn to shoot from about sixty yards. Or we would tie the turkey out in the open at 150 yards, and if you hit it above the knee or below the gills you got it.

I think we had just about the best shots that ever squinted down a barrel. Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett used to shoot at these matches long ago. And Andrew Jackson used to recruit his Tennessee sharpshooters from among our mountain shooters. We used to call our most famous matches “beeves.” We would make up a beef, that is, we would drive up a beef and then each pay, say a dollar until we had made up the value of the beast. The owner got this money. And we were each allowed so many shots. The best shot got the choice of the hind quarters, the second best the other hind quarter, the third the choice of the fore quarters, the fourth the other fore quarters, and the fifth the hide and tallow.

Our matches were held in an opening in the forest, and the shooters would come in from all over the mountains, and there would be a great time. We would shoot at a mark crisscrossed on a tree. The distance was twenty-six yards off hand or forty yards prone with a rest. You had to hit that cross if you ever hoped to get all of that meat. Some of our mountaineers were such wonderful shots that they would win all five prizes and drive the beef home alive on the hoof. Shooting at squirrels is good, but busting a turkey at 150 yards—ho ho. So the army shooting was tolerably easy for me.”

http://acacia.pair.com/Acacia.Vignettes/The.Diary.of.Alvin.York.html

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