Military Sniper Rifles

Sniper rifles are used to ensure exact placement of shots at larger distances than other small arms. A typical rifle is designed for optimum levels of accuracy, has a telescopic sight and has a military centrefire cartridge.

Classification of sniper rifles

These are of two fundamental types: military and law enforcement. Military sniper rifles give up some accuracy to acquire a good magnitude of durability, reliability, sturdiness, repairability and serviceability. Law enforcement are used by police forces. These are supposed to have more accuracy than military rifles at shorter ranges.

Military sniper rifles

This rifle must not be very heavy as it has to be carried for long hours along with ammunition. Also it has to be very reliable to use in any type of weather. Several rounds of firing would have to be possible without the need of cleaning, maintenance and loss of accuracy. It must be easy to fieldstrip and repair on the field. It must also have backup iron sights, if there is telescope breackage. Generally, these rifles use variants of the standard caliber army cartridges, specially developed for sniping. Some examples are 7.62mm NATO or 7.62X54mm R. The effective range of the standard-caliber sniper rifles is 700-800 meters for first-shot skills. To increase this effective range to more than 1000 meters, .300 Winchester magnum (7.62X67mm) or .338 Lapua magnum (8.6X70mm) are used. Military sniper rifles are classified into two categories: the sniper rifles to attain aimed hits at faraway distances and the Designated Marksman Rifles to provide accurate fire support for line troops. The true sniper rifles are bolt action ones to gain maximum accuracy. The DMRs are semi-autos to achieve a higher rate of fire. Some examples are Russian SVD or German G3ZF or MSG-90.

.50 Caliber Sniper rifle

The main components of the system are a rifle, day optical sighting system and hard carrying case. This is a portable, shoulder-fired, recoil operated semi-automatic system using military standard .50 caliber ammunition. The entire system comprises of the .50 caliber semi-automatic rifle, detachable 10-round magazine, variable-power day optic sight, transport case, tactical soft case, cleaning/maintenance equipment, detachable sling, manuals and adjustable bi-pod. Barrett Firearms Manufacturing Inc. is the organization creating these rifles. The M107 .50 caliber long range rifle has a characteristic of being semi-automatic. Targets upto 2000 meters can be aimed with precision. Its length is 29 inches. The frame mounted, bolt-action XM107 has a weight of 28.5 pounds along with optics. The M107 .50 caliber long range sniper rifle is a new Category I weapon being given to infantry snipers. The Army's new .50 caliber sniper rifle design was called the XM-107 in the beginning stage. For the manufacture of .50 caliber sniper rifles, there was competition between Barrett and EDM Arms. The former won this competition.

Data relevant to .50 Caliber Sniper rifle

These are sufficiently potent to puncture armored limousines. They can be used to assassinate. They have thet rounds present in the civilian market. Extremely destructive armor-piercing, incendiary and explosive rounds are available. These are designed to invade parked or landing aircraft, rail tank cars, armored personnel carriers, concrete bunkers and bulk fuel storage. These range of these rifles is 2000 yards i.e. 20 football fields juxtaposed. Deer hunters have a range of only 150 to 200 yards. It is said that Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network purchased 25 such rifles in the latter part of the 1980s.