“And we’ll agree to pay for half of their ammunition.”
Their enthusiastic laughter turned heads on the square.
The End
Afterword
(For the technically minded)
There is a tiny component of dedicated shooters who fire at astounding ranges using old time buffalo rifles, like Sharps or Remington Rolling Block rifles. Those big bullet marksmen test their accuracy out to 3000 yards.
Using their century and a half old cartridges, a bullet’s trajectory at its maximum range rises 2000 feet above the line of sight, and the shooters are fortunate to hit a horse at half that range. Low flying aircraft should beware. There is nothing there for modern one-shot sniping.
Many riflemen might suppose that Blackwater Jack’s long-range selection would have been a .50 caliber Browning cartridge. The greatest Marine Corps Scout Sniper, Carlos Hathcock, had once killed at 2500 yards with that monster cartridge.
To the .50 caliber’s credit, there is an entire club of shooters working constantly to improve the Browning’s performance. Still, there have always been problems with .50 caliber ammunition’s consistency. Blackwater Jack did not choose that excellent but one hundred year old cartridge.
The military should always have the best armaments, but our services regularly suffer from the infamous “Not used unless invented here” syndrome. Soldiers and Marines often fight with earlier wars’ armaments, and police departments tend to adopt whatever our military uses.
A thousand drill sergeants and marksmanship instructors have glared at their hapless recruits and announced that, “Your rifle is the finest battle (or sniper or close combat—choose your preference) weapon ever designed. It is your best friend. It will save your life. Love your rifle more than you do your mother.”
They bellow the same foolishness no matter what obsolete rifle from what half-forgotten war the new soldier is issued.
Few have heard of Jack’s preferred .408 Cheyenne cartridge and far fewer have actually fired it, but once experienced, all would recognize that only a miniscule number of highly experimental cartridges can approach its performance. Only a small cadre of select riflemen will ever qualify to wring the ultimate longest-range accuracy from the rifle firing that cartridge.
The .408 Cheyenne Tactical Cartridge could be considered a Wildcat round in that no major company has chosen to produce it, nor has any military service adopted the cartridge. Those facts are recognized with regret because the Cheyenne shoots flatter and hits harder than any other sensible rifle cartridge one can name.
If any super-magnum cartridge could be considered a one-holer at extended ranges, it has to be the .408 Cheyenne.
Doctor John Taylor, with Bill Wordman doing the machining, developed the .408 Cheyenne back in 2001. Now the cartridge floats, little noticed, but still at the cutting-edge of long-range perfection.
For detail-minded shooters who wish to know, the .408 Cheyenne is based on a necked down .505 Gibbs. The cartridge case is rimless and bottlenecked, as are most of the best cartridges.
Comparisons are needed. A typical military sniper round, the 7.62 NATO, uses a 175-grain bullet launched at 2650 feet per second for 2700 foot-pounds of muzzle energy.
The military’s special purpose “big-boomer” sniper rifle fires a .338 Lapua cartridge that shoots a 225-grain bullet at 2600 feet per second and delivers 3682 foot-pounds of muzzle energy.
In Blackwater Jack’s rifle, the Cheyenne shoots best using a 305-grain bullet fired at 3500 feet per second. That load delivers 8,300 foot-pounds of muzzle energy, and that number indicates ultimate, almost beyond-use, striking power.
There is another measure of performance that some of the best hunters and gun fighters value highly. It is called KO Value.
KO in this usage does not imply Knock Down power. It means complete Knock Out. The higher the KO, the better the cartridge.
The military 7.62 NATO has a KO of 17+
The .338 Lapua magnum’s KO is 21+
The .408 Cheyenne dwarfs them with 70+
A supersonic bullet cannot be completely silenced, but the sound of the shot can be effectively suppressed. With its long suppressor, the .408 rifle can be quieted to deliver a sound signature so reduced that it does not rouse nearby sleeping dogs.
Displayed for visual comparison are powerful rifle cartridges. All have been used in long range shooting of both humans and big game animals.
Jack’s rifle’s barrel was 32 inches long. A typical sniper rifle barrel measures only 24 or 26 inches in length. Where most rifle barrels taper from receiver to muzzle, this .408’s barrel was a straight cylinder. A cylinder added weight, but at least in theory, it vibrates most consistently. Tiny details gain importance when seeking ultra-long-range accuracy.
Visualize a shooting bench with the rifle resting on special sand bags. Jack’s above-the-bore telescopic sight is 36-power with a 68mm objective lens, which means that whatever is looked at is 36 times larger than an eye would normally see. Put another way, a pie pan at 2000 yards would be enlarged 36 times and look as if it were only 55 yards distant, sort of across the street.
Those figures make the shot sound easy. If it were, we might hunt deer with similar rigs, but seeing clearly is only an opener for longest range shooting.
To discover if each of his practice bullets shot true at 2000 yards, Jack used a star-studying telescope that could be closely focused to see a single bullet hole—assuming the target was hit.
Unusual and complicated? Yes, but to hit small targets, whether game animals or humans, at 2000 yards distance, special tools and special skills are required. Blackwater Jack had developed the skills, his rifle was the best that could be made, and his cartridge was cutting edge technology.
The shots attempted in this story were possible, and they were practical. Their results can be considered believable.
About Roy Chandler
Roy F. Chandler retired following a twenty year U.S. Army career. Mr. Chandler then taught secondary school for seven years before becoming a full-time author of more than sixty books and countless magazine articles. Since 1969, he has written thirty-one published novels and as many nonfiction books on topics such as sniping, hunting, architecture, and antiques.
Now 88 years of age, Rocky Chandler remains active and still rides his Harley-Davidson.
He divides his time among Nokomis, FL, St Mary’s City, MD, and Perry County, PA.
Rocky Chandler: Author, Educator, Soldier, Patriot.
Books by Roy Chandler
Reading order of fiction books in the Perry County Series
Friend Seeker
The Warrior
Arrowmaker
The Black Rifle
Fort Robinson
Ironhawk
Song of Blue Moccasin
Tim Murphy, Rifleman
Hawk’s Feather
Shatto
Chip Shatto
Shatto’s Law (Ted’s Story)
The Boss’s Boy
Tiff’s Game
Cronies
The Didactor
The Perry Countian
The Sweet Taste
Old Dog
Gray’s Talent
Ramsey
Shooter Galloway
Shatto’s Way
All Books By Publication Date
All About a Foot Soldier, 1965 (A colorful book for children)
History of Early Perry County Guns and Gunsmiths (With Donald L. Mitchell), 1969
A History of Perry County Railroads, 1970
Alaskan Hunter: a book about big game hunting, 1972
Kentucky Rifle Patchboxes and Barrel Marks, 1972
Tales of Perry County, 1973
Arrowmaker, 1974
Hunting in Perry County, 1974
Antiques of Perry County, 1976
The Black Rifle, 1976
Homes, Barns and Outbuildings of Perry County, 1978
Shatto, 1979
The Perry County Flavor,
1980
Arms Makers of Eastern Pennsylvania, 1981
The Didactor, 1981
Fort Robinson: A novel of Perry County Pennsylvania, the years 1750-63, 1981
Friend Seeker: A novel of Perry County PA, 1982
Gunsmiths of Eastern Pennsylvania, 1982
Perry County in Pen & Ink, 1983
Shatto’s Way: A novel of Perry County, Pa, 1984
Chip Shatto: A novel of Perry County Pennsylvania, the years 1863-6, 1984
Pennsylvania Gunmakers (a collection), 1984
Firefighters of Perry County, 1985
The Warrior, A novel of the frontier, 1721-1764, 1985
Perry County Sketchbook (And Katherine R. Chandler), 1986
A 30-foot, $6,000 Cruising Catamaran, 1987
The Gun of Joseph Smith (With Katherine R. Chandler), 1987
The Perry Countian, 1987
Hawk’s Feather - An Adventure Story, 1988
Ted’s Story, 1988
Alcatraz: The Hardest Years 1934-1938 (With Erville F. Chandler), 1989
Cronies, 1989
Song of Blue Moccasin, 1989
Chugger’s Hunt, 1990
The Sweet Taste, 1990
Tiff’s Game: A work of fiction, 1991
Tuck Morgan, Plainsman (Vol. 2) (With Katherine R. Chandler), 1991
Death From Afar I (And Norman A. Chandler), 1992
Kentucky Rifle Patchboxes All New Volume 2, 1992
Behold the Long Rifle, 1993
Death From Afar II: Marine Corps Sniping (And Norman A. Chandler), 1993
Old Dog, 1993
Tim Murphy, Rifleman: A novel of Perry County, Pa. 1754-1840, 1993
Choose the Right Gun, 1994
Death From Afar Vol. III: The Black Book (And Norman A. Chandler), 1994
The Kentucky Pistol, 1994
Ramsey: A novel of Perry County Pennsylvania, 1994
Gray’s Talent, 1995
Hunting Alaska, 1995
Last Black Book, 1995
Dark Shadow (The Red book series), 1996
Death From Afar IV (And Norman A. Chandler, 1996
Morgan’s Park (Vol. 3) (With Katherine R. Chandler), 1997
White Feather: Carlos Hathcock USMC scout sniper (And Norman A. Chandler), 1997
Death From Afar V (And Norman A. Chandler), 1998
Ironhawk: A frontier novel of Perry County Pennsylvania 1759-1765, 1999
Sniper One, 2000
Shooter Galloway, 2004
The Hunter’s Alaska, 2005
The Boss’s Boy, 2007
Pardners, 2009
Hawk’s Revenge, 2010
Blackwater Jack, 2014
Antique Guns (included above)
History of Early Perry County Guns and Gunsmiths (With Donald L. Mitchell), 1969
Kentucky Rifle Patchboxes and Barrel Marks, 1972
Arms Makers of Eastern Pennsylvania, 1981
Gunsmiths of Eastern Pennsylvania, 1982
Pennsylvania Gunmakers (a collection), 1984
Kentucky Rifle Patchboxes All New Volume 2, 1992
Behold the Long Rifle, 1993
The Kentucky Pistol, 1994
Hunting
Alaskan Hunter: a book about big game hunting, 1972
Choose the Right Gun, 1994
Hunting Alaska, 1995
The Hunter’s Alaska, 2005
Sniper Series
Death From Afar I (And Norman A. Chandler), 1992
Death From Afar II: Marine Corps Sniping (And Norman A. Chandler), 1993
Death From Afar Vol. III: The Black Book (And Norman A. Chandler), 1994
Death From Afar IV (And Norman A. Chandler), 1996
White Feather: Carlos Hathcock USMC Scout Sniper (And Norman A. Chandler), 1997
Death From Afar V (And Norman A. Chandler), 1998
Sniper One, 2000
One Shot Brotherhood (And Norman A. Chandler)
Gun of Joseph Smith Trilogy (Young Adult)
Gun of Joseph Smith, The (With Katherine R. Chandler), 1987
Tuck Morgan, Plainsman (Vol. 2) (With Katherine R. Chandler), 1991
Morgan’s Park (Vol. 3) (With Katherine R. Chandler), 1997
Children’s Books
All About a Foot Soldier, 1965