Hey Man Nice Shot

A British sniper set a world sharpshooting record by taking out two Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan from more than a mile and a half away -- a distance so great, experts say the terrorists wouldn't have even heard the shots. But they sure felt them.

Craig Harrison killed the two insurgents from the incredible distance of 8,120 feet (1.54 miles) in the Helmand Province last November, using his Accuracy International L11583 long-range rifle, which lived up to it's name. The shots were roughly equal to the distance between the Statue of Liberty and Battery Park (for you New Yorkers, in case those numbers were too hard to compute). The first round hit a machine-gunner in the stomach and killed him outright. The second insurgent grabbed his weapon and turned as Harrison's shot hit him in the side, taking him down.

The shots, measured via GPS, surpassed the previous record held by Canadian Army Cpl. Rob Furlong, who killed an al Qaeda gunman from 7,972 feet in 2002. Experts called Harrison's sharp shooting as perfect as it gets. "When you are shooting that far, if you miss by a hair, you miss by a mile," said John Plaster, a retired US Army sharp-shooting instructor. "That is about as precise as any marksmen on the planet could shoot." Harrison's targets likely never knew what was coming. "At a distance like that they cannot even see anyone and they would not even hear the muzzle report."

Harrison, who fired the bullets while his colleagues were under fire, said perfect weather helped him nail the perfect shot. "[There was] no wind, mild weather, clear visibility." He learned of his record nine days ago, when he returned to England to recuperate from a minor gunshot wound and broken arms sustained when his vehicle hit a roadside bomb. The insurgents found out instantly.