The Record Keeper (Murphy Shepherd, #3)

by Charles Martin

try. On a moving target. Fortunately, our captain was a stout individual and a little more than average. I’d zeroed the Berger .300 Win mag at one hundred yards, doing so through a Schmidt and Bender PM II—which, in English, is just a really nice scope with clear glass that lets you see far away as if it were close up. Shooting a 230-grain .30 caliber bullet at 1,760 yards would require me to dial in 20.75 MRADs, or milliradians, of elevation into the scope. In addition I had to account for a two-mile-per-hour east-to-west wind. So I held 0.4 MRAD left. An MRAD is little more than a unit of angular measurement defined in thousandths of radians. Scopes with adjustable elevation and windage, measured in either MRAD or MOA (another unit of angular measurement called minute of angle), allow shooters like me to shoot really long distances from a rifle using a single set of crosshairs held directly on the target rather than somewhere in the air high above. In other words, 20.75 MRADs took out the guesswork and eliminated the holdover. Basically, 20.75 MRADs meant I was aiming 1,342 inches, or 111.83 feet, above the target—the captain’s chest—in order to hit his pumphouse from a mile away. Making my rifle shot more of a mortar and less of a zip line. Bones and I had also agreed that when he reached 1,800 yards, he’d cue me by saying, “Zero.” Then “Ninety,” for 1,790, and so on, allowing him to use fewer words and requiring less time. When he reached 1,770, he wouldn’t say, “Seven...