Sniper Rifle Ammo American Rifleman June 2017
Sniper Rifle Ammo
There is an interesting article on new sniper rifle ammunition in the June 2017 issue of the American Rifleman magazine. This is a far different approach than that taken in WWI, WWII, and Korea. I do not know how many of you have tried match shooting with M2 Ball at 600 yards-I have and it was not pretty. I never tried it at 1000. When (just after WWII, when we could not get M2AP or some of the old M1 ammo, we shot what we could get.) We could occasionally get some good bullets for hand loading, but not often. Sometimes M1 bullets were available. LtCol Hicker, who wrote the article in 1949, outlined what he thought s sniping outfit should contain. The article appeared after his death and was a result of his rough notes. He was the DCM at the time and disappeared on a flight to Alaska in 1948-never to be found. Here are some comments that I forwarded to the American Rifleman:
Sniper Rifle
I was quite interested to read your article Unsung Hero The Mk 248 Mod 1 in the June 2017 American Rifleman magazine. It reminded me of another article, Wanted: A Sniping Rifle by the late Lt Col. E.S. Hicker which appeared in the American Rifleman magazine for February 1949. He recommended the same set up that is now standard. At the time we were still struggling with the 03A4 and the M1C and the M1D - none of which were very suitable. He recommended that it be a bolt action rifle in 300 Magnum caliber with a good box magazine and sighted with accurate target telescopic sights. His choice was the 300 H&H as the 300 Winchester, the 30-338 Magnum and the 308 Norma Magnum were far into the future at the time. He also recommended the use of external target mounts (for telescopic sights with accurate and repeatable adjustments were not available at the time.) He further recommended acquisition of match grade ammunition using Western Super Match 180 grain boat tail bullets loaded to ~ 3000 fps.
I was very surprised to hear that the Sierra 180 grain Matchking in 30 caliber gave such poor results with the navy team in 1987. In the 1960's I was a member of a rifle club in the Far Southwest Club which had 30 firing points up to an including 1000 yards. The 180 grain 30 caliber Matchking was the bullet of choice. I shot at least 10 shots at 1000 yards practically every weekend for about 10 years competed in many 1000 yard matches in the area including the New Mexico state range at El Capitan, NM. I have shot thousands of 180 SMK bullets from a 300 Winchester H&H Bull gun and Titus barreled 30-06 Model 70's , and pulled targets many times and never saw any indication that the 180 SMK ever had any stability problems. These were Full Patch bullets the preceded -hollow pointed SMK in use today. I also used some 200 grain SMK in my Winchester 300 H&H with no difficulty. All of my 30 caliber barrels have a 1:10 twist. I tried a 1:12 twist but found it to be not as satisfactory.
FWIW
Life Member NRA, Life Master High Power
