Shawn Ryan always has some interesting episodes.

 

You just generally see many more discussions about the long or ultra long range shots. But evidently those aren't the norm.

 

Nick Irving ... average distance of his shots.

Using an SR-25, Nick's says his average shots are between 100 to 300 yards with 98% of his missions at night. One of his kills was less than 30 yards. When I think of the distances that snipers shoot its out to 700 yards to 1000 yards. I'm sure the distances vary from one mission to the next.

For some reason I had it in my head that the distances were further ...

I went through the USAMU Sniper Course in October-November 1982. We used the M21 with 3-9 ART for daytime and the M16A1 with AN/PVS-2 at night. We confirmed zero every day on a 300-yard steel E-type silhouette before shooting from 75 to 600 yards (maximum), to include pop-ups and movers.

Hollywood and fiction would lead you to believe all kinds of things. The books state maximum effective range for 7.62 systems as 800 Meters (880 yards) which is about right. If the individual shooter is also a competitor or well-trained, obviously his maximum effective range will be a little further.

Irving was also typically in a support-by-fire role, overwatching and covering maneuvering assault elements. You make up for longer-range wind deviation by being closer to those you're supporting and shooting at.

 

I went through the USAMU Sniper Course in October-November 1982. We used the M21 with 3-9 ART for daytime and the M16A1 with AN/PVS-2 at night. We confirmed zero every day on a steel E-type silhouette before shooting from 75 to 600 yards (maximum), to include pop-ups and movers.

Hollywood and fiction would lead you to believe all kinds of things. The books state maximum effective range for 7.62 systems as 800 Meters (880 yards) which is about right. If the individual shooter is also a competitor or well-trained, obviously his maximum effective range will be a little further.

Irving was also typically in a support-by-fire role, overwatching and covering maneuvering assault elements. You make up for longer-range wind deviation by being closer to those you're supporting and shooting at.

Small world, I attended about eight years before you at Fort Benning. Powell had just come back from Vietnam and they had attached the sniper school to Infantry for a while but still operated out of MTU.

In those days we shot the XM 21 with the ART scope (thank you 2LT James Leatherwood) with the starlight scope on the same weapon for nighttime training.

I was an investigator at the time and we were starting a QRF at the Provost Marshall’s office. I was supposed to be the team leader, but I did pretty well at the school so I became the shooter. It’s pretty unlikely they will write any books about me because my only kill as a sniper was a Possum that walked out on the line at 600 m. As I said in my defense at the time “a Possum is a lot smaller than a VC”

 

The old saying "Drive for show, putt for dough" comes to mind. Everyone hoo-haws about the longer shots, but the breadandbutter stuff is quite a bit closer, where the people are.

 

I wonder how the average shooter who is also a long time hunter could improve his skills out to 300+ yards with some long range shooting courses taught by former snipers?

 

It probably depends on how good of a shot they are to begin with. Some people have natural talent in this regard, and some do not. And while your instructor can certainly help you with certain things. It remains inherent on the shooter to just put in the range time. That is what will likely help you the most.

 

He also said the best training was civilian courses.
Mentioned one in Texas .
Was one of my favorite interviews.

 

The common myth about snipers, at least historically, is that it is all about shooting. Fieldcraft, E&E and other skills are just as if not more important I would imagine. Also, in WWII at least, to be captured was a guaranteed death sentence in the field and sometimes brutally.

 

Aren’t they doing away with “long distance” snipers? Seriously. Aren’t the guys that used to do long range snipping now doing long range reconnaissance. When they find the target, they whack them from afar using a Hellfire missle shot from a drone. I’m thinking I even saw where the Air Force is taking over that special reconnaissance mission.

 

A gun club bud, his son was a "Scout Battalion Sniper" in Iraq. Since Son was patrolling cities, the shots his Son took were all within 200 yards.

Gotta to tell you, in the deep dark woods of the South East US, you are lucky to see 30 yards.

 

Anybody know the origin of the word “sniper“? Interesting history.

 

Origin of the Term “Sniper.”

The historical piece that I’ve been working on recently takes place in the 1850s. As I was writing dialogue, I wanted use the term, “sniper.” But then it occurred to me that “sniper” might be a twe…

backwardpresent.wordpress.com

 

As Randy Newberg states hunting is not a set of perfect conditions; heat, cold, snow, rain, rough terrain, thick forest, desert, rolling hills plus operating in stealth mode by not being visible to the opposing sniper who is looking for you.

Both hunter and spotter are glassing the terrain for game and once spotted the art of moving closer to that prey for a clean shot. A hunter won't take a shot if he feels its chancy lest he misses and send the animal(s) scattering to the four winds.

 

Military snipers ARE hunters. The stakes are higher since the game you're tracking can kill you.

Everything you would do in the field tracking a man-killer (cat, moose, buffalo, bear, whatever) applies. Stealth, camouflage, movement, near and far marksmanship are all common. Mistakes when you're in the food chain will get you killed just as dead when engaging people with small arms.

Not all snipers are good coaches, teachers, or instructors. There's a reason successful competitors and coyote or prairie dog eradicators are good at shooting -- experience missing builds the skills to turn into shots connecting.

I introduced a close friend to long-range precision by having him shoot a 300-yard E-type silhouette until he couldn't miss. Less than a year later he was disappointed at himself when he couldn't hit a 750-yard target at a 95% hit rate with an 18-inch AR.

It really is the Indian and not the arrow.

 

Here’s a little history for you shooters who may be interested. In early Vietnam, we were using the M82 and M 84 scopes. They were 2.5 and 2.2 power scopes. They had a tendency to rust and fail. The mounts were not particularly durable and they would fog up. The longest shot with one of these scopes was 800 m and it took three shots to get the hit.

Second Lieutenant James Leatherwood was working on his scope in 1965 or so at Fort Benning. He was sent to Vietnam with first infantry and was working on his design which ultimately became the ART scope, adjustable ranging and trajectory. It was a breakthrough, they used a 3 x 9 Redfield scope with the specialized 7.62X 51 round, the M118 match round referred to as “camp Perry ammo”

The way it worked was you would frame your enemy target either 18 inches or 36 inches and the ballistic cam would raise or lower the mount which would calculate your distance and compensate for elevation.

They recognized a critical need for an effective sniper system and the LWL, limited warfare lab helped develop the XM 21 that I trained on. It was a match M 14 with a glass bedded stock, headspace minimized, sweet trigger and otherwise developed to very tight tolerances.

In mid 1967 they built 10 XM 21s with the art scope. They were sent to Vietnam and evaluated with very impressive results. 300 m targets, fairly inexperienced shooters and they were getting first round hits.

Camp Bearcat was the first sniper school in October 68. Requirements were for 2020 vision, expert qualification and they preferred competitive shooters. The training was 18 days and there was a 50% failure rate.

The instructors for the original sniper school were members of the “presidents 100“ who were recognized as the top rifle shooters in the United States. Many of them came from camp Perry of course and were automatically qualified for Secret Service duty. The. ART standards were 130 of 160 possible points. The cool thing about the scope was that you could zoom out to scan for enemy and then zoom in to shoot so the scope system acted as its own rangefinder and all you did was calculate your wind. I remember some weird thing where we were taught to drop dead grass and then point at where it landed and divide that angle by half and that was supposed to be your windspeed and direction.

Many guys in combat would zero their system at 600 yards and then glue the settings semi permanently. To calculate their drop, they would shoot for the forehead over 600 m and the crotch under 600 m . By the early 70s when I was trained, the bugs had largely been worked out and the ART System had become a valuable force multiplier in combat.

I don’t know how I remembered a lot of this, sometimes I can’t recall where I parked my car.

 

I might have been able to hold a rifle standing up and shooting it fairly accurately when I was a young man. But I sure can't do it now. To heavy, and a bit of a shake now. NV

 

Colonel, yes, a constant battle between Mother Nature and Father Time!