Long range elk shot with .243 Win (Warning: Graphic)

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santaman2000

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Jan 15, 2011
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Yep. Military sniping equals long distances and generally aim for center mass (not head shots) and try to have a pre-planned escape route. On the other hand Police snipers are usually focused on much closer range (across the street) and aim for a much tighter target (threading shots between hostages)
 

abilou

Tenderfoot
Jan 5, 2010
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maidstone
Well ladies I bow to your better knowledge. It's just that my work 308 sniper rifle shoots around 1 MOA at 100 metres which works out at a bit bigger than 15 inches so perhaps they were very large heads.
Bearing in mind that 308 is subsonic below 1000m I would think torso shots were a better option! Longer shots are an available option, ideally with a higher muzzle energy fire such as .338 or .50. G3s are good rifles but not from my several years of using them 1000 metre options.
Perhaps age and nostalgia is getting the drop on us all.
 
Jan 13, 2018
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Yep. Military sniping equals long distances and generally aim for center mass (not head shots) and try to have a pre-planned escape route. On the other hand Police snipers are usually focused on much closer range (across the street) and aim for a much tighter target (threading shots between hostages)

The Police Marksmen are NOT Snipers.
Proper Snipers get very upset at that - its like calling a ''Mechanic' an 'Engineer' - its just 'wrong'.
 
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Janne

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Well ladies I bow to your better knowledge. It's just that my work 308 sniper rifle shoots around 1 MOA at 100 metres which works out at a bit bigger than 15 inches so perhaps they were very large heads.
Bearing in mind that 308 is subsonic below 1000m I would think torso shots were a better option! Longer shots are an available option, ideally with a higher muzzle energy fire such as .338 or .50. G3s are good rifles but not from my several years of using them 1000 metre options.
Perhaps age and nostalgia is getting the drop on us all.

1 MOA is not that fantastic these days. A quality gun and tailored rounds should give you around 0.25 MOA.

No, Soviet heads were about as small as British ones. And Swedish. Maybe a bit harder?

Torso shots are better of course, but not many soldiers will stand up for long exposing the chest. Plus remember, most armies supply protection these days.
Remember, snipers take out specific targets. Officers, key personell and so on. Selective targets. A trooper is fairly uninteresting. A sniper must not disclose his and his spotters location, and the risk increases with each shot.

Nato relied on the 308 for decades, until Uncle Sam pushed through the .223, which led to the use of various Magnum calibers, including the .50 BMG, which is awesome.

No nostalgia or age. Yet. The G3 was a pig to clean and carry.
Subsonic? Matters not. Pure subsonic 9mm are used by many Police forces worldwide.
 
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Robson Valley

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Nov 24, 2014
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Punch paper or gongs instead. The local Prince George Rod & Gun Club has a 1,000m range with the usual mountain for a backstop.
The .50 BMG gang and some .30 cal people have a good time.
 

santaman2000

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Jan 15, 2011
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The Police Marksmen are NOT Snipers.
Proper Snipers get very upset at that - its like calling a ''Mechanic' an 'Engineer' - its just 'wrong'.
Actually most police snipers here are either former active duty military or current National Guard (similar to your Territorials) A fair number of them are snipers in both disciplines. That said, it's not the military side that objects to police using the term "sniper"; it's the public relations department of the police.

.....Nato relied on the 308 for decades, until Uncle Sam pushed through the .223, which led to the use of various Magnum calibers, including the .50 BMG, which is awesome.....
When NATO was formed after WWII the European members wanted to go with a smaller caliber and weapon mimicking the higher rate of fire and lighter weight trends the Soviet Bloc's new SKS and Nazi Germany's Sturmgewehr 44 pioneered. But the US stubbornly insisted NATO standardize on a full battle rifle instead. The .308 (7.62 NATO) became that standard against the opposition of the rest of NATO. It's ironic that after that the US (who had adamantly insisted on full rifle caliber and weapons) was the one that abandoned it first for the .223. It's equally ironic that both the US Army and US Marine Corps are now searching for something more lethal than the .223.

Yes, .308 was replaced as a sniper caliber by the bigger calibers some decades ago.
 
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Janne

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It should be said the 308 Winchester and the 7.62 Nato are not 100% identical, I remember vagualy the ’standard 7.62 Nato is slightly milder or something?
Case thickness too?

I used to practice with my mil ammo in my hunting rifle as I had them for free. Loved the tracers.



Not everybody can become a long range ( or even short range) skilled shooter. You need a certain talent too.

Hence many retired snipers start doing the same job fir the police I guess.
 
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mrostov

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Jan 2, 2006
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Well, people talk about snipers and hunters, like they are separate, but really it's just a matter of what you are hunting. For example, snipers in the field, in just about every 1st rate army in the world have adopted the ghillie suit, a product of game wardens in the UK. During wartime armies love to recruit hunters and target shooters for sniper roles. Snipers are in many ways the ultimate hunters, since their game is both self aware and usually armed in a way that a bear or lion could never be.

Nowadays I'm very much a minimalist and my only centerfire rifle is a scoped .243 Win barrel for my H&R Handi-Rifle. It's a single shot with a very strong ejector, and it gets done what I need done. It takes down rapidly and the rifle barrel and the shotgun barrels I have for it all stow very compactly and out of the way, as does my folding long bow.

Since that is my primary hunting firearm these days, and I live in a saltwater environment where things rust rapidly and badly, I'm looking into getting the receiver, all of it's parts, and the barrels treated with titanium nitride, and then have the receiver and the outside of the barrels treated with cerakote. I might have the .243 barrel cryo-treated first before anything else. I can get all of that done right here in Texas.

Back in Arizona, where I lived for a while, setting up a 1000 yard range was easy. You just picked some public land, and there was a LOT of it, preferably with some hill or mountain as a back drop, and there was a lot of those also. You drove out and set up your target.

The USA has a lot of really open land, especially in the deserts. For example, I lived in the desert for quite a while as a kid and while still very young my dad taught me how to shoot clays in the air with a rifle. That isn't something you can do safely many other places. When you grow up shooting across canyons and in high winds, you get some good experience.
 

santaman2000

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It should be said the 308 Winchester and the 7.62 Nato are not 100% identical, I remember vagualy the ’standard 7.62 Nato is slightly milder or something?
Case thickness too?.........
Caliber is determined by two things: first is the bullet diameter (however several calibers can share the same bullet so it doesn't end there obviously) Next is the case dimensions. .308 and 7.62 NATO are identical. One is just the US name and the other is the NATO metric designation. Yes, either can be loaded up or down (milder or more powerfully) but that's a matter of load; not caliber. Case thickness can vary slightly from one batch to another within the same specs although it's possible the military contracts call for slightly thicker or thinner cases, that doesn't make it a different caliber.

Likewise .223 and 5.56 NATO are the same caliber' just different loads (note ---- my full military M-16 manufactured in the 1960s was marked as a .223 caliber rather than the metric designation and the original M-14s were stamped ,308) We didn't change the designation until the 1970s when the miiltary tried going metric.
 

santaman2000

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.....Back in Arizona, where I lived for a while, setting up a 1000 yard range was easy. You just picked some public land, and there was a LOT of it, preferably with some hill or mountain as a back drop, and there was a lot of those also. You drove out and set up your target........
When I was stationed in Nevada the backstop for the base (Nellis AFB) rifle and machine gun range was nothing but the sheer distance. Mind there were mountains in the background; but they were 20 to 50 miles away. I loved hunting and just shooting on open range!
 

mrostov

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Jan 2, 2006
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The only real physical spec difference between the military and civilian loads on the 5.56mm/.223 and the 7.62mmNATO/.308 spec of the chamber. The military specs have a more open throat on the chamber.
 
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The only real physical spec difference between the military and civilian loads on the 5.56mm/.223 and the 7.62mmNATO/.308 spec of the chamber. The military specs have a more open throat on the chamber.

There is a 13 thou difference in headspace between 308 Win & 7.62 NATO (No problem for 'new' rounds, but not good for reloading).
Military headspace gauges are different to Civilian headspace gauges, &, there at 10 different military headspace gauges, all for the 7.62 NATO round, but all for different firearms from the L8 up to the Mini-Gun.
Military cartridges tend to be thicker brass than the SAAMMI.
Military cartridges tend to have a smaller volume and hence less powder.

Tests methods and loadings vary considerably :
SAAMI 308 Win = 62,000 psi
CIP 7.62 = 60,200 psi
NATO Epvat 7.62 = 60,190 psi
 

santaman2000

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There is a 13 thou difference in headspace between 308 Win & 7.62 NATO (No problem for 'new' rounds, but not good for reloading).......
Ironically over here once fired military brass was the most inexpensive source for reloading brass up until just a few years ago. Albeit that was 5.56 rather than 7.62. Many people still buy surplus military ammo (5.56 as well as 7.62 NATO and even 30-06 rounds) and continue reloading the brass.
 
Jan 13, 2018
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Yeah, individual loads vary; so are these figures the maximum pressures? Or the average pressures?

The figures quoted are the 'service loads' (unfortunately I cannot post pictures so cannot post the relevant tables from my books and documents)
The proof pressures are a fair bit higher.

SAAMI (US Civilian) 308 Win : Service pressure 62,000psi, Proof pressure 80,600 psi
CIP ("Permanent International Commission for the Proof of Small Arms" - covers Europe, Arabia, Russia etc) 7.62 NATO : Service Pressure 60,200 psi, Proof pressure 72.250 psi

The US Army (typical !!) has its own testing methods and users a system called CUP (or Copper Crusher) there is no direct comparisons but 'roughly' 52,000 CUP is equal to 60,000 psi

US Army requirements 7.62 NATO : Service pressure 50,000 CUP, but for Special 'M118 Ball' service pressure is 52,000 CUP. I have no information regarding US Army proof pressures.
 
Jan 13, 2018
356
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Ironically over here once fired military brass was the most inexpensive source for reloading brass up until just a few years ago. Albeit that was 5.56 rather than 7.62. Many people still buy surplus military ammo (5.56 as well as 7.62 NATO and even 30-06 rounds) and continue reloading the brass.

Military brass is made to a higher standard and specification that the 'made to a price' Winchester and Remington SAAMI brass.
'Civilian' brass is lighter weight with thinner walls and FLR (full length resizing) and case trimming when reloading (particularly) after using in a 7.62 Chamber results in ever thinner & thinner cases.

Hence the 'dash for the brass' when military 7.62 is used.

The United Nations having started a crusade against international movements of military small arms and ammunition except on a government to government basis. The problem is that 5.56 and 7.62mm are classified as ‘military’ period, no matter that it is a single-shot target rifle and your pride and joy. This is a particular problem for anybody travelling across international boundaries as an early result has been airlines, through their international regulator IATA, accepting these rules and refusing to carry anything so marked or documented, even if on a dual basis as in ‘7.62mm / .308 Winchester’.

You can no longer carry your 7.62 rifle on an aircraft, but you can if it is marked 308 !!!
 
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Janne

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Yes. Another example of word wrangling and stupidity. ( thinking about the changes to knife law in UK, another thread)
No 7.62 but .308 is ok.

I know I am dreaming, but one day humanity might be ruled by intelligent people.
 
Jan 13, 2018
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Yes. Another example of word wrangling and stupidity. ( thinking about the changes to knife law in UK, another thread)
No 7.62 but .308 is ok.

I know I am dreaming, but one day humanity might be ruled by intelligent people.

Exactly - because my UK Firearms certificate states ".308 / 7.62" I cannot have my rifles 7.62 rifles shipped by air.
I went to a great deal of trouble to have the Home Office documents amended to include ".303 / 7.7 " so I could purchase South African 303 ammunition (marked in metric as 7.7mm), now the question is "is 303 still classed as a military calibre?".

The UN have now introduced further legislation (to which most countries - including the USA) have signed up to requiring ammunition producers , and firearms manufactures to have a Government licence.
Under the definitions if you reload you are an ammunition manufacturer, and need a Government licence.
If you 'work on guns' - even fitting a new bolt, replacement barrel etc. then you are a firearms manufacturer and require a Government licence.

Whilst this has now been in place for a few years very little news of it has 'escaped'.

Talking with other armourers, collectors and shooters in the USA they said "it'll never happen here", but already the Paperwork for shipping firearms in 7.62 and 5.56 has been introduced.

Update from the US dealer I have been talking to :

"I just printed the approved DSP5 permanent export license issued by the Office of Defense Trade Control, U.S. Dept. of State and there is a proviso that I've never encountered before. Here's your answer to the creeping changes being implemented by the UN of which the USA has now signed on. It states the following:

(FYI: I'm the applicant as a DTC registrant.)

APPLICANT MUST NOTIFY THE END USER IN WRITING THAT THE RSAF ENFIELD L42A1, CAL. 7.62X51 BOLT ACTION RIFLE, SN. AMXXXX, CANNOT BE RESOLD OR TRADED WITHOUT THE PRIOR APPROVAL OF THE US GOVERNMENT. APPLICANT MUST UPLOAD THE NOTIFICATION INTO D-TRADE UNDER THIS LICENSE NUMBER WITHIN 15 DAYS OF ITS APPROVAL.

There you have it. The facts as promised".


I have clarified with him as follows :

If I (in the UK) am in receipt of this 7.62 calibre L42 which has been allowed to be exported from the USA, then if I decide to sell it in a year or two's time to 'John in the next town' then I must apply to the US Government for approval.

I'm in the UK and the US Government tells me if I can sell my rifle !!!!!!!!!!!

You say the UN mandates will not come into effect - dream on !!!
 

Janne

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But Alan, do you not realize that a 7.62 Nato is a far more dangerous round that a .308 Winchester?????

Like an AR-15 with a 5 hot mag is a horrible man killer, but the wooden stocked .223 with a 5 round mag is not?

:)
 

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