Marines getting a new sniper rifle

BigBill said:
Fact Oswald wasn’t alone.

A marine can take a hill with a sling shot and a bag of marbles I have faith in them.
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Lt.O'Bannon did not have much more than that sling shot 213 years ago.

I did not say LHO was alone. I would imagine he had assistance in planning and/or carrying out his 'mission'. I also think he was fully capable of making those three shots with the training and equipment he had.

I am not generally oposed to marine snipers having $7,000 rifles marked up to twelve in order to sell them to the government. But the Marine is the weapon, not some guy carrying the weapon.
 
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Ivan, hopefully the powers that be have become wiser. In the past when I paid more attention to this kind of topic the military budget seemed heavily tilted toward acquisition rather than maintenance or use. Sorta like the person who buys a new car and seems blissfully unaware that there will be ANY follow on costs.
 
BLACKHAWKNJ said:
It's whoever squeezes the trigger that counts. Carlos Hathcock and Adelbert Waldron did pretty well with their 1960s technology.
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Gunny Heathcock jumped back and forth between the 30-06 and 300 Win mag so in essence they are.
Ex Bil had a confirmed kill he spoke of at 1200 yards. The rifle weighed 125 lbs was in 3 pieces and it took a squad to carry it. The key here is light weight with 3/4 mile accuracy.
 
Jessie said:
Pricing aside, I wonder why they chose the .300 mag? Don't get me wrong, I have one and really like it, but there's been a plethora of long range calibers lately.
Are they better? I don't know, but other branches are using them. Lapuas ( different calibers) especially.
I'd like to know why they like the .300.
And what weight bullets?
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The 300 WM has been in the military supply chain for awhile now, it isn't really a "new" cartridge for snipers. Actually snipers have been using it since the early 90's. If a really good sniper can make a 1600 yd shot with it I would say it's a pretty good cartridge.


American Sniper Rifles: 5 of Chris Kyle’s Favorite Sniper Rifles - PrecisionRifleBlog.com

Here's some info on bullets.

American Rifleman | Unsung Hero: The Mk 248 MOD 1

I'm not a fan of the 30's, but then, I'm not a military sniper. ;)

I love my HBAR .223 bolt rifle.
 
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I'll jump in on the $12,000 price per rifle. I've sold stuff to the US Military for years.

I needed an accumulator once (piece of hydraulic equipment). A guy made the exact ones we wanted. Cost was not unreasonable. But we spent hours helping him certify that it met dozens of government specs. So it gets added into the cost of the contract.

You buy 2 or 3 or even 300 of something and a few hundred thousand, or a couple of million of procurement costs get divided by just a few articles. You end up with crazy per-item costs, like the famous $600 toilet seat (for an aircraft, that probably had to meet all the aircraft specifications for a "seat." ) But much of the cost is dozens of people spending a year or more certifying that the item meets all requirements.

Don't get me wrong, the government needs to have requirements. The people who use the equipment deserve stuff that works. But of that $4.3M I could easily see half being spent ensuring that the contract meets requirements, and the parts meet spec. Takes the cost down to $6000 per rifle. A lot of guys at the national matches have that much in a custom rifle.
 
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Most don't understand how military contracting works. The contract most likely includes lots of items and services beyond the rifle alone.

When I was doing ammunition development for the USAF, I often worked with the Navy's small arms group at NSWC-Crane (IN). Back in the early 2000s they were working on .300 WM sniper rifles. I fired some on their range.
 
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The 300 Win mag has proven itself in long range competition for several decades.
It has also proven itself as a combat proven round in the military under adverse real world conditions for several decades.
Yes, there are other long range rounds, but the 300 Win mag is firmly entrenched with the military.
Military and government contracting is akin to sausage making. You may or may not like the end product, but you really don’t want to know how it all got made.
I have been involved in long range precision shooting professionally since 83. Our craft has evolved tremendously as has our tools. A 12,000 custom built rifle with optics is certainly not out of the norm these days.
I am familiar with the rifles that are produced at NSWC, Crane and have shot with and alongside military snipers for years.
Our troops deserve the best tools we can provide them, to perform the dangerous tasks that we send them out to do.
Our military sniper schools produce some of the most competent rifle shooters on the planet, they deserve cutting edge rifles.
 
The 300WM the army and the marines shoot is not the one you buy at Cabela's. The army came up with their own brew that is way past SAAMI specs to close the gap with 338 Lapua. The army wanted to avoid the expense of a new caliber not in production in the US in any volume. The rifles they use are all special builds, a bit like blueprinted race engines. I would bet the life expectancy of the receivers is limited, never mind the barrels.
 
For those interested in the military .300 WM cartridge (a Navy development), there was an extensive writeup on it in The American Rifleman about a year ago: American Rifleman | Unsung Hero: The Mk 248 MOD 1

In the area of ammunition development, the Navy is somewhat more progressive in their approach than the Army. I am very familiar with their activities, and I always found the Navy small arms personnel were much easier to work with than the Army's.
 
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DWalt said:
For those interested in the military .300 WM cartridge (a Navy development), there was an extensive writeup on it in The American Rifleman about a year ago: American Rifleman | Unsung Hero: The Mk 248 MOD 1

In the area of ammunition development, the Navy is somewhat more progressive in their approach than the Army. I am very familiar with their activities, and I always found the Navy small arms personnel were much easier to work with than the Army's.
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That's because the navy has the major load these days when it comes to defense. They're everywhere on the planet in a ready condition. Four USN ships just hit Syria. No time to sit around trying to figure out something as simple as a rifle cartridge. If it needs a solution they just address it and move on.
 
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