In your episode examining the "miraculous" sniper shot of Marine Sgt. Carlos Hathcock in the Viet Nam war, you completely neglected the fact that a bullet fired from any gun does not travel in a straight line -- it travels in a parabolic trajectory.

This is obvious to even the most casual observer when you realize that the plane of the rifle sights (or telescopic sight) is anywhere from 1" - 3" above the plane of the rifle bore. Thus the bullet fired must necessarily travel UP to reach the plane of the sights, actually go higher than that plane, and then go DOWN again through that same plane before descending below it.

Thus, your shot at 100 yards was doomed to failure no matter how many times you might have tried it, because the target scope was never aligned with the path of the bullet.

In Sgt. Hathcock's miracle shot, his victim was below him, looking up at him. When his bullet arrived at its target, it was traveling in a downward trajectory, miraculously at exactly the same angle as, and exactly aligned with, the upward tilted (target) telescopic sight.

In your episode, when you subsequently moved to a "point blank" range to attempt to confirm the myth there, you were not clear about your actual range or your methodology for aiming. My guess is that again, you ignored the 2" or more difference between the plane of the telescopic sight and the bore of the rifle, assumed a flat trajectory of the fired bullet and did not carefully align the bore of the firing rifle with the bore of the target telescopic sight.

Had you aimed at the REAR lens (with the bullet traveling through the front lens) of the target telescopic sight, you might have had a chance to duplicate Sgt. Hathcock's admittedly miraculous shot, but aiming only at the front sight without regard to the alignment of the (firing) rifle bore with the bore of the (target) telescopic sight, once again doomed you to failure.

In the end, you all but called the myth "busted", and thus denigrated the memory of one of our country's finest Marine snipers. Sgt. Hathcock deserves better.

Personally, I would like to know what proof there was that Gunny Hathcock really did this. I know that he received an award for it, but it wouldn't be the first time someone exaggerated their achievements.

Remember the shots through the silver dollar? Or has that one's "busted" status been debunked here?

I also noted two issues about that issue.
They used modern day scopes, I don't think scopes from the era had that many lenses in them.
Also what type of bullet was used? A full metal jacket, pointed soft point, hollow point or armor piercing bullet can make a big difference.

George

Before you all go off any more. They have done a revisit it aired on March 21, 2007. In that episode they corrected all of the mistakes made in the first visit and confirmed the myth.