MovieChat Forums > Quigley Down Under (1990) Discussion > Impossible shot

Impossible shot

posted 18 years ago by yamavstar1
79 replies | jump to latest

The part where he shoots the bucket seems impossible to me since at the range he was shooting (thousand yards?)you can't see the target. How can you hit that which you cannot see? I remember shooting an M16 at basic and the furthest target we shot at was 300 meters. At that range it was very small and a challenge to hit, although I did manage to hit it. At twice that range, 600m, there is no way I could see the "man size" silhouette without a scope, much less hit it. It would be a very lucky shot. Either way, I loved the movie and would watch it again and again.

[–] joegerardi (384) 7 years ago

Thomas Plunket in 1809 at the Battle of Cacabelos, laid down in the snow, cradled the front of the barrel in his crossed feet and shot Général de Brigade Auguste-Marie-François Colbert with a Baker rifle. The range is estimated to have been 400 meters. That's 1,312.3 Feet

To prove it wasn't a fluke, (Not him, but so WE know) he reloaded and shot again. This time, Colbert's aide-de-camp, Latour-Maubourg was the victim.

That was with a muzzle loader, black powder, and paper-patch bullets.

Remember: These people used guns for meat, and they didn't have a lot of money for powder and bullets: they were great shots by necessity.

..Joe

[–] janoss (214) 6 years ago

My grandfather had exceptional distance vision. It was literally unbelievable. My vision used to be 20/15 corrected before I ran into eye trouble. He could still out-see me at the age of 90.

We used to joke about it. The line mom and eye used to say was, "I see a rabbit out on highway 46 (about a half mile away from the farm), the rabbit's ear has a fly on it. The fly is missing a leg."

The rabbit bit is 100% true. To be fair, it was a big rabbit and it was one of those really, really, fat flies you get in the Red River Valley of ND. The missing leg is the joke.

[–] liscarkat (18886) 3 years ago

I think it would be possible to see a dark-colored (wood) bucket against a light-colored (sand) background at 1,000 yards if there was no nearby clutter of bushes or other small objects to confuse the view. I'm pretty sure there are competitions today in which marksmen make such shots with scopeless rifles.