What kind of rifle is this?

[joki]

Nickel -
About your question about the record. I recall seeing a confirm kill from the first Gulf war at the range of 1600 m ( not really sure about the exact range but it was over 1200 m ). If it is a long range record I don´t know. There might be others...

/Jonas

[Belisarius]

ORIGINAL: thirsty

ORIGINAL: Nickel

It's called supressive fire and it is used to make guys that are exposing themselves to take "well aimed shots" try to find the lowest dirt in their immediate area. BTW, who holds the record for the longest sniper shot?

Hathcock has the record at 2,250 meters. It is presently being challenged by a shot made in Afghanistan by an unidentified Canadian sniper. At just over 2400 meters it would be the longest shot ever made.

http://www.darwinmag.com/connect/opinio ... icleID=510

http://www.stormpages.com/swellal/sof.html

2,250 meters? [X(] Either he was *really* lucky, or his target was sleeping like a bear. Even with a high-power sniper rifle, that's gotta be over 2 seconds "bullet time" before impact.

[Bart_Breedyk]

I have Hathcock's biography at home somewhere. IIRC, he made that shot with a M2HB onto which he mounted an 8X scope. Pretty incredible if you ask me, especially when you consider that the Canadian Corporal who may have beaten it used a bolt-action .50 calibre sniper rifle.

Either way, these men are both an order of magnitude better shot than I could ever hope to be.

B

[Nickel]

It was a rhetorical question, I know who Carlos Hathcock is, but I wanted to give "the Sarge" something to chew on when he was talking about US soldiers not being able to shoot. Notice he avoided that question in his response?

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

It is popular to say "oh yeah" and then quote a US source as if that magically eliminates the basis of the remark.

A well known US scientist (departed now though), Carl Sagan, a man I personally find incapable of uttering something that might sound outright stupid, thus I am inclined to consider it seriously, stated that fully 50% of the US adult population is unaware the earth revolves around the sun (and not the other way around).

50%

Think about that for a minute. Take two minutes if you like.

Now I can only conclude from that, one conclusion.

50% of the US adult population is incredible undereducated.

But, to state, some of the greatest scientific break throughs have occurred in the US, won't magically invalidate that statistic.

Thus, if the world record for longest sniper shot is indeed held by a US soldier, it still does not state anything supportive for the average US soldier, whom is not trained to hit the broad side of a barn door with aimed accurate rifle fire.

Oh, keep in mind, none of this is in any way a slag on the US. You can't fault me for quoting a US person's comments. And yes, I have that comment by Carl Sagan here in print. It's in his book.

[ShermanM4]

Well if you think that is bad there is a horrifyingly high number of Harvard Graduates who do not realize that the Earths Northern Hemisphere is tilted away from the sun in the Summer and tilted closer in the Winter because of the Earths actual proximity in orbit from the sun. I guess in either case neither my example nor yours teaches anybody to be a better shot.

Les, I know your not bad mouthing the US. I have a question, is that shooting and engagement rule true for all of the US Army. Or is it only true for regular infantry? What about paratroopers? What about rangers?

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

I have no comment on whether it is something that infects the entire US military.

I am hoping that the more specialised branches though, due to higher levels of expectation from their members, tend to attract a higher order of serviceman.

There is no actual basis for that hope though, just me hoping hehe

Generalizatons are often bad though as we all know.

Take for instance the current issue of Macleans magazine. It implies Canadians are getting increasingly annoyed with the US as a whole. I don't really agree though. I think it is only that are normally squeeky wheels are just that more squeeky lately.

My attitude towards the US has basically never changed.
I tend to hate the government there, and tend to only know people I have liked.
Being Canadian, I see trade based interaction for what it is, a little guy trying to deal with a large guy.
We end up with most of our media being largely dominated by the US viewpoint, as most of our media is essentially originating from the US.

Canada actually shares a lot in common with little guy nations like say Jordan.
The moment we depart from the viewpoint of our neighbour(s), we get dumped on by those neighbours for breaking ranks.
Everything would be rosy in Canada, if we had just said "sure George we will send troops to Iraq", and just did as we were told.
But Canada isn't the 51st state.

Time to stop rambling now hehe

[Nickel]

Carl Sagan was professor of astronomy at Cornell and quite a learned man. I have even read The Cosmos. This does not make him one of the USA's leading scientists. Keep in mind he won the Pulitzer Prize which is a literary prize, not the Nobel Prize in one of it's science forms. He did write many books that had a science basis but were filled with his conjecture about how things are or would be. A great guy, but not someone I would choose as the "reliable source" when I was trying to impress someone with my knowledge of the literacy rate in the USA. This is one of those "I saw it on TV so it must be true" things and I assume you are saying this with tongue in cheek or you may be calling your own literacy into question.

Yes Carlos Hathcock does hold the sniper record and the correct answer to the question certainly does imply some base knowledge of the history of accurate shooting. BTW there is a Canadian that may have superceded Hathcock and if he does he gets an outstanding. That puts him in a class of shooters that I can read about and admire and only dream to emulate. Be that as it may, I am hard pressed to believe that the Canadian miltary holds the franchise on the most accurate shooters in the world, no slag intended. I am guessing that you have some intimate knowledge of how the US trains its forces, like having gone through bootcamp (I did) and would like to share that knowledge with the forum in some way that the "less knowledgeable" can verify. Canada is a good ally but like all free nations has a population that represents a cross section including all opinions, some based in fact and some otherwise.

Feel free to take as long as you need to digest this, hopefully it doesn't take too much chewing.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

For the record, I can knock down my FN in 45 seconds.

Ok if you like that sort of thing.

But I always hit high and to the right (drives me crazy). Even when I aim at your left hip, I always seem to muck up getting a good chest shot.

Being taught to aim, won't make a person a good shot

[Bart_Breedyk]

Nickel;

I was simply stating my opinion that Hathcock's achievement is more noteworthy considering he did it with a tool that is unsuited for the task.

I have no intention of becoming involved whatsoever in so ultimately futile an argument as 'Canada vs. the US' in any form, on any subject.

B

[Nickel]

Not taken that way. I am involved in shooting sports and have significant respect for people that are skilled with firearms.

[Nickel]

Being taught to aim won't make one a good shot, but practice does. BTW I prefer to have my sights correct on my weapons, it makes hitting moving targets a lot easier. Don't have to take all that extra time while aimming to compensate for where I think it will hit.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

You like to shoot sports?

Hey I have a few "sports" I would like you to shoot

Oh something tells me you meant something else hehe.

[Nickel]

Actually I prefer white-tails (the deer variety). They are much more challenging than other supposedly smarter creatures. Probably because deer are more grounded in reality as it is a matter of life and death.[:D]

[Bart_Breedyk]

ORIGINAL: Nickel

Actually I prefer white-tails (the deer variety). They are much more challenging than other supposedly smarter creatures. Probably because deer are more grounded in reality as it is a matter of life and death.[:D]

Well, being a prey species and all....... [;)]


Actually, I couldn't shoot a deer myself, but that's just me. Of course, if you want to talk ground hogs, that's a whole different story. Used to love huntin' them varmints.

B

[Nickel]

Used to cap ground squirrels (chip monks) at the gun club. Little varmints build tunnels and tore up the area around the trap houses something terrible. We used .22 cal target pistols to make it sporting and of course we sanitized the area of the fallen so that we wouldn't have an outcry from some of the more sensitive members. Nothing like a good clean head shot.

[Golf33]

I think the rifle in the pic is the FN FAL - the Australian Army version was called the L1A1 SLR and the main difference is the removal of automatic fire from the L1A1. As others have pointed out you could restore automatic fire but trying to do so and getting it wrong would produce a weapon that would empty the entire magazine - as soon as you let the working parts go forward! There was also a heavy-barrelled version called the L2A1 which could fire automatic without modification. Here's a picture of it: http://gunthings.com/inch.htm

The reason I think the pic is an original FN FAL is the colour - all the L1A1s had wooden stock and foregrip AFAIK, although since the weapon was withdrawn from service by the time I joined up I could be wrong about that.

Oddly enough I fired the L1A1 in high-school cadets and don't recall the recoil being anything special at all, certainly not a lot greater than the F88 Steyr.

Regards
33

<edit - recoil, not recall, makes sense now.>

[Raverdave]

I left just as the Steyr was coming in. I did some trials down at Marribenong in Melb with the Steyr, and thought that it was a great rifle, compact and easy to use, and the battle scope was a hoot! I am just unsure of the move from 7.62 to 5.56mm. When shooting with 7.62mm you KNEW that your target would stay down. I never had the same confidence in the 5.56mm, but hey, I am just an old fart.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

I loved the kick from my FN.

I loved the weight of my FN.

I liked knowing, that of the three, M16, AK 47, and FN, mine was the one that was the large mean dog that when it bit, bit hard.

I liked knowing, if you were only hit in the arm. it likely ripped the arm right off. That there wasn't really a minor wound from a hit by an FN, everything was serious.

I missed the introduction of the new rifle which is basically a M16 wanna be. And copying an M16, is like diet Pepsi

[Golf33]

ORIGINAL: Raverdave

I left just as the Steyr was coming in. I did some trials down at Marribenong in Melb with the Steyr, and thought that it was a great rifle, compact and easy to use, and the battle scope was a hoot! I am just unsure of the move from 7.62 to 5.56mm. When shooting with 7.62mm you KNEW that your target would stay down. I never had the same confidence in the 5.56mm, but hey, I am just an old fart.

I found the F88 a little finicky to field strip - lots of little parts, easy to lose - and when over-cleaned they could become unreliable. This resulted in RMC destroying large numbers of them due to the idiotic cleaning requirements there. Shooting the thing was fine, I always found it accurate and with a little practice I was pretty confident that I could hit a static target at 300m quite easily from prone or kneeling.

The word from our guys in Somalia was that the rounds used there were quite lethal - apparently they would break up very efficiently in the target and cause absolutely hideous and incapacitating wounds. I doubt you'd get the penetration through hard cover that you had with 7.62mm though, not a huge problem but I always thought not having a 7.62mm MG at least at platoon level was a mistake.

Then again, as a gunner I was not exactly an expert on infantry issues, so take my opinion with a handful of salt [;)]

Regards
33