You Will Shoot Your Eye Out

The current world record sniper shot in combat stands at 3,800 meters or 4,156 yards. That’s 2.36 miles. In November 2023, a 58-year-old Ukrainian sniper named Viacheslav Kovalskyi took out a Russian officer at that range during Putin’s lyrically flawed Special Military Operation. Kovalskyi used a custom Volodar Obriy rifle. They call this massive 12.7x114HL precision cannon the “Horizon’s Lord.” Kovalskyi’s barrel comes from Bartlein, the optic is Japanese, and everything else is custom-made in Ukraine.

The cartridge is a unique design wherein a Combloc 14.5×115 case is necked down to accept a .50-caliber projectile. They supposedly filmed the hit. Here’s a link. Check out that time of flight. Wow.

Kovalskyi used an experienced spotter and connected on his second round. He intentionally landed the first 300 meters short to gauge the wind. While there was undoubtedly an element of luck to that remarkable feat, it was also driven by some simply breathtaking skill and superlative fieldcraft. We may explore that shot in more detail down the road sometime if I can find enough information.

Foundations

The state of the art in precision combat riflery has evolved considerably since WW2. This has been the result of hard lessons learned on battlefields around the world. Viacheslav Kovalskyi’s borderline-supernatural shot is the ultimate iteration.

Back in the 1950s, a legendary Marine named John Boitnott used equipment markedly inferior to that of this Ukrainian phenom to make some comparably unbelievable sniper kills out in the frozen wastes of Korea. The fact that he was so effective given his rudimentary tools speaks to the man’s refined skills, natural talent, and peerless drive.

The Backstory of John Boitnott

John Boitnott got his first taste of war on 7 December 1941 at Pearl Harbor. Serving as a Marine onboard the Northampton-class cruiser USS Chicago, he was wounded during the Japanese aerial attack. However, Boitnott recovered in short order and served in MacArthur’s amphibious vanguard as they marched inexorably across the Pacific toward Japan.

This took him through places like Guadalcanal, Coral Sea, Midway, Okinawa, and bloody Iwo. By VJ Day he had been shot to pieces, but he was as seasoned a warrior as the US Marine Corps could produce. In addition to those legendary combat skills, this Jarhead was also an incredible marksman.

At the end of the war, most American servicemen demobilized and went home to make normal lives for themselves. John Boitnott found that military service suited him, so he stuck around. By the time American forces went to war again in Korea, John Boitnott was a seasoned professional.

Korea—A Different Sort of War

John Boitnott had learned his craft in the fetid jungles of the South Pacific. The battlefields in which he fought in Korea were more like the surface of the moon. In many cases, the terrain was devoid of foliage and frozen rock hard. A decent trench was sometimes not more than three feet deep, and the engagement ranges often hovered around a kilometer. Operating in such forbidding spaces, the Leathernecks realized they needed snipers. When the call went out for volunteers, John Boitnott stepped up.

Both sides in that forsaken conflict had learned the same lessons. I have a friend who was shot in the chest by a Chinese sniper armed with a captured Lee-Enfield No 4(T) sniper rifle during the Korean War. His life was saved when the round deflected off of the M1911A1 pistol he carried in a shoulder holster and spent itself in the flak jacket he had been issued just the day prior.

A communist marksman once actually bounced a rifle round off of Boitnott’s helmet. The experience rattled him without causing any lasting damage. However, that left Boitnott quite energized. He resolved to do all that he could to mitigate the communist sniper menace.

Tools

All proper gun nerds are enamored with the sniper’s tools. For the most part, the ground war in Korea was fought with WW2-surplus weapons on both sides. While the M1 Garand had occupied the cutting edge of small arms technology during WW2, by the Korean War it was getting a bit long in the tooth. It certainly did not make for an optimal sniper rifle.

Sniper Weapons

If we had to rank the mass-produced sniper weapons used during the Second World War, the British Lee-Enfield No 4(T) was likely the top of the heap. The Germans had some nice iron, but these were often Kar98k bolt guns hand-fitted with civilian sporting optics. Their semiautomatic scoped G43 was a great idea that used a splendid 4x Zf4 optic, However, it suffered from availability and quality control issues. The radically-advanced Zf41 optic was a totally dissimilar long eye relief design that didn’t work terribly well. The Zf41’s magnification was only 1.5X.

The Japanese fielded optics on many of their light machineguns, which was fairly inspired, but their dedicated sniper platforms were hardly earth-shaking. The Russians likely made the most widespread use of snipers on the battlefield of any major combatant. However, their scoped Mosin Nagant rifles were terribly antiquated. Just don’t get me started about Simo Hayha. That guy was a freak of nature.

American snipers made good use of accurized Springfield rifles which were designated the “U.S. Rifle, Caliber .30, M1903A4, Snipers.” Saving Private Ryan demonstrates such stuff in fairly graphic detail, though the optics aren’t quite right. The gun’s actual Weaver 330 scope was relatively delicate and certainly did not represent the state of the art. The bolt-action Springfield was a stopgap, interim design. The ultimate school solution was the M1C.

Heresy…

OK, if you worship at the high exalted church of John Cantius Garand, please do not burn me at effigy or curse me with some kind of ballistic hex. If suddenly my groups double in size and I inexplicably lose vision in my shooting eye I’ll know it was you. While the M1 Garand was indeed a simply magnificent battle rifle for its era, the M1C was kind of a crap sniper tool.

For starters, the M1 loads from the top. That means that the optic has to be offset to the side. The guys who developed the weapon actually experimented briefly with a prismatic design with a bunch of mirrors, but that didn’t work. The distinctive leather cheek pad was included to force the shooter’s head left to accommodate the offset optic.

Inadequate Supplies

Another issue was a lack of match-grade ammo. The best precision rifle in the world is rubbish without decent ammunition. While standard ball ammo pushed a bullet weighing 152 grains, that of the M2 armor-piercing sort weighed 168 grains. The extra mass made the AP ammo more reliable at long ranges. That stuff also offers some simply breathtaking penetration.

All that was a distraction, but the glass was simply inadequate. Adapted from the Lyman “Alaskan” all-weather civilian optic, the M73 begat the M81 that eventually begat the M82. Each sight differed in details like sun shades and reticle designs, but they were all only 2.2X. That just wouldn’t do for the long-range engagements encountered in Korea. However, that’s what John Boitnott had available as he peered across a thousand yards of open nothing at a bunch of fanatical enemy soldiers trying desperately to kill him.

The Campaign

The crummy magnification on his scope kept Boitnott from distinguishing the details on the far side of the valley that was his hunting ground. As a result, he pinged his unit for a volunteer to help him flush the hostile snipers out into the open. One certifiable lunatic named PFC Henry Friday answered that call.

Boitnott set up in his hide, while Friday strolled back and forth in a shallow trench situated between friendly positions and those of the communist troops. When the enemy snipers fired at Friday, Boitnott zeroed on the smoke and muzzle flash and answered with precision rifle fire of his own. His first effort was an amazing one-shot kill at 900 yards. And then he did something similar eight more times.

By now, John Boitnott was making a bit of reputation for himself. The local war correspondents heard the stories and made him and his nutjob buddy Friday famous. However, his commanders did not approve of PFC Friday’s suicidal death wish.

They ordered the two men to desist before Friday got his brains splashed all over the Korean countryside as well as American newspapers. Despite the loss of his favorite mental patient, Boitnott still racked up a further eight confirmed long-range kills before his war was over.

The Rest of the Story For John Boitnott

The M1C was replaced by the slightly-improved M1D after the Korean War. Starting in 1952, the Marines began retrofitting their M1Cs with 4X optical sights produced by the Kollmorgen Optical Company. This scope was based upon the commercial Stith Bear Cub and was considered the finest American-made optical gun sight of the day. These upgraded weapons were redesignated as the “USMC 1952 Sniper’s Rifle,” often referred to simply as the “MC 52.” However, it is doubtful any saw active service in Korea before the cease fire.

John Boitnott was eventually wounded by mortar fire. He finally came home for good in July of 1952. He brought with him a Bronze Star with V device, a Navy Commendation Medal, also with V, and fully half a dozen purple hearts. His blues were also weighed down with two Presidential Unit Citations and a breathtaking 24 Campaign Medals.

Boitnott was promoted to Master Gunnery Sergeant and continued on active duty until 1971, retiring with fully thirty years of extraordinary military service across multiple theaters of battle. He subsequently died peacefully in his sleep in 2008 at age 86, a legitimate legend in the annals of military snipers.