Straight shooters (aka Snipers Need a New Gun)

[unhappycamper]

The Corps may be considering Heym USA's SR21 sniper rifle in its quest for a rifle that would work from as far as 1,500 meters away.


Straight shooters
By Dan Lamothe - Staff writer
Posted : Sunday Oct 25, 2009 21:35:11 EDT

Marine combat developers are eyeing a new sniper rifle that would almost double the range of the Corps’ existing model, but the service’s weapons experts don’t want it and believe fielding something more powerful could exacerbate existing problems with marksmanship.

The SR21 should not be adopted unless existing problems with sniper training are addressed, said Chief Warrant Officer 5 Jeffrey Eby, the Corps’ senior gunner. The new rifle would offer a “significant capability,” but the gunner community is concerned that adopting it would put even more pressure on snipers already struggling to satisfactorily use existing 7.62mm M40 rifles, he said in an e-mail to Marine Corps Times.

Marine Corps Combat Development Command, based at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va., is considering the SR21 and, along with the Army and U.S. Special Operations Command, developing caliber requirements and other specifications for the weapon, said Charles Clark III, an infantry weapons capabilities integration officer at MCCDC. The weapon would be an option for engaging targets out to 1,500 meters (almost one mile), a weakness Marine officials identified in a 2007 assessment of the sniper community. The M40’s maximum effective range is about 800 meters.

There are several reasons, Eby said, why snipers are not as good as they should be with the M40, a bolt-action rifle that was introduced to the Corps in 1966 and is based on a commercial model, the Remington 700.

First, the Corps lacks enough training facilities with “realistic targets,” which hinders efforts to adequately replicate combat scenarios, he said. Moreover, many snipers don’t get enough time to fully develop their skills on the M40, and the Corps is struggling to retain them long enough to perfect the craft, he said.


Rest of article at: http://marinecorpstimes.com/news/2009/10/marine_rifle_102609w/

[old mark]

1. Big difference being able to hit from 1500 m compared to 800.

Again, the military is dithering with a relatively inexpensive yet very effective weapon to replace a good but outmoded one.

Did they just think of this stuff now?

mark