A good sniper can damage enemy’s morale by taking out key personnel. They can stop a unit in its tracks. But for a good sniper a gun with an eagle sight, deadly impact and a monstrous fire power is essential. Today we have rounded up Top 10 Sniper Rifles of all times.
No 10. M24 (American)
| Calibre: | 7.62x51mm NATO (.308 win) |
| Operation: | Bolt Action |
| Feed: | 5-Round internal magazine |
| Weight: | 12.1 lb (5.49 kg) empty without telescope |
| Length: | 43in (1092mm) |
| Sights: | 10×42 Leupold Ultra M3A telescope sight (Mil-Dots), plus detachable emergency iron sights. (Redfield Palma International) |
| Barrel: | 416R Stainless Steel, 24″ length, 1:11.2″ twist, 5 radial land grooves |
| Stock: | HS Precision – adjustable length. |
| Max Effective Range: | 800 meters (875 yards) |
| Expected Accuracy: | 1 MOA with M118 .5 MOA with M118LR |
The M24 Sniper’s Weapon System (SWS) represents a return to bolt action sniper rifles by the US Army. As in the USMC M40A1, the M24 uses the Remington 700 action, although the reciever is a long action made for adaptation to take the .300 Winchester Magnum round. The stock (HS Precision) is made of a composite of Kevlar, graphite and fibreglass bound together with epoxy resins, and features an aluminium bedding block and adjustable butt plate. A detachable bipod (Harris) can be attached to the stocks fore-end. The metal finish is powder coated for extreme durability
The rifle had a very quick development cycle as the US Army had decided it wanted to get snipers back into the US Army and was in the process of developing the B4 identifier and the school to award it. There was a major short fall of M21’s which was the standard sniper rifle at that point of time and the Army figured it would need 10,000 sniper rifles of which they didn’t have nearly that many M21’s. So a new sniper rifle was developed at the same time and it was done in a record 22 months. The Weapon System Matrix Manager for the M24 was Major John Mende and he explains that the long action actually had nothing to do with the ability to convert to a .300 Win Mag but was a product of that quick development time. The rifle was intended to be chambered in the .30-06 as the -06 was a type classified munition for the Army unlike the .300 WM at the time. They wanted to have a high power load for the .30-06 eventually developed. As development of the system was moving forward they discovered that there was not enough .30-06 ammo in a single lot in the Army’s inventory to test and develop the system so they quickly changed to the 7.62x51mm NATO (308 Win) and left the action the same as there was not enough time for the manufacturers of the stock and floorplate to make the change to short action. They also fully believed they would later do a product improvement update and convert all the M24’s to .30-06. The fact that they could convert them to .300 Win Mag was an unexpected benefit to the SF groups and was never actually designed into the system.
