I was going through some old emails that I had received over the years from Dick and thought this one would be of interest. I checked, and I don't believe Dick ever posted this or listed it in his Jouster Tales. He sent this to me in a nice Word Format after we had a discussion up at Camp Perry about the Armalite AR10T. If anyone wants a copy, send me a PM with email and I will send it to you as an attachment.

Semper Fi,

Richard


The Selection of a Viable Counter-Sniper Rifle

By Dick Culver

This question arises from time to time and requires some suppositions and assumptions to make a logical decision on weapons selection. Not knowing the exact usage envisioned for the weapons system, it will be necessary to make several generalizations and lay the ground rules according to some arbitrary definitions:

Sniping (General):

Utilizing a projectile launching platform to place accurate shots on a specific target at varying ranges and for several divergent purposes. There are of course, several different purposes for utilizing such skills and using appropriate weaponry.

1) Military Sniping: This is a skill requiring a specially trained member of a legitimate military organization to be able to kill or wound the enemy at great (and sometimes not so great) ranges to assist the battle field commander to control his area of operations (usually abbreviated AO). Typical targets are armored vehicles to keep their hatches closed, thus limiting their ability to have unlimited observation of the battlefield, selection of individuals perceived to be leaders, radio operators, bunker apertures, or key personnel on the battlefield. Causing the enemy to seek cover is a very important element in battlefield sniping. Such shooters can also induce great amounts of fear into unseasoned troops and can sometimes deny entire enemy units freedom of maneuver on the battlefield. Often wounded and vocal (screaming) enemy soldiers will be more disconcerting to members of their unit than dead ones. Assessing the origin of the enemy troops, most European (or similar) troops will commit at least two other military members to care for, and evacuate their wounded comrades. As an aside, this did/does not always hold true for ethnic groups that hold life less dear than those of more civilized countries. Asians (most specifically those in Vietnam) often evacuated their wounded utilizing the equivalent of cotton baling hooks under the armpit and dragging them from the field, alive or dead! This must be taken into account in sniper training for a specific theater of operations. Typically, the military sniper should be able to guarantee consistent shot placement on a man sized target out to 1000-meters, and reliable head shots on targets out to 600-meters.

2) Military Counter-Sniping: This role supposes the use of exceptionally well trained personnel to preclude the enemy’s ability to impose his will on your unit utilizing standard military sniping techniques. Here, as with standard military sniping, exact placement of shots is not as important as demoralizing the enemy or keeping their heads (and bodies) in defilade or continuously seeking cover. Here we are fighting fire with fire, and usually the best men with the best equipment and training will leave the battlefield the winner.

3) Law Enforcement/Counter-Insurgency and Counter-Terrorist Counter-Sniping: This is a more specialized skill designed primarily to counter criminals, terrorists and insurgents who often hold hostages for ransom, or use them as leverage allowing the escape of fellow insurgents or criminals. This type of counter sniping requires a more precise placement of shots to avoid injuring the individuals you are attempting to protect. Often such rifle work will require sub-minute of angle accuracy from the selected weapon on a continuing basis. Shots typically will vary from less than 100-meters to approximately 300-meters, but rarely exceeding that range, due to the nature and operational methods of such individuals or groups. Utilizing rifles of extreme accuracy allows the shooter to surgically place shots to neutralize the criminal, insurgent, or terrorist from accomplishing his/her mission. Close but no cigar does not work in this scenario. The counter-sniper in this role must have an intimate knowledge of his/her issue(d) weapon, ballistics, and his/her own ability. Individuals assigned to this duty should be thoroughly evaluated from a psychological standpoint to evaluate their ability to handle the mental pressure, and apply their skills with no mental reservations. In short, the shooters must be able to perform their skills and live with the results of their actions. Good target shooters do not always make a good counter-sniper. Training should include at least rudimentary skills in woodcraft, a thorough knowledge of camouflage, and an understanding of human nature in addition to their skill with their assigned weapon. Those opposing terrorists of a Muslim-bent must understand the subtle intricacies of the terrorist’s mind set.

4) Extermination of selected individuals by official decree: This amounts to the License to Kill often mentioned in the fictional James Bond novels. While repugnant to many, such missions are not unknown in the sniping community or by rogue governments. Bye the bye, the British terminology is/was not License to Kill but rather Warrant to Terminate… Also sometimes referred to as termination with extreme prejudice. No one likes to admit to such activities, or even contemplate the repercussions, however a trained sniper must be capable of executing (sorry for the pun) any assigned mission. Needless to say, the weapon used for such a task must be surgically accurate, and the operator must be selected for emotional stability and ability to live with the results his actions. However, here we are not speaking of the individual shooters per-se, but rather the weaponry that must be available for the task at hand. Such weapons could vary from the lowly .22 LR in a sound modulated hand gun, or a rifle fired at extreme long range by a skilled and knowledgeable operator. An example comes to mind of the famous 1-mile shot by buffalo hunter, Billy Dixon killing the Indian Chief in the battle of Adobe Walls. While the shot may or may not have been the foreseen result of his carefully squeezed trigger, none the less, the result relieved the siege and freed the buffalo hunters to escape their almost sure fate at the hands of the enraged Native-American hostiles. Lesson? Constant practice by a professional sniper at long range targets will result in an amazing number of lucky shots by a designated sniper/marksman. Constant practice and excellent weaponry are the key.

CONSIDERATIONS IN SELECTING THE WEAPONS SYSTEM FOR MODERN SNIPING:

Much has changed in modern warfare, including a vast new array of weaponry. Prior to the early 1990s, the choice was quite clear. A good (make that excellent) rifle of bolt action design was the weapon of choice. Semiautomatics simply did not pack the gear to do the assigned tasks. I was involved in the Marine Corps Sniping efforts for a number of years, and had a hand in designing and producing the Marine Corps much vaunted Model 700 Remington rifle in its much modified form that came to be known as the M40A1. Would it shoot? Unquestionably! Was it the best available? At the time, the answer has to be yes it was simply the State of the Art Military Sniper Weapon, and variations were adopted by other military services and law enforcement agencies including the FBI and Secret Service.

Our requirements were that an as issued M40A1 Rifle as turned out of the RTE (Rifle Team Equipment) ordnance shop at Quantico was required to shoot a 10 shot, 3” group with good issue sniper ammunition (at that time, the M118 LC issue match ammunition with the 173-grain boat tailed bullet). This group was fired from a machine rest at 300-yards, and if the rifle failed to perform, it was continually sent back to the shop until it did so. This of course was no problem since we had an entire shop full of fully qualified armorers who were waiting in the wings to tweak the rifles until they were up to snuff. Bear in mind that these rifles had little or no resemblance to the off the manufacturer’s assembly line and had to undergo a major overhaul, even though in new condition, before they would perform in the expected manner.

The modifications necessary to our older M40 Rifles (walnut stocks, issue medium heavy target barrels and Remington stock triggers and trigger guards) included the following:

1) Removal of the action from the factory stock.

2) Heli-arcing the factory recoil shoulder (located in front of the receiver and positioned between the barrel and the receiver as a spacer while also acting as a recoil lug).

3) Removal of the factory barrel and turning the newly anchored recoil shoulder (lug) and attached action on a lathe to obtain a near optically flat surface that was to interface with the new match barrel to be installed.

4) Installation of a new Stainless Steel match barrel (originally an Atkinson Barrel). The shoulder of the new barrel was turned on the lathe to give it a flat surface matching the newly turned recoil shoulder/lug that would give essentially a 100% purchase (360 degree contact) with the newly trued recoil shoulder/lug. The new barrel was then cut to 24” and crowned. The chamber was cut to absolute minimum dimensions to give shot-to-shot consistency (but requiring constant attention to chamber cleanliness to keep the dirt and debris of combat conditions from preventing the proper chambering of the round.

5) The rifle action was then finished (with the barrel installed) giving a rather ugly faded gray appearance due to the use of the same finishing solution on the entire mechanism. It was thought that the less disassembly of the finished top end, the better. The faded gray finish however was non-reflective and thus functional.

6) The finished action was then fitted into a fiberglass McMillian Stock and anchored into place using a rather stable substance we called liquid steel.

7) We fitted a Model 70 Winchester steel trigger guard and magazine well into the stock and, well mated with/to the tweaked action, since at that time, Remington was not manufacturing a steel trigger guard assembly.

8) A Pachmyer rubber buttplate was fitted to the finished rifle, and the action was anchored into the stock with hex-head screws torqued to exactly 70-inch pounds. Each rifle was fitted into a fiberglass carrying case for protection along with an inch-pound torque wrench which was to be issued with each rifle. The rifle was then fired on the test rack until it consistently produced the required 10-shot, 3-inch group at 300-yards.




THE QUEST FOR A SEMI-AUTOMATIC SNIPER RIFLE:

For many years there has been a perception (yearning?) within the sniping/counter-sniping community that the ideal rifle for such tasks should be of a semi-automatic persuasion. The reasons for this are many, but to list a few, the advantages would be rapid multiple shots downrange without the necessity of rapid bolt manipulation. No matter how competent the operator of a bolt action rifle, the simple action of reaching up and manipulating the bolt handle wastes time and in some instances causes a disturbance of the surrounding cover/concealment that can betray the location of a carefully camouflaged sniper. In a standard military sniping role, especially involving a deep insertion, a truly talented sniper usually has one chance to make his shot and move to avoid minor disturbances such as return mortar fire or registered artillery covering fire called in by an enraged and irritated enemy. An extremely talented sniper can occasionally get off two shots before the situation requires his displacement to avoid his discovery or demise at the hands of an enraged foe. Obviously this is not a desirable situation. A reliable self-loading and extremely accurate rifle would increase the sniper’s potential for success in the event of multiple targets, or the opportunity to remove a radio operator as well as a unit leader to slow down return fire by the enemy.

Within the sniping community, the bolt action rifle had been king of the hill since the turn of the 20th Century, and experiments with semi-auto replacements in the sniping role had been of mixed success. Experiments with the M1 rifle in the guise of the M1C, M1D, the Marine Corps MC-1 and the Army’s XM21/M21 system simply did not deliver the necessary accuracy without constant armorer attention to the rifles. The scope mounting system employed by Springfield Armory for the M1 Rifles required that the scope be offset to allow for clip loading, thus introducing instant parallax into the equation. Commercial swing-over mounts were extremely tender and subject to breakage. Moving parts necessary for the gas system(s) required clever tweaking by the ordnance experts, and did not necessarily deliver consistent day to day accuracy. The Army continued to cling to the M21 system in hopes of producing a stable shooting platform with a rock solid scope mounting system. Unfortunately, it met with only limited success except for isolated instances where armorers were in attendance. The Marine Corps, preferring absolute accuracy were willing to substitute constant sniper training to overcome the possible advantages of a semi-automatic system.

Those involved in investigating the latest semi-automatic rifle systems capable of mounting a telescopic sight coaxially with the bore were restricted to only those associated with the M16 Rifle. Until the early 1990s, no one could imagine such a system being used in a sniping role or rifle competition role. The caliber was against it, and the rifle seemed flimsy. Simply put, no one considered using it for anything other than the standard issue infantry rifle. The projectile simply didn’t pack the necessary punch for long range military performance.

ENTER THE 1990s AND THE M16’s PLACE IN THE COMPETITIVE SUN:

Work by AMU at Ft. Benning utilizing experimental match versions of the M16 produced unexpected results. With the proper barrel, specially tuned and tightened match sights and a reevaluation of barrel twists began to produce match winning scores. It didn’t catch on immediately, but by 1998, the M16/AR15 had become the weapon to beat on the line at Camp Perry. While the tiny bullet was accurate enough, it was very susceptible to sudden gusts of the wind, but undeniably the Stoner design would shoot given the proper projectile, sights and barrel twist. …And it seemed to be a stable platform requiring less attention by match armorers on a day to day basis than the traditional M14/M1A rifle that had been dominating the firing line since the mid-1960s. Until the advent of the match version of the M16, the civilian/non-military shooters had been at a definite disadvantage when competing against the service teams with in-depth armorer support. This was apparently no longer the case! Once the M16/AR15 rifle had been built into a match configuration it was bullet-proof to use a bad pun. Minor things that might go wrong with the system could be easily fixed by the operator utilizing easily obtained parts. Now all that was needed was a version of the rifle that would use a full bore military cartridge that was less susceptible to the vagaries of the wind.

It was well known that the Stoner system could be utilized with the 7.62mm cartridge as some of the earliest experiments by Eugene Stoner were on a system built by the ArmaLite Division of Fairchild Aircraft designated the AR-10. The AR-10 was apparently a rifle ahead of its time. The saleable features of the AR system appealing to the armed forces, were a light weight rifle with light weight ammunition. The use of an aluminum alloy version of the 7.62mm Stoner system was viewed with a jaundiced eye. The M14 was highly regarded and the AR-10 simply faded into obscurity while the AR-15/M16 gained in popularity and was eventually adopted as the standard U.S. Service Rifle.

The point is/was that the technology existed to build a heftier version of the M16 in a heavier caliber, it simply needed someone to provide a kick-start to the program. As the M16’s successes gained momentum in the match community, some of the big names in the long range big bore shooting community began to angle about for the producers to come up with a big bore semi-automatic that was accurate and fired a wind-bucking cartridge. Time saved in rapid fire, assuming accuracy could be maintained, would be a boon to the national match competitor. ArmaLite obliged with a reintroduction of, but much updated version of the old AR-10 design. Experimental work with a flat topped version of the AR-10 utilizing the famous Picatinny Rail for scope mounting produced something that appeared to have sniping potential without the necessity of having a platoon of armorers to maintain the day to day accuracy.

THE AR-10 SYSTEM AND CLONES AS SNIPER/COUNTER-SNIPER RIFLE

Advantages of utilizing the AR-10 System versus the Bolt Action System:

1) Easy transition of trained rifle shooters to the AR-10 sniping system: Virtually every individual entering the U.S. Armed Forces since the late 1960s has trained with the M16 family of weapons. We must remember that the day of the bolt (and even lever action) rifle systems are not as familiar to our modern youth/military/former military personnel as they were even so far back as the mid-1960s. While training a man on a good bolt actions system isn’t exactly rocket science, it is not as intuitive as it once was. New individuals coming into the sniping system tend to transition to the M16 style configuration very smoothly and are familiar with parts manipulation and weapons maintenance.

2) Bolt Action Sniping systems require rifle knowledge and constant monitoring: While it would appear that the bolt action system is foolproof, this is not necessarily true. The rifles must be constantly monitored to ensure constant pull by the guard screws (usually accomplished with an inch-pound torque wrench). The bolt action is totally dependent on constant and unchanging bedding in addition to the torqued action. Slight variations of the bedding caused by rough handling or lack of knowledge can result on some drastic accuracy variations at the target face, be it paper, hard target or human. Rifles touted by the various manufacturers as Police Sniper rifles are not necessarily what they are advertised to be. If they are as accurate as advertised, the custom rifle manufacturers would go out of business rapidly. Do they shoot better than an out of the box hunting rifle? Sometimes yes, and sometimes no. Don t forget the old adage of the infinite number of monkeys in a room full of typewriters eventually producing Shakespeare’s works! Custom bolt action rifles are extremely expensive, take many months for delivery for even single copies and can easily top $5000 including glass sights. Will they shoot? No question! The Iron Brigade Armory version will drive nails, but it’s expensive and not available for mass delivery. Norm Chandler builds a fine rifle, but even he will not guarantee his work if the rifle is subjected to continuous rough handling or inadvertent abuse (nor would I). While he will give a lifetime warranty, it requires that the rifle be missing out of the inventory while being repaired or refurbished. Don t forget the “platoon of armorers” concept! While I would have no hang-ups issuing a Marine Corps built M40A1 (the A3 is prohibitively and unnecessarily heavy) or one of the Iron Brigade’s offerings, I certainly wouldn’t want to trust the life of my personal loved one’s or a governmental official’s safety to an untested out of the box sniper offering from the major bolt action rifle manufacturers. They are inexpensive for a reason.

3) So What’s the Answer? In my opinion, having had a major part in the formation of the USMC Scout Sniper Instructor School at Quantico back in 1977, and if faced with equipping of a group snipers (or designated marksmen in modern parlance), I think I would currently go with the ArmaLite AR-10T in 7.62mm caliber. It has several advantages; a) It is available, b) It is extremely accurate, and c) It is easily maintained by the operator in the field and, d) considering the price, is eminently affordable. At least one other offering is available in the AR-10T guise, and that is Knight’s SR-25, fairly recently having been adopted by the Navy SEAL Teams, and now designated as the SR Mk 11, Mod 0. It comes with two magazines, a Harris Bipod, and glass sights for the modest price of approximately $7500. Knight guarantees sub-minute of angle groups at 100-yards with their rifle, but then ArmaLite guarantees minute of angle groups at 100-yards at a mere $2080 retail (less when bought in government contract and in quantity). I have fired both rifles and cannot find a nickels worth of difference in accuracy in either one. The SR-25 uses special magazines available from the manufacturer (at well over $100 each at last glance), whereas the ArmaLite version (the AR-10T) uses modified M14 magazines. If I were to be asked my personal opinion, I would go with the ArmaLite version. ArmaLite keeps an SR-25 behind their counter at all the trade shows for each individual’s personal inspection and comparison.

4) Reported Malfunctions with the AR-10T Rifle: These have been traced almost universally to individuals attempting to modify standard M14 magazines to operate in the AR-10T Rifle. Can it be done? The answer is of course, yes, but required modifications involve the replacement of the existing follower and a cut made in the rear of the magazine as well as a new locking notch. This takes a skilled armorer, and is not for the backroom hobbyist. The modifications are not quite as simple as they would appear. The obvious answer is to either buy additional (factory modified) magazines from ArmaLite, or send your available M14 magazines in for professional modification!

5) Sighting Systems Usable on the AR-10 (or SR-25) Rifles: Here’s where these weapons systems really begin to shine. Because of the Picatinny Rail scope mounting system, several or many types of different scopes can be mounted on one rifle (Mil-Dot, Night Vision [Starlight or later] Scopes, Red Dot systems, or even Laser Sights). The rail will also accept fold down iron sights that may be used in unusual circumstances, or if the telescopic sight becomes inoperable. The advantage of this system is that each sight fitted to and sighted in for that particular rifle will automatically return to zero when remounted if the scope/sight knobs have not been moved.

6) Suitable Available Ammunition: Black Hills currently produces match offerings in 7.62mm utilizing the Sierra Match King Projectiles in 168-grain and 175-grain boat tailed versions that are eminently suitable for the purpose intended. The 168-grain bullet is superbly accurate out to 600-yards and beyond, while the 175-grain boat tailed bullet will turn in marvelous performance to well beyond 1000-meters. The military currently has a round designated the M118LR (for Long Range) that works very well indeed, and would be suitable for sniping work beyond 600-yards. Subsonic ammunition can be produced making the rifle(s) suitable for use with a sound suppressor/modulator (silencer) for use in clandestine operations, or when the report of a rifle will/would produce panic in the surrounding community.

In my personal opinion, the bolt action rifle has become obsolete in the modern police or military scenario. The semi-automatic rifle in the guise of the AR-10T has ably taken its place!

Respectfully submitted,

Richard O. Culver, Jr.