.22LR World Record Attempt: What 405 Rounds Past 1,500 Yards Actually Taught Us
On July 16, 2026, in the Wyoming high desert at roughly 7,200 feet, our team spent six hours attempting a .22LR world record attempt — trying to beat Chris Baxter’s standing mark of 1,445 yards for the longest confirmed hit with a .22 Long Rifle. We fired 405 subsonic Lapua Center-X rounds at a 24″ x 48″ steel target set beyond 1,500 yards. We did not hit it. We are publishing everything anyway.
Scott Austin, who built the ballistic solution for the documented 4.4-mile (7,744-yard) rifle shot in September 2022, coached and ran the numbers. Shepard Humphries, co-holder of that record, sat as forward spotter in a plywood bunker seven yards from the target and listened. Frank D Jennings shot; Mike Demetris ran communications and a second set of ballistic eyes.
The quick facts
- Date: July 16, 2026 · Wyoming high desert, ~7,200 ft
- Distance: over 1,500 yards · Rounds fired: 405 · Confirmed hits: 0
- Closest identified miss: 1 to 4 inches in front of the target’s right-front corner, video confirmed
- Muzzle velocity: 1,104.4 fps average, 57 fps extreme spread
- Time of flight: 9.694 seconds · Drop: 1,030.3 feet · Impact energy: 7 ft-lb
The finding that matters: that 57 fps velocity spread produced roughly 158 yards of longitudinal dispersion at the target — about 8.3 feet of impact shift per single foot per second. Spin drift ran 12.71 MOA, more than double our total wind correction. Stability was never an issue. Ammunition consistency was the whole ballgame, and in rimfire you cannot handload your way out of it.
Read the full reports
The .22 That Almost Made History: Six Hours as a Forward Spotter — Shepard’s first-person account from inside the bunker. Covers what forward spotting actually is, how sound localization works when a bullet arrives with 7 foot-pounds, why three impacts on your own shelter changes the day, and why the last bullet fired beats any wind flag. Best starting point if you want the human side and the spotting method.
1500+ Yard .22LR ELR Field Report by Scott Austin — the raw technical document. Tabulated environmentals, chronograph results across 219 recorded shots, spin drift and Coriolis figures, the full equipment list including the Charlie TARAC calibration at 700 MOA, and impact forensics on the jacket and bunker. Go here for the numbers.
The Record We Didn’t Set — and Why It Mattered — a long interview with Scott Austin unpacking the reasoning: longitudinal versus vertical dispersion, the velocity discard band, why a lot of ammunition that tested at 12 fps arrived at 57, and a 16-point summary sheet for anyone planning their own attempt. Go here for the thinking behind the data.
Nobody certifies records at this distance. Reputation and published data are all there is — which is why we publish the misses too.