19 Jan 97

Sniper Practice . . . Using LIVE Targets!

In the Army, there is a commonly-held belief that you should "train as you fight." In simple terms, this means that soldiers should demand, expect, and accept "tough, realistic training" to better prepare themselves for battle with the enemy. Indeed, there is great emphasis placed on putting soldiers into environments and situations that very closely resemble the same ones they'll experience under hostile circumstances. However, safety is -- universally -- the overwhelming concern when planning a training exercise. Therefore, Army planners trade off some degree of risk (i.e., potential for injury) in return for an opportunity to develop and sustain the skills required for combat.

In support of the notion that you should "train as you fight," how do you practice sniping? Certainly, you can't go around picking off people that are several hundred yards away... I mean, it's just not socially acceptable. People will complain. The police will get involved. You'll need a lawyer. It's just not worth it, using your fellow humans as live targets just to gain some quality, meaningful, sniper practice.

How, then, does a sniper practice his shooting skills? After all, the targets need to be unpredictable, mobile, and engaged at distances that will challenge the sniper's marksmanship skills. The sniper needs an environment that will allow him to practice his shooting positions, both deliberate and hasty, while giving him an opportunity to hone his skills with a bipod and a sling. This environment should be free of unwanted distractions... like neighbors, police, jail cells, television news crews, and lawyers. Proper sniper training should also include range estimation, wind calculation, and land navigation. Undoubtedly, such training will take place "in the field," and this provides yet another - - and all too often, "overlooked" -- piece of training... packing JUST the needed equipment to accomplish the mission. As a sniper, at least as a military sniper, you're going to be humping your gear without assistance from gun bearers, water boys, and the like. You want it? You carry it!

So, once again, how will you "train as you fight" if you're a sniper?

Shoot prairie dogs.

I don't know of any other environment that provides as much potential for practicing sniper skills as shooting prairie dogs... unless you attend a special school like those run by Carlos Hathcock or John Plaster, of course. Shooting prairie dogs (it's really hard for me to call it "hunting") gives a sniper a vast assortment of "tough, realistic training" opportunities.

Packing. Sure, you might take your four-wheel drive vehicle, crammed full of guns and gear... but that's not the idea, is it? Why not take just the gear you NEED to take, and see what you must have and what you can do without? This can be an eye-opening experience in itself. It will, after a few times, teach you to put more time into your planning. Besides guns, ammunition, and cleaning equipment (to include brake cleaner, solvent, and lubricant) here are some things you might not normally think of taking along: your medication(s); a first aid kit; insect repellant; rain gear; food; trash bags; something to sit/lay/rest on; sun screen (lotion); head gear (appropriate for keeping the sun out of your eyes when you shoot, and for keeping the sun from burning your face -- and the top of your head if you're bald); a broken-case extraction tool in the appropriate chambering; a small set of gunsmithing tools that includes screw drivers and nut drivers; Loc-Tite; wire; tape; targets (for re-zeroing, in case "something happens" that requires it); a knife; warm-weather AND cold-weather clothing; maps of the area; a weather report for the duration of your field exercise; and. .. well, you get the idea. Except for the gun(s), you can (via careful shopping and packing) get all of these things, plus your ammo and cleaning equipment, into a rucksack.

Range estimation. The distances you will be engaging prairie dogs usually "start" at 200 yards... and then it REALLY gets interesting. You're only limited by how far you can see and how far your ammunition will successfully defeat the target. Bring a good pair of binoculars, yes, but not those heavy, industrial-size types. Just something you can pack, which will help you scan your sector for targets.

Wind calculation. "Test tube" shooters need not apply. If all you've ever done is shoot from a bench, over sandbags, with wind flags placed between you and your targets -- so you could shoot when the flags were down or "just right"-- well, just do yourself a favor and stay home. Shooting prairie dogs gives you a LOT of practice in judging the wind. Personally, I know of a couple of guys who, their last time out, were using what you might call "fence post hold." That is, the wind was so STRONG, and they were shooting at such LONG distances... they were spotting for each other using comments (in reference to the fences that bordered the ranches in the area, made of wooden posts and barbed wire) like "You were about three feet to the left on that last shot. Hold about two fence posts to the left, and about one and a half high... you'll get 'im." Seriously, folks, we're talking REAL wind and REAL distance.

Shooting positions. You can shoot anyway you want. With a sling. With a bipod. Standing. Sitting. Prone. Using the top of a fence post to help steady you. Laying over a rock. Leaning into the wind... yes, I said "leaning into the wind."

Marksmanship. You'll get a REAL chance to practice your marksmanship skills, especially if you're using a scope on your rifle... and, "trust me," you WILL be using a scope on your rifle! You'll get practical experience in things like mirage, parallax, leading your target, "sensing" your shot(s), trigger squeeze, breath control, cant (no, not "can't" -- I'm talking about tilting your rifle to one side or the other ), and ALL SORTS OF THINGS that make shooting prairie dogs interesting and challenging. I'm having a Vais muzzle brake put onto my .22-250 Remington-chambered rifle... not because the recoil is killing me, but because I can't "sense" my own shots after I've fired. Even though I try to "follow through" and keep the scope focused on the target, the brief jump of the muzzle from each shot keeps me from seeing exactly where my shots are going.

"Real World" Practice, on LIVING TARGETS!!! It is true that a prairie dog will let you take several shots at him before he gets fed up and goes down into the ground. However, when they're moving, THEY'RE MOVING ! They are unpredictable, mobile, and -- once they finally figure out that you're trying to kill them -- quite difficult to get a good shot at . Even under the best of conditions, they're not very big, and they are a long, LONG distance from you.

Socially Acceptable. You won't make any friends with the animals' rights groups, but... you'll make a lot of landowners and cattlemen happy. Prairie dogs carry diseases, make a lot of holes in the ground (a hazard to livestock and people), and eat a lot of grass. (Cattle and prairie dogs both eat a LOT of grass. Do you like steak? Hamburger? Want to make sure your local grocery store stays well-stocked with both? Get busy and start killing some prairie dogs!)

Also, you can do a lot of killing -- even wipe out entire "towns" -- and get away with it... legally! In fact, since you're generally alone, you can pretty much do whatever you want. You can stalk, build a hide, wear camouflage, and just about anything in which a sniper must be proficient . As far as appearance and behavior, there are no social pressures... because there's no "social." As a rule, there's usually no one around you for miles when you're shooting prairie dogs.

1. For target and silhouette shooting.

2. With a bench rest or other support.

3. For small game (varmints).

4. When the target is motionless.

With lower magnification, you enjoy a brighter image and a wider field of view. Use low powers when some or all of these conditions apply:

1. In dense foliage where a wider field of view is preferable.

2. In low light conditions.

3. For moving targets.

I’ve talked with 4 metallurgist and 3 barrel manufactures (Rock Creek, Hart and Shilen), on the subject. From a scientific point of view, they all said and agreed to pretty much the same thing.

First, barrel break-in processes keep them in business. This shoot and clean, shoot and clean every round or few rounds break-in process only damages your brand new match barrel. Think of a car engine for a moment. Why do we use oil in the engine? To prevent metal-to-metal contact and reduce friction between two metal surfaces. Your barrel is no different from the engine.

Mike Rock at Rock Creek barrels gave me the most detailed explanations on barrels and ballistics. Mike has a master’s degree in metallurgy; he was also the chief ballistics engineer for the Army for many years at the Aberdeen Proving grounds. Stan Rivenbark was one of the top ballistic engineers for Raytheon before he retired in the 70’s and also has a degree in metallurgy. I also talked with two local metallurgist here in North TX.

I confirmed my findings with each person to see if they agreed or disagreed. Conclusion, they all agreed with each other’s assessments. When Mike worked at Aberdeen proving grounds, the Army used high speed bore videos with mirrors, thermal imaging and computers to analyze any and everything that happens when the firing pin hits the primer and the round goes off. When the primer ignites there is enough pressure to move the bullet forward to the lands. The bullet then stops. As the primer ignites the powder, more pressure builds moving the bullet forward where it can stop again. Once there is enough pressure from the round going off, the bullet is moved down out the barrel. All of this happens in nanoseconds (billionths of a second). Your bullet starts and stops at least twice and sometimes three times before it leaves the barrel. This is fact.

If you clean every round or every few rounds during your barrel break-in process or clean your rifle so well after shooting that you take it down to the bare metal, you’ve created a metal-to-metal contact surface for the next time you shoot the gun. So what’s the problem with this you ask? Just like your car engine, metal-to-metal contact will sheer away layers of metal from each surface. So if your bullet is starting and stopping two or three times as it leaves the barrel, that’s two or three places for metal-to-metal contact to happen as well as the rest of your bore. The use of JB’s and Flitz can take you down to metal-to-metal contact.

According to Mike Rock and the other barrel manufactures agreed, all you need to avoid this metal-to-metal contact is a good burnish in the barrel. Shilen, Hart and Rock Creek will all void your barrel warranty if you shoot moly bullets and for good reason. This is not to say that moly is necessarily bad for a barrel, but it is when applied to bullets. There is no way possible to coat a bore with moly bullets. The bullet contact surface in the barrel is only so big. But when your round goes off, moly comes off the contact surface of the bullet in the throat area of the rifle and is bonded to the barrel do to the excessive heat and pressure. Were not talking coated or adhered to, we’re talking bonded, damn near permanent. With this, some of the jacket coating comes off the bullet. Follow this up with another round and you’ve now embedded the copper jacket between layers of bonded moly. This is the beginning of the black moly ring, which ruins countless barrels and is so hard; it can hardly be scraped off with a screwdrivers corner edge. This is what happened to a new Shilen SS select match barrel I had to have replaced with less than 400 rounds through it. I can’t talk for Fastex as I don’t or none of the folks I talked to knew enough about the product to comment on it.

When I talked to Mike about my new barrel and the barrel break-in process, this is what he had to say. He first hand laps each barrel with a lead lap. He then uses two products from Sentry Solutions, a product called Smooth Coat, which is an alcohol and moly based product. He applies wet patches of Smooth Coats until the bore is good and saturated and lets it sit until the alcohol evaporates. The barrel now has loose moly in it. Next he uses a product called BP-2000, which is a very fine moly powder.

Applied to a patch wrapped around a bore brush, he makes a hundred passes or so through the barrel very rapidly before having to rest. He repeats this process with fresh patches containing the moly powder a few more times. What he is doing is burnishing the barrel surface with moly and filling in any fine micro lines left by the hand lapping. He then uses a couple of clean patches to knock out any remaining moly left in the bore. With the barrel burnished with moly, this will prevent any metal-to-metal contact during the barrel break in process.

A mil dot reticle does not refer to the military. The MIL in mil dot is a shortening of the term milliradian. You are familiar with degrees as measurements of angle. You also know from high school geometry that there are 360 degrees in a circle. As the circle grows larger in circumference, the number of degrees does not change, but the distance between each degree along the circle does increase. You may also know that degrees are divided into smaller units called minutes. There are seconds, too, but they are too small for this discussion. A degree is divided into 60 minutes. At 100 yards distance, the angle of one minute is approximately one inch. So if the centers of the two bullets farthest apart in a 100-yard group are about one inch apart, we call that a minute-of-angle group. Get it? At 200 yards, a group measuring two inches center- to-center equals a one minute-of-angle group. At 400 yards, it's a four-inch group. At 50 yards, it's a half-inch group.

NOW WHAT IS A MIL? One mil of angle is approximately 3.6 inches long at 100 yards, and that is close enough to 3.5 minutes of angle to be convenient. In Leapers mil dot scopes, the centers of the dots are one mil apart. If the scope is variable power, this only holds true for the highest power setting. So, if your bullseye is 3.5 inches in diameter and 100 yards away, it will touch the centers of any two dots next to each other. If it appears only half that size through the scope (from the center of one dot to half the distance to the next center) your target must be about 200 yards away. If the same bullseye spans the distance between the centers of three dots (two with an extra dot between them), your target is about 50 yards away. Sniper rifles have mil dots on both horizontal and vertical crosshairs so they can measure height as well as width through their scopes. A six-foot tall man is also 72 inches tall.

At 100 yards, he would appear to be just over 20 mils tall. At 1000 yards, he would be close to 2 mils tall. Military binoculars and gunsights are usually equipped with mil reticles. On the standard crosshairs are other short lines that mark mill angles. These are often referred to as "rangefinding" reticles. To use them that way, you have to know how to apply the correct mathematical formula, plus you have to know the approximate size of your target.

(B) This 'T' rail allows many accessories to be placed on your rifle. We furnish a solid steel 'T' bar with a detachable sling swivel stud installed. This is for the mounting of a Harris bipod. Many other accessories may be mounted on this bar. The ’T’ bar has a quick detach thumb screw. Some snipers will want two bipods mounted, short for prone and tall for sitting position. Additional ’T’ bars are available at a nominal cost. Also any accessory that fits a Anschutz rifle will also fit this 'T' rail.

(C) This area is flat to stabilize the rifle when shooting from a rest. It is 1 1/2" wide and heavily serrated. The elevation fine adjusting knob (Q) can be removed, leaving a 3/8 threaded hole and the stock totally flat on bottom.

(D) The forend is 2 3/8" wide to also assist in holding the rifle in a stable shooting position.

(E) The length of pull can be adjusted from 13 1/4" out. The stock comes with one 1/2" adjusting spacer. Additional spacers are available at a nominal cost. They come in 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 inch in thickness. You will also get a set of longer screws when you order additional spacers. (note; we designed the stock, starting short, to fit the law enforcement snipers that must wear thick body armor.)

(F) The stock is furnished with two cheek pieces. The standard height is for low scope rings. The tall cheek piece is for the big lens scopes that require the tall rings.

(G) The position of the cheek piece is adjustable. There are three front and back positions to accommodate all shooters. Also the cheek piece can be turned around for the left hand shooters.

(H) The bedding block is the most important part of the stock. The receiver of the rifle only touches the stock/bedding block in four places, both sides of the 'V' in front and in back. The pillar blocks allow a 40/50 inch lbs. torque on the receiver screws which is not possible with wood or most synthetic stocks. The CNC machined bedding block in molded inside the stock, not fiberglassed in after the stock is made. (1) The barrel channel is large enough to free float a 1 1/4" diameter bull barrel.

(J) See feature (A)

(K) The four slots are for the attaching of camo material. Most sniper experts agree that it adversely effects accuracy to attach camo to a barrel and there are no accommodations on most stocks for camo material. We haven't done any testing but common sense would tell you that the slots would also help dissipate barrel heat.

(L) These side mounted sling swivel studs go through a cored hole in the stock. In ‘from rest’ shooting, the conventional bottom mounted sling studs get in the way and are usually removed. Major Plaster explained to us, during the design phase of this stock, that a sniper crawling on his belly carries his rifle on top of his upper arm and/or across his back while holding the sling in his hand. A side mounted sling is perfect for this application. If you insist on a conventional bottom mounted sling we can put an additional stud on the 'T’ bipod bar and custom make a stud that will screw into the elevation adjusting knob hole, see (Q).

(M) The stippling in the grip areas is unusually aggressive and rough to the touch. Major Plaster wanted it that way. Some shooters wear gloves and the rough texture is needed. If you want a smoother grip surface, sand the areas until the desired feel is found. The stock is about 1/4" thick in this area so don't worry about sanding the texture down. Also please notice that the front grip area is narrowed. It is this narrowed size to accommodate a one hand carry of the rifle. Major Plaster complained that most sniper/tactical stocks are very fat in this area and very difficult to carry one handed (suit case style) at the balance point. We fixed the problem.

(N) This section of the forearm had a pronounced angle for two reasons. When the bipod is folded up it doesn't leave a 2" gap between it and the barrel. The bipod feet are very near the barrel and will catch fewer limbs and twigs when crawling prone. The second reason for the angle is for quick elevation adjustment of the barrel when the forend is resting on a support. When you push the stock forward the barrel goes up. When you pull the stock back the barrel elevation is lowered. This is so simple that no one seems to have thought of it before or didn't think it was important enough to include on a stock.

(0) This flat surface, parallel to the barrel, is for the shooters that have/use sandbags. We are told that real snipers wait and watch much more than shoot. It is helpful if the rifle doesn't fall over every time you take your hands off the rifle. This area has heavy, 1/8", serrations as on the bottom of the butt area.

(P) This off hand holding notch has been on machine guns since before World War 11. The advantage of this feature in a sniper stock is that you can now hold your butt stock on your shoulder with your off hand. This allows the trigger hand to relax and concentrate only on the trigger pull. This off hand hold has been proven to be beneficial over the years. It is a feature that the expensive, labor intensive, hand laid fiberglass stock makers find very difficult to incorporate into their design.

(Q) This is a fine adjusting screw for elevation. The bench rest shooters and prairie dog hunters will really like this feature. consider this, a one degree turn on this elevation screw will raise or lower the stock only .00017 of an inch. This is truly fine adjusting. This screw has about 2" of engagement and can be removed with ease when not needed. It is very easy to adjust with the thumb and index finger on either side of the stock. We have found, in the prototype stage of design, that the coarse adjustments can be made with the bipod legs and the ‘spot-on’ adjustment done with the screw.

(R) The rubber recoil pad has five height settings possible. The center setting lines up with the stock and there is two 1/4" positions up and two down. One of these five positions will surely meet your needs.

(S) The bipod 'T' bar, mentioned in (B) is made from solid steel and is about 5" long and it will fit the swivel type or solid bipod. There are many different uses and applications for this accessory other than a bipod. If you have a need for a special accessory, your local gunsmith won't have any trouble duplicating the dimensions.

(T) We, Major John Plaster and Choate Machine & Tool, Inc., have a design patent pending as of 11/22/96 and a Utility patent pending as of 10/29/96.

There are some points of interest not mentioned above that we will mention here. the ULTIMATE SNIPER stock has our usual LIFE TIME WARRANTY. The stock is made of DuPont Rynite SST-35. It is one of. the most expensive polymers and the most suitable for gun stocks if weight is not a consideration. We mold the stock in dark O.D. green color. Rynite takes paint very well so you can paint your stock with almost any automotive spray can paint. The available duck boat camo paint works very well. The rubber recoil pad is a little on the stiff side because it is much more durable at this durometer than a cushy pad, with a 3/4" compression, can allow a shooter to get a scope eye piece hit in the eyebrow. Hell, you could loose your scopes ZERO on a deal like that.

We predict that this stock will be a benchmark for sniper rifle stocks in the future. We have features that the hand laid fiberglass/kevlar stock makers cannot incorporate into their stocks. What we have done is eliminate most of the expensive hand labor and passed the savings on to you. We are keeping the price down so that most rifle owners can afford a stock. We realized the only way for this stock to sell enough to pay off the expensive tooling cost was to get the price low enough so the average guy can buy one. There aren't enough real snipers, military and police, to support this project if every one of them bought a stock. We think that there will be many deer rifles installed in this stock. Most shooters know what free floating the barrel and a bedding block does for a rifle, it closes the group to about 1/2 it's normal group.

We showed this stock for the first time at the 1997 SHOT show. We have never had a product that generated so much interest and excitement. Every dealer and distributor that saw it wanted to stock it. Major John Plaster did an outstanding job on this stock design and he gets full and total credit for it. We would like to mention his book THE ULTIMATE SNIPER. It is everything you ever wanted to know about sniper rifles and sniping. He has also produced two Videos on sniping that go into great visual detail on sniping and the equipment. His latest book is about this three tours in Viet Nam with the Special Forces. The book title is S.O.G. You can purchase these books and videos from Delta Group. Their order number is 1-800-852-4445.