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Sniper shoots WW II sniper rifles


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These videos shows a trained former sniper shooting scoped sniper rifles out to as much as 700 yards. In these, yoyu get to see a sniper meticulously at work (as far as the mechanics go). You can see the targets and watch the bullet's trajectory and impact point via the video. Seeing trajectory drawings in a brochure, book or what have you is one thing, but watching the same thing in slow motion is something far different and better. He refers to a game, by which he means that if he (the sniper) chokes and misses the shot at any range, the foe (he switches weapons and becomes the countersniper) gets a return shot with his weapon, in this case, a Mosin Nagant fitted with the archetypal PSO-1 scope. The comments on these videos make fascinating reading, including British sniper rifle requirements, feedback from people who've shot one of these rifles in the service, stories of a relatives under fire, and more.
 

Here we have the same drill, but this time the attacker has the Enfield No. 4 MKI T, which has only a 2X scope vs the German 4X. Even more surprising, he's using .303 Winchester made in 1940 in a 1943 rifle. If he flubs a shot, the same high turret Kar98K with Beck 4 X scope ets a shot.

Regards,

John Kettler

Edited by John Kettler
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Take everything on YouTube with a pinch of salt. The real expert is the spotter and you don't use ammo from the shelf. Take a civilian bench rest shooter, he or she loads their own. I imagine in the army the armorer gets match grade ammo for a particular rifle. To achieve this in handloading you fire a commercial round and resize only the neck. Now you have brass which matches the rifle. Then you select the bullet and powder combination. The ballistics you find in any loading guide. Irrelevant in the game at least in SF2 range 640 meters target RPG operator in a foxhole full contact for 6 minutes before it became a casualty. Our expert in the game was 'Crack' weapon Winchester .308 Magnum.  Oh yes I have not touched SF2 for 6 months now. I handloaded ammo for 12 years I estimate for competition shooting. That they miss in the game I put it down to stress fire that is the factor you don't experience on a range. 

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@John KettlerWas the blast from the German nuclear device at Kursk less than 700 yards? Seeing as how wireless detonation didn't exist yet, do you suppose they triggered the explosive it by firing a tracer round into it? It couldn't have been that big because as we all know it was constructed by Jewish slaves and transported to the front in the back of an opel blitz. 

Regards,

Amadeupname1

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2 hours ago, amadeupname said:

@John KettlerWas the blast from the German nuclear device at Kursk less than 700 yards? Seeing as how wireless detonation didn't exist yet, do you suppose they triggered the explosive it by firing a tracer round into it? It couldn't have been that big because as we all know it was constructed by Jewish slaves and transported to the front in the back of an opel blitz. 

Regards,

Amadeupname1

What I don't get is why the Germans didn't just use Die Glocke to open up a wormhole and then drive directly to the target, or even just drop the whole Opel with the bomb out of a Haunebu?  :unsure:

It's a mystery to me.....Maybe someone can enlighten?  :P

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7 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

Take everything on YouTube with a pinch of salt. The real expert is the spotter and you don't use ammo from the shelf. Take a civilian bench rest shooter, he or she loads their own. I imagine in the army the armorer gets match grade ammo for a particular rifle. To achieve this in handloading you fire a commercial round and resize only the neck. Now you have brass which matches the rifle. Then you select the bullet and powder combination. The ballistics you find in any loading guide. Irrelevant in the game at least in SF2 range 640 meters target RPG operator in a foxhole full contact for 6 minutes before it became a casualty. Our expert in the game was 'Crack' weapon Winchester .308 Magnum.  Oh yes I have not touched SF2 for 6 months now. I handloaded ammo for 12 years I estimate for competition shooting. That they miss in the game I put it down to stress fire that is the factor you don't experience on a range. 

Was it the practice or norm in WW2 for snipers (or someone in the unit) to hand load ammo, or was there special, high quality sniper ammo delivered? Asking because I don't know and never really thought about it before.

My competition target shooting was as a US Army officer, and for those the rules were stock issue unmodified weapons and ammo drawn randomly from the case. Different kind of target shooting - it was to see what you could due with issue weapons, beyond qualification, with unit to unit competition.

Dave

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1 hour ago, Ultradave said:

Was it the practice or norm in WW2 for snipers (or someone in the unit) to hand load ammo, or was there special, high quality sniper ammo delivered? Asking because I don't know and never really thought about it before.

I am not a WW2 veteran I understand there should have been a need to select a rifle and select ammo if you want results above what is required for volley fire. Modern computerized manufacturing will produce a better standard than that of WW2 economies. I am not surprised that your weapons are of an acceptable standard for your competition. TBH the guy in the video struck me as a show pony.  I owned a surplus .303 myself years ago did some work on it and got accuracy with handloaded ammo which was better than the commercial stuff. 

Edited by chuckdyke
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I don't know either, but I'd be surprised if snipers were using custom loads at all.....I strongly suspect they'd use standard ammunition.

I believe (in the UK & Soviet Union at least) sniper rifles were selected during the testing process for regular service rifles, the most accurate weapons would be selected for fitting with optics etc.

Edited by Sgt.Squarehead
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3 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

I am not surprised that your weapons are of an acceptable standard for your competition.

I'm not so sure it was as much that, as it was leveling the competition. No one was allowed to go to work on an M-16 or a M1919 and make it competition match quality, where one armorers ability might far exceed the other. Our armorers were generally E-4s or E-5s with no special gunsmith training beyond one level above the soldier's training in maintaining and minor weapons repair. Anything major got sent out or traded for a replacement.

Using our own issue weapons and standard supply ammo ensured that, to the best extent practical, it was primarily a test of marksmanship. And since it was completely a team competition, without individual awards, any variations in weapons quality and accuracy would wash out over the teams. We did of course, very carefully zero our weapons (at least the M-16s - not much you can do with a .45). 

I remember at one point I couldn't zero my issue M-16. It just wouldn't come left enough and I ran out of adjustment. Broke it down and looked down the barrel from breach to muzzle and saw a gibbous moon shape of light at the end! No wonder. Nice warp. Swapped the barrel for one of our spare weapons and the armorer sent off the warped one for replacement. So those kinds of things are about as far as we could go in any modifications to our weapons.

We did one really fun competition with the Cdn Parachute Regt, where we did a combined score. Everyone first shot M-16s and M1919s, and then we switched and everyone shot FNs and Browning Hi-Powers. That was a lot of fun (also the Cdn Paras are a lot of fun - were, actually, since sadly, they are no more).

Far off the track of sniper ammo 🙂  I was just curious whether in an active WW2 environment, a sniper could get better ammo than stock issue, but maybe the "stock" sniper ammo went through a better process. Easy to be separate manufacturing since different weapons (at least for US).

 Dave

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5 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

I believe (in the UK & Soviet Union at least) sniper rifles were selected during the testing process for regular service rifles, the most accurate weapons would be selected for fitting with optics etc.

In the USSR, a select production block of Mosins - regardless of accuracy - would be modified into sniper rifles. In Germany, those K98s that were the most accurate in factory firing tests would be converted into sniper rifles. 

Edited by LukeFF
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6 hours ago, Ultradave said:

not much you can do with a .45

It has become a cottage industry at least for the civilian market. Yours truly here had one. Barrel and bushing went and the replacement was hand fitted by a gunsmith and the inside checked and mirror polished. Same with the sights were replaced. Going back to your post, I imagine better stock ammo was selected for the accredited marksmen. In the game I don't notice any difference between snipers in Red Thunder and Shock Force 2. Kind regards. 

Edited by chuckdyke
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In the comments on the British sniper rifle, one of the respondents says the British took the best rifles out of batch (based on test firing accuracy) and sent them over to the renowned gunsmiths of Holland & Holland for accurizing, measurements and fitting for scope mounts, etc.. What I thought was fascinating ref the British weapon was that he was firing, not modern match grade hand-loaded ammo, but standard .303 cartridges made in 1940 from a rifle made in 1943. Don't know how the Germans handled things on their end, but the ex-sniper with the huge personality and almost impossibly thick accent was raving about how clear the scope was. Have had the opportunity to look through a WW II erman one meter rangefinder that hadn't been rebuilt and look at a bunch of imagery shot through various WW II German optical devices, and would say the reputation for optical clarity and light gathering ability is spot on. Since CMBO first came, there have been vast amounts of time and space on the Forums devoted to determining how good the German optics were and under what conditions.

Believe the way this videos are done is in an effort to make the experience rich and immersive for the viewers, who seem thrilled by the ones he's done and not only are clamoring for more, but making specific requests. Otherwise, we'd have a much longer video that was technically accurate but boring and have to be edited. Who wants to watch, say, two hundred rounds fired on the range with full sniper spotting, firing, assessment and documentation procedures in effect? I found it fascinating to watch him work field targets in rapid succession after the primary British sniper rifle shoot ended. Don't know much about. German ammo, but in the sidebar, there's a separate video on a German cartridge for the 7.92 mm rifle and MG that apparently is a severe threat even against today's body armor. Have seen a video from Iraq, I think, where a jihad executed a long range, thread the needle shot from his SVD firing the 7.62 x 54 mm MG cartridge and hit a US guy smack in the chest insert plate and dropped him straight down. The sniper probably thought he got a kill, but the shot was from far enough away that the bullet didn't have enough energy to penetrate. The shooting competition where people shot a round and then switched weapon sets with the opposing nation's team sounds like a hoot. Have a small amount of experience with shooting a real WW II Kar98K brought in by Samuel Cummings firm Interarms and found the weapon, which was recently obtained and shot without much in the way of zeroing, to be quite accurate. Am looking forward to seeing the Mosin Nagant shoot and would note there's one on the what he calls the best one ever made, the Finnish version. Don't recall the designation. 

Regards,

John Kettler

 

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1 hour ago, chuckdyke said:

It has become a cottage industry at least for the civilian market. Yours truly here had one. Barrel and bushing went and the replacement was hand fitted by a gunsmith and the inside checked and mirror polished. Same with the sights were replaced. Going back to your post, I imagine better stock ammo was selected for the accredited marksmen. In the game I don't notice any difference between snipers in Red Thunder and Shock Force 2. Kind regards. 

Oh, sure. I realize there is much you can do with your own. I meant there isn't anything you can really do for a Army unit's issue weapon. What you got is what you got. We didn't even have enough of them to swap parts around to see if we could make one weapon with better fitting pieces. 🙂

Dave

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22 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Very egalitarian of them!  ;)

😄

It is a nice platform for sniping - I have an original from 1942 - the first year of production - and it shoots pretty well. The one thing that is an annoyance is the lack of a cheek rest

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