Ambidextrous Shooting
Both police and military snipers must practice firing from both shoulders. Soldiers learn ambidextrous shooting so they can take advantage of every target opportunity that presents itself as well as grab the best cover that's available. A law enforcement sniper attempting a hostage-rescue shot prefers to relocate his hide rather than fire from his weak shoulder especially considering liability and legal overtones. When firing in self-defense, however, even a lawman needs to be able to exploit...
Special Sniping Operations
Since the capture of Baghdad by U.S. armed forces in 2003, more Americans have been killed by roadside bombs in Iraq than any other method. It's the greatest threat faced by Coalition forces and war on the cheap for the insurgents once an improvised explosive device IED is in place, it requires only one man to detonate it, making this an economical way to fight U.S. forces. Probably the most effective counter co roadside bombings is the employment of sniper teams in a clandestine surveillance...
The Sniper Engagement Sequence
Professional soldiers train for combat action by practicing battle drills, a set of specific steps they execute when suddenly thrust into dangerous situations, similar to football special teams mastering quarterback sacking and punt blocking. These drills are thought out carefully so each action happens in correct sequence and contributes to the overall engagement. After wrestling with all the actions a sniper must accomplish many of them critical but easy to forget or do out of order- I...
Facial Pastes and Sticks
No veil or Spandoflage can substitute for correctly applied facial coloration. When used properly, a camoed face doesn't look like it's been painted it no longer looks like a face at all. Here are the basics for applying coloration. First, realize that the human eye sees dark colors as receding, or going away, but it interprets light colors as advancing, or sticking out toward the viewer. Therefore to trick the eye, reverse the high and low points of your face, using dark or light colors. The...
MPH WIND DRIFT COMPARISON Distance in Yards
7.62x39mm SOV .308 168-gr. Match .308 175-gr. Match 7.62x39mm SOV .308 168-gr. Match .308 175-gr. Match 7.62x39mm SOV 5.45x39mm SOV .308 168-gr. Match .308 175-gr. Match
Current Usbased Training Programs
P.O. Box 12111 Prescott, AZ 86304 928-778-5623 www.chucktaylorasaa.com Chuck Taylor's American Small Arms Academy offers a seven-day, military-oriented sniper course, at the end of which students are shooting to 600 yards. The final three days are spent in the field, shooting an assortment of tactical exercises. 408 North Simpson Grandfield, OK 73546 580-479-5559 www. badlands tactical, net Oklahoma-based Badlands Tactical has a four-day basic and five-day advanced course, oriented toward law...
Reactive Targets
I'm a great fan of reactive targets because they make shooting fun and draw on a shooter's concentration in ways a paper target cannot. Constantiy look for ways to integrate these into your shooting drills. BALLOONS Inexpensive and very flexible, balloons can be inflated to predetermined diameters, then sorted by color to represent hostages and captors, etc. Helium-filled balloons tethered to bushes and stakes can transform any open meadow into a shooting gallery. CLAY PIGEONS Since they're 4...
Illuminated Reticles
When first introduced a decade ago, illuminated reticles amounted to on off lights that backlit your crosshairs so that, theoretically, you could shoot in low-light conditions where your reticle otherwise became indiscernible. Problem was, many glowed so bright that they could degrade your night vision at the very spot in your eye that most intensely was trying to see your target. And since they were battery-powered, it seemed that here was just another gadget to break and suck up batteries. My...
While Invisible I See and Destroy
Before concluding dangerously that the Soviet-era sniper is a pushover, recall Vassili Zaitsev at Stalingrad, who killed more than 400 Germans with his sniper rifle. Or how about the naval infantryman Filipp Yakovlevich, who shot 346 of the Reich's warriors in the Caucasus. The Germans frequently cursed Slav cunning, as they called the perfectly executed fieldcraft and tactics of their Russian tormentors. This is not far removed from my belief that the best snipers are close to the earth men...
Paper Targets
COMMON BULL'S-EYE The humblest of targets snipers use, it's employed for about half of all live-fire practice. A sniper warms up on the bull's-eye target, then goes on to other types for shooting drills. DIAMOND BULL'S-EYE This is best for zeroing a rifle because it allows precise alignment of crosshairs at the diamond tips. It can also be used for practice fire. DARK SILHOUETTE Lacking any features, this could be a military Type D or an IPSC Official Practice Target. Dress it up and add a...
Urban Wind Effects and Estimation
Urban winds are confusing, contradictory, and especially difficult to see in a downtown area. As our illustration shows, among a city's major buildings the wind will vary direction and speed, Integrating sniper fire between two teams at different heights. Integrating sniper fire between two teams at different heights. HIGHEST STORY GUNS CAN HIT WITH DIRECT FIRE The downside of a ,50-caliber rifle, however, is its considerable weight and bulk, which precludes most fast movement or stalking....
TARGET KNOB COMEUPS gr BTHP Match from a yard zero
Assumes 1 4 MOA per click, 15 MOA per rotation, as on Leupold Mark 4 LR scopes. Assumes 1 4 MOA per click, 15 MOA per rotation, as on Leupold Mark 4 LR scopes. TARGET KNOB COMEUPS M118LR .308 175-gr. BTHP Match Assumes 1 4 MOA per click, 15 MOA per rotation, as on Leupold Mark 4 LR scopes Assumes 1 4 MOA per click, 15 MOA per rotation, as on Leupold Mark 4 LR scopes TARGET KNOB COMEUPS .223 5.56mm 69-gr. BTHP Match Assumes 1 4 MOA per click, 15 MOA per rotation, as on Leupold Mark 4 LR scopes...
Suppressed Rifle Employment
For all its ballistic shortcomings, there are stili tactical situations in which a suppressed sniper rifle is a welcome tool. The most obvious use is eliminating sentries, especially during a hostage rescue, such as when Americans were held in Iran in 1979-1980. Had Delta Force reached the U.S. Embassy compound in Tehran, suppressed sniper rifles could have removed gate guards without alerting other terrorists until the rescuers had penetrated the embassy grounds. There were usable firing...
Jackaling Shadowing an Enemy Force
This tactic was practiced by Viet Cong guerrillas early in the Vietnam War and directed primarily against South Vietnamese units but eventually American ones, too. A two-man guerrilla team followed a conventional unit from a safe distance and, perhaps every other day, crept close enough to shoot one soldier. These here we can observe the components to make this trick most effective. First, initiate it under the cloak of darkness, which inspires confusion and makes recognition most difficult....
Mantracking
By now it should be clear to you that a sniper team's operating environment demands independent and immediate action since external support may not be available or is too distant. This is just as true for police sniper teams as military ones. Indeed, several police sniper team missions, such as clandestine drug lab recon and remote airfield surveillance, require skillful interpretations of signs of suspect activity, both to develop intelligence and to enhance officer survival, while tracking is...
The Emerging Caliber Threat
Despite a U.S. protest n 2005 the Austrian Interior Ministry issued an export license to famed gun maker Steyr to sell 800 .50-caliber sniper rifles to Iran. These high-quality, single-shot, bolt-action Model 50 HS rifles have an effective range of 2,500 meters, comparable to quality American .50-caliber bolt guns. We asked the Iranians to give us a certificate stating that the end user of the weapons would be the Iranian In 2005, Iran received some 800 high-quality Steyr police, an Austrian...
Body Position
Now we come to the last component of our integrated act of firing, the correct and consistent assumption of a solid body position. Which position you use for any particular engagement will be dictated by your target, ground clearance, and available support. As a sniper, you'll always exploit any kind of support within reach, whether you use a standing, kneeling, sitting, or prone position. Support may be enhanced, too, by using your sling. The steadiest position is prone, followed by-sitting,...
Info Igy
yards 8 4, and 1,000 yards 10 4. As these old-timer shooters compute the clicks, though, they say it out loud as, Why, 400 yards, that's four-quarters of an inch, or one full inch, meaning one click will equal an inch of movement. And 700 yards, that's seven-quarters of an inch, or one and three-quarters movement per click. My good friend Jim K-Bar Kauber, a retired Navy SEAL Master Chief and former Gunsite precision rifle rangemaster, has his own handy formula for determining sight changes at...
Cold Barrel vs Warm Barrel
Recognizing that consistency equals accuracy and vice versa, a sniper constantly looks for ways to increase his shooting consistency and diagnoses any causes of inconsistency. Variations in rifle barrel temperature lead to variations in where a bullet impacts because a hot or even warm barrel will warp at least slightly. How much it warps, how quickly it warps, how differently it warps according to different kinds of ammo these add more variation and lead to still more inconsistency. The...
Techniques to Improve Shooting
The quality of your practice will never exceed the quality of what you put into it. To start with, never fire practice with anything but match-grade ammunition military or commercial or you're just wasting your time. You should occasionally fire ball and tracer ammo, but that's for familiarization, not for serious practice firing. If you keep some ammo loose for alert purposes or return from the field with loose ammo, these are the rounds you fire in practice. This way you rotate your...
Expanding Bullets
Our next category, expanding bullets, include softpoint, mushrooming, and hollow-point rounds, all designed to increase in diameter after impact and thus deliver far more energy into the target than a ball round does. These rounds also are called hunting or dumdum bullets. In the illustration at left, I've noted that an expanding bullet delivers roughly 70 percent of its kinetic energy and loses that much velocity, resulting in less danger of overpenetration. And because this wider projectile...
Bolting A Rifle Invisibly
Practice rapid reloading using the five-round holder developed by the author. line the inside of the pouch with Gore-Tex to protect the ammunition from rain. I'd eave a small flap at the top to be folded over underneath the snap, which should keep water out and prevent any condensation problems. Now let's see how you'll use this setup to reload quickly and simply. First, after firing your last round, ensure that you leave the bolt pulled well to the rear so there's plenty of upper receiver...
The Chechen Influence
While some Chechen fighters have infiltrated Iraq, in the area of sniping their influence has exceeded their numbers. During much of the past decade, Islamic radicals have fought Russian forces in the breakaway Chechnya Republic and learned a great deal about urban warfare, especially during battles in the country's capital, Grozny. Their combat achievements have been significant, including Unconcerned about the civilians that surround him, a Palestinian masked sniper fires 3t Israeli troops,...
The Story Of Mil Dots
Remember those World War II submarine movies where the captain ranged an enemy ship through his periscope Actually, he was measuring the ship's length in mils and since whole classes of ships were built to the same dimensions, he already knew its length in yards. Thus, in the same way we range today with a mil dot reticle, he could range that ship, then accurately launch torpedoes to intercept it. This mil system for ranging goes back at least to World War I, when artillery forward observers...
Night Sniper Movement arid Stalking
A police sniper, too, must be concerned about remaining invisible during night movement, especially in rural areas while reconning a suspected clandestine drug lab or surveilling a remote airfield, for instance. NIGHT CAMOUFLAGE PATTERNS L-R woodland, black, olive drab, desert night, and gray. Photo credit Roger Kennedy probably 10 times harder to spot than a moving one. At very close range, of course, run for cover. But in either situation, be sure to protect your shooting eye's night vision...
Zoom vs Fixed Power 1
There are pros and cons to zoom and fixed-power spotting scopes, beginning with size and weight. The average fixed power is about 10 ounces lighter than the zoom scopes, and it's probably about an inch shorter. For these reasons, as well as the fact that they're less complicated, I generally find fixed-power spotting scopes more suited for sniping. Earlier we observed that 30x is about the maximum magnification for a spotting scope, since higher powers become too readily disrupted by mirage....
Near Vs Far Wind
When faced by multiple crosswinds, doctrinally you should time your shot so one wind is calm and the bullet passes through the other, which is the only one you compensate for. Does it make any difference which of these winds is the one you shoot through Absolutely, and our drawing shows why. Assuming both winds are of equal velocity, the near wind has more time to push the bullet sideways and will cause it to be much farther off target than a far wind. Therefore, you should shoot when the near...
Sniping in the Desert
Everything in the desert is farther or greater than in other environments. .Movement rates are faster how far you must roam to find the enemy is greater visibility is farther and shooting distances are longer, too. Because of this, many spotters prefer to carry the balliscically superior 7.62mm M21 or M25 system rather than a 5.56mm M16 or M4 carbine. Just as in snow country, the desert's harsh, glaring light may be overwhelming when you look through your scope. To improve target clarity....
Using Target Knobs
Most police rifle scopes adjust elevation not with a BDC but with target knobs, and for good reason. A military-style Bullet Drop Compensator allows quick elevation dialing for a rapid engagement, but the trade-off is a decline in precision. Rccall that in the last chapter, it was noted that the Army's Leupold Mark 4 M3A scope raises elevation at 1 MOA per click, while the USMC's Unertl has 1 2 MOA increments. Thus, a police sniper's realistic engagement distances perhaps 50 yards out to 200...
Temporary Sniper Hides
A sniper exploits the best hide position from which he can place fire into his target or assigned sector of fire. It could include a bunker with overhead cover upper left , using a rucksack for support. Or he could take cover under a vehicle, keeping the engine block above him and a wheel before him, staying in shadow, and not extending his muzzle beyond cover upper right . He could choose a tree hide center , but this isn't usually his first choice since wind will sway it, he cannot displace...
McMillan Sniper School
The McMillan Sniper School is an offshoot of the McMillan rifle company, which builds high-quality sniper weapons. The school's five courses benefit from realistic live-fire training at a sizable former movie set in the Arizona desert. Most phases last two or three days, plus a special 11-day course designed to prepare U.S. military snipers for combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instructors include a cross-section of state, federal, and local police and military snipers.
The Mosinnagant Sniper Rifle
Although now obsolete, the Mosin-Nagant Model 1891-30 sniper rifle may yet be encountered on Third World battlefields. This World War D Soviet rifle was the North Vietnamese Army's primary sniper weapon during the Vietnam War. Distinguished by its lengthy barrel and turned-down bolt, the Mosin-Nagant fires the same 7.62x54mm rimmed cartridge as the SVD sniper rifle, making it battistically comparable to the American .30-06. High-quality versions of the Mosin-Nagant were produced in Finland and...
Reality Hunting Patterns
Some real camouflage breakthroughs have come from private-sec tor developments, which have fielded an incredible array of patterns. Perhaps the handiest pieces of police sniper camouflage are the mesh pullover suits made in Realtree brown or gray. These can be compressed into a beer-mug-sized space for convenient storage and be donned in less than a minute. Further, its mesh allows good ventilation in summer. These mesh suits won't hold up as long as regular-weight camo suits, but the cost is...
Detailed Scanning
If you failed to detect targets using a hasty or deliberate scan, you go on to the most thorough technique, the detailed scan. There's no time limit this is the way you'll scan until you find a target or target indicator. Now is when you employ all optical devices and formally divide the sector among you for long-term surveillance, as explained in another section. You're ready for the long haul. As shown in the second scanning illustration panel, you look at every single place an enemy could...
Shooting into the Wind
To shoot accurately into a wind, compensate by holding or aiming in the direction the wind is coming from. This is shown in the illustration on this page. As the bullet travels downrange, it drifts into your target. In order for this to work, however, you must know exactly how far to compensate. We've prepared detailed ballistic tables at the end of this chapter that show the wind drift for the most popular military and police sniping loads, to include .308 168-gr. BTHP Match M 118LR 7.62mm...
Tracer Rounds
A sniper employs tracer rounds to signal and direct the fire of others. While it's probably true that tracer will wear a quality barrel much faster than will other bullets, it should be no problem firing tracer as 1 to 2 percent of your annual practice. You need familiarity with firing tracers because they perform different ballistic-ally than other rounds. In addition to their faster speed 2,750 fps and lighter weight 141 grains which causes them to hit higher than heavier match bullets they...
The Ultimate Sniper THE SURVEILLANCE ROLE
Today in Afghanistan and Iraq, sniper teams often are being employed purely in a surveillance role. Due to their team's superior optics and observations skills along with their ability to hide in plain sight more so than other soldiers and marines, these scout-snipers are more likely to detect enemy forces emplacing improvised explosive devices IEDs , smuggling people and weapons across borders, or many other hostile activities. Most such surveillance missions are clandestine that is, teams are...
Zeroing A Sniper Rifle
acceptable zero, your work's not done. Now you must test your scope to see if it shifts when you change magnification or elevation or operate the Bullet Drop Compensator. Since you zeroed a zoom scope at its highest magnification, now you'll check it at lower powers. Fire a 3.5-10x scope at 6x and 3.5x and carefully compare the point of impact to the initial lOx impact. If there's any variation, record it if it's 1 MOA or more, replace the scope. I once used a collimator to test four different...
The SVDs xmm Rimmed Round
The Russian 7.62x54mm is the only rimmed military cartridge now in use worldwide. Developed in 1891, it's a product of the same era that produced two ballistically similar venerable rounds, the .303 British Enfield and U.S. .30-06 Springfield. Originally chambered for the Model 1891 Mosin-Nagant, this 54mm-long round is not interchangeable with the AK's 7.62mm cartridge, which is only 39 millimeters in length. Today's 7.62x54mm primarily serves as the PK machine gun round, and most cartridge...
Mediumweight Sniping The Lapua Magnum
If you can imagine a cartridge that's halfway between the .300 Winchester Magnum and the ,50-caliber Browning, then you've pretty well defined the .338 Lapua Magnum. It's made by shortening a .416 Rigby case 2 10 of an inch and necking it down to .338. Purposely designed in the late 1980s as a long-range military sniping round, the .338 Lapua Mag was intended for bolt-action rifles that were still light enough for stalking and maneuvering. The importance of a barrier-penetrating sniper rifle...
Sniper Rifle Barrel Lengths
FNH WinChester Sniper Rifles 24.00 Remington 700 Police PSS 24.00 Accuracy International AW 26.00 Savage Model 10 LE 20, 24 26.00 Ballistic tables normally reflect firing from a 24-inch barrel. For each inch your barrel varies from this, add or subtract 20 fps muzzle velocity. For 300 Winchester Magnum, however, add subtract 25 fps. for their excellent Pro-Series rifles. When I visited K amp P Barrels in Raton, New Mexico, I learned that Ken Johnson, too, cuts his matchgrade barrels. Krieger...
Military Sniper Target Priorities
One of sniping's biggest illusions is that a sniper engages targets at leisure, for however long he wants, while the enemy cooperatively remains in the open like some splendid shooting gallery. Baloney Unless you stumble upon totally green troops or armed imbeciles, they'll vanish less than a second after hearing your first shot, instantly return fire, and do their utmost to kill you. A sniper must weigh his first shot because any subsequent shots will be against an alert enemy staying...
Consistency Equals Accuracy
A precision shooter realizes that accuracy only results from consistency and vice versa. If you can consistently place shots in one spot, all that is left is to adjust your crosshairs to that spot. There's a degree of consistency in everything you do and every piece of gear or component for your weapon. it is the totality of consistency that results in accuracy. By continuously looking for ways to increase consistency, you automatically will develop better accuracy. Accuracy equals consistency,...
The Urban Police Countersniper
The police countersniper role was created not on a whim but in proportional response to a specific threat that first emerged in the 1960s after the worst mass-killing in U.S. history. In August 1966, a 25-year-old University of Texas student, Charles Whitman, wheeled a dolly loaded with a duffel bag and military footlocker onto his campus tower elevator in Austin. At 11 48 A.M., after barricading himself atop the 28-story tower, the husky ex-marine and big-game hunter raised a Remington 6mm...
Moving Target Leads
It's just fine for a precision shooter to calculate a moving target's compensation down to the closest half inch, but it's tough to actually shoot this way. A simpler means of applying moving target compensation goes all the way back to the days of musketry and is called, appropriately, using leads. Our forefathers knew chat it was hard to estimate what an inch looks like against and in front of a distant target, especially a moving one. So these frontiersmen applied Yankee ingenuity and...
The Cheytac System
armor-piercing incendiary tracer having a slightJy faster velocity than the BS-41 load but less accuracy due to the inconsistency of its tracer burn. The other Soviet load, the Type ZP incendiary tracer, too, lacks the accuracy of the BS-41. None of these bullets are boat-tail, nor are there any commercial bullets or loaded cartridges for the 14.5mm. The Chinese manufacture 14.5mm loads similar to the Soviet BS-41 and BZT cartridges, while several other countries also make this round, including...
Getting an Initial Lead
When the enemy's breathing down your neck, pursuing so close that the slightest pause will have him all over you, there's little option but to run hell-bent You've got to knock him back at least enough to gain time for some counteraction. To get this initial lead, toss a few hand grenades, even if it's tossing them back over your shoulder without slowing enough to see what's back there. To break this terrifying they're-right-on-my-ass pursuit, I modified fragmentation grenades by replacing...
Using Elevation Data With Target Knobs
Elevation Settings, .308 168-gr. BTHP Match Yards MOA Settings Inches - 200 2 MOA 1 click -4.4 Here's a handy way for a police sniper or any long-range rifleman using target knobs to record and refine his elevation knob settings. First, draw up a 3 x 5 card with increments of 25 yards, from your minimum to maximum engagement distances, depicted here as 50 yards out to 300 yards. Then, using your round's data, enter the book trajectory and elevation knob settings. Since you're using a 100-yard...
Laser Ranging
Over the past decade I've used nine different laser rangefinders and owned four from three different manufacturers. I've field-tested them from the Arizona desert to the mountains of Alaska, the rarified air of the Rockies, and the forested mountains of Eastern Europe. Though lasers seem to be as temperamental an instrument as ever devised by man you can range to 750 yards with one rated to 600, but cannot get 500 yards out of one rated for 800 I think I've finally figured them out. I can thank...
TRAJECTORY TABLE M LONG RANGE GR MATCH Trajectory by Yards Expressed in Inches
Ml 18 for consistent bullet weight, consistent powder charge, case concentricity, seated bullet straightness, and jacket concentricity. Except for case concentricity, the Ml 18 took a back seat to Federal's .308 168-grain BTHP Match. To ballisticians and ammunition specialists this was no great discovery, but, like many other studies, it demonstrated the need to develop an improved military sniping round. U.S. Special Operations snipers and, later, Marine and Army snipers began firing a...