Killer Shot

~ 1.15 miles snipering ~

2,026 yards

I've always enjoyed shooting and was the nasty secretive one on the school team, never joining in with the raucous victory tomfoolery afterwards.

I used to get up to some extroadinary - and extroardinarily dangerous - japes during school holidays.

Mostly I depended on being so far away that my 'victims' never suspected they were being fired on - rather like Corporal Reynolds here with his 1,853-metre bullsye.

I love it that Reynolds' first round landed next to the target but had come from so far away that he didn’t even realise he was being shot at.

I used to get up in the attic of my grandma's north London surburb home - one of many little boxes that made up Kenton's Donnington Road - and ease the circular skylight just wide enough for the barrel of my powerful BSA air-gun to protrude. (I'd have it muffled with some crude wrapping arrangement that didn't interfere with the telescopic sights).

Then I'd scan the gardens one by one for anything going on that I could have some fun with:

Tea sets on a table as the owner went inside to replenish the pot.

All manner of toys hangin around that could be shot up - often with the owners staying near but looking the other way; very dangerous, that.

Garden 'furniture' - gnomes, storks, etc. Boy, did that alabaster explode when hit right - many were tastefully lit at night which was a grand time to perform because you often had the family at table looking out at their mysteriously exploding masterpieces.

Very silly. I'd give myself 20 minutes and then come down to a pre-set scenario of holiday homework or improving tracts. I didn't want the Fuzz to be called and tap on the door and Granny be calling upstairs that was I up there? and some gentlemen wanting to ask me some questions.

I don't think Granny ever knew I had the gun, or would have recognised it for what it was.

And I never saw a single police car go by or heard any gossip from the neighbours - and my reign of potshots went on for years, throughout my schooldays.

One of my favourite tricks was over the roofs and the slug dropping out of sight to hit some clangy object. I never worked out what it was that went boingg, despite going up and down the street next day. I'd aim at a certain chimney that would fill the cross-hair, squeeze the trigger and - clanngg!! On would go a few lights. Weird.

Anyway, props to 'dead-eye' Cpl Reynolds.