A few thoughts on the subject.
1) Year after year the average range for police sniper shots is about 75 yards. The longest single shot in any given year that I can recall was 300 yards, and that was almost certainly taken in a rural setting.
The challenge for a police sniper is to hit a target about 2" square on the side or front of the targets head in order to get immediate incapacitation. It also often has to be done through plate glass and on command.
2) Military snipers back in the day when the M40 and M24 shooting M118 were the norm, normally planned on a minimum engagement range of 500 yards and planned on a maximum range of 800 yards, although they could push M118 and in particular M118LR a bit further.
The challenge for a military sniper is getting a first shot hit, perhaps on 2-3 targets in some circumstances, from far enough away to avoid detection so that they can displace and withdraw or set up in another position. Shooting from too close a distance or firing too many rounds increases the potential for counter fire from snipers, heavy machine guns, mortars or artillery.
3) As I recall the accuracy standard for a sniper, rifle, and ammo combination for both services was 1 MOA. The rifles themselves, after being tweaked by military armorers and with hand picked lots of ammunition were usually 1/2 MOA accurate.
Barrel accuracy life with M852 is around 10,000 rounds. With M118 it's around 8,000 rounds. That's because the .308 isn't a barrel burner, especially in the fairly light M852 load, and because they are not generally subjected to sustained rapid rates of fire. If you are doing mag dumps with an M14/M1A, G3, FN FAL, or AR-10 you won't get that kind of barrel life.
4) Accuracy guarantees.
When I lived in western SD, HS Precision would use our club range when their indoor range was down for maintenance as our range was in a canyon blocking wind on three sides. They do accuracy testing and create test targets on their sniper rifles as they had a "half MOA" accuracy guarantee.
"Half MOA" accuracy in that context meant a 3 shot group at or under 1/2" at 100 yards off a front and rear rest. The shooter would set up how every many targets he needed for the number of rifles he had and shoot each rifle in sequence at its assigned target. Sometimes, sometimes even "often", it would be a one and done thing with the target getting boxed with the rifle and put back in the van. However, sometimes a rifle might need two or three attempts to achieve a 3 shot 1/2 MOA test target.
A few rifles might be unsuccessful and would get taken apart inspected, reassembled, etc with the shooter playing with the torque of the action screws to see if he could get it to shoot. If not it went back to HS precision for some more attention.
Now and then there would also be a rifle that had been sent back by an unhappy customer, either a private citizen or a law enforcement agency. They would also be test fired and if the would not group in 2-3 attempts would be tweaked and if not successful tagged for more attention.
Now…I don't consider 3 shots at 100 yards in a 1/2" group to qualify a rifle as a 1/2 MOA rifle. Show me three consecutive 5 shot 1/2" groups at 100 yards and you'll start to convince me. Do it three times in a row, and I'm on board.
In other words that kind of 3 shot group accuracy guarantee is worthless.
On the other hand, I don't think I ever saw an HS precision rifle that wasn't a solid 1 MOA rifle, and for most purposes that's enough as military, law enforcement or civilian, it's not going to be the limiting factor in real world shooting under real world conditions.
On the plus side, they shot all their accuracy tests with federal Gold Medal Match ammo, so it wasn't custom loaded for the rifle.
Also, you have to consider that a returned rifle was still a rare event so at least 95% of their customers were either;
- satisfied with the accuracy;
- could not outshoot the rifle anyway; or
- had their own armorers who tweaked them if the wanted more accuracy.
5) A National Match grade M1A will normally shoot 3/4 MOA with a good lot of M852 or one of the newer lots of M118LR using the 175 gr SMK and the FGMM case. It's not a bad choice for a sniper rifle for either police use, or for military designated marksman or even sniper use out to about 800m.
Service grade M1As are about 3 MOA rifles with M80 ball and slightly better with 168 gr or 175 gr ammo - maybe 2 MOA.
6) There are lots of alternatives for bolt action rifles.
I bought a Remington 700 Tactical several years ago as I could get one for around $500 at the time. I had low expectations and figured it would be a project gun.
The Hogue over molded stock on it was their pillar bedded version and it was way too bendy in the forearm for precision shooting so it got a B&C Medalist stock with a bedding block and a Timney trigger to replace the mediocre X Mark trigger.
However, much to my surprise that's all it really needed. It wasn't a 1/4 MOA tack driver but it was a solid 3/4 MOA 5 shot group rifle and it would put 10 shots fired at a steady pace into a 1" circle at 100 yards. Best of all the cold bore shot went to the same point of aim. I'll take that kind of stability and consistency over 1/4 MOA accuracy any day.
It was also chambered and throated for magazine length cartridges with shorter bullets in the 168-175 gr range, so there wasn't an excessive jump to the lands with magazine fed rounds and it does really well with the 168 gr SMK loads I use for 750 yards or less shots.
I paid about $500 for the rifle, another $350 for the stock and $115 for the trigger, so in total I had $965 in the gun. That was a better deal than Remington's higher end rifles that started around $1100, particularly as it was configured the way I wanted it.
My go to hunting rifle has been a Ruger M77 MK II VT. I disliked the laminated wood target stock that came on it. It was stable and accurate, but it was heavy and I wanted a rifle for field use. At the time, stock options for it were limited. So I put an inexpensive and overly flexible Ram Line stock on it. They hogged it out and used a filled bedding compound to stiffen the area around the action and installed an aluminum bar in the fore end to stiffen the fore end for shooting off a bipod or with a sling.
It shot just as well in that light weight stock as it did in the original and was a solid 3/4 MOA rifle with 168 gr SMK as well as with 165 gr game kings loaded to the same velocity that had the same trajectory out to 600 yards.
Below are three stocks to demonstrate some differences. The stock at the bottom is a Hogue Pillar bedded stock, like you'd find on a low end Remington tactical rifle. It's just not stiff enough for serious use with a bipod or sling.
In the middle is the above mentioned and even bendier Ram Line stock with additional reinforcement to correct the problem.
The stock at the top is one of slightly more expensive Hogue stocks that uses a bedding block. It's a little heavy but is a good stock for the money. I prefer B&C or McMillan bedding blocked stocks, but options are a bit more limited for the Ruger 77 than they are for the Remington 700.
The advantage of the M77 MK II is it has a Mauser style fully controlled feed action that is also smoother than the Rem 700 action. The counter argument is that the essentially tubular Remington 700 action is stiffer. It's a nice theory and it's no doubt true with solid bottom single shot target rifle. But once you cut the hole for the magazine, there isn't as much difference as you'd think and not enough to notice.
Similarly, short actions are valued as they are also stiffer, but quite frankly they've gone too short with the .308 to the point that loading and / or ejecting a loaded round can be problematic, and magazine lengths are restrictive.
In any case with the Hogue bedding block stock, I'll keep shooting the Ruger for another couple decades. The 26" medium heavy barrel profile is ideal for accuracy and stability without being excessively heavy and the extra 6" barrel length compared to the 20" Remington gives it an extra 150 fps, which puts the .308 in the .30-06 class.
I also have a Bergara B14 BMP. I wanted to try a chassis rifle and I wanted a muzzle brake so the 20" threaded barrel was an acceptable compromise. I have one of the older ones back when they used the Savage barrel nut, so barrel changes are easy (and with the chassis stock barrel profile isn't an issue.
It's on the heavy side, and it is long throated so it likes long heavy bullets seated past magazine length. If you want to use shorter bullets like the 168 gr or 175 gr SMK seated to magazine length. it's not ideal as their secant ogives are not all that jump tolerant. Consequently I shoot 175 gr RDFs in it as the hybrid ogive manages the jump to the lands as well as a tangent ogive and it gives me solid 1/2 MOA accuracy with 5 shot groups in the .4" range.
Remington, Ruger, Winchester, Savage, Howa, HS Precision, Bergara and CZ all make rifles that are capable of consistent 5 shot 1 MOA or sub MOA accuracy, so it really comes down to what you want, how much you want to spend and what you want the rifle to do.
