Sniper Central Blog

The Sniper Central offices will be closed from July 7th - July 10th for a family vacation. The web site will be taking orders but these orders will not be shipped until Monday the 12th. Emails and phone calls will also not be returned until Monday July 12th. We regret any inconvenience this may cause and look forward to serving you when we get back.

MEL

We now have some Federal Gold Medal Match 168gr in stock for a decent price, as well as some Hornady 168gr TAP and the new 178gr Superformance match which looks very impressive for a 308 launching their high BC 178gr HPBT Match bullet at 2775 fps. You can check them out here:

Sniper Central Store

MEL

June 14th is not only Flag Day, but also the Birthday of the US Army… happy birthday!

We just got in the first batch of the HSM Mk248 Mod1 300 Win Mag ammo. This is a 220gr Sierra Match King bullet launched at 2830 fps. (26″ barrel). You can purchase it HERE.

We also picked up:
338 Lapua : 230gr, 250gr, & 300gr
300 Win Mag : 185gr, 190gr & 220gr
308 Win : 155gr Palma VLD, 175gr, 190gr

You can see our current inventory here
HSM Long Range Ammo

MEL

For those of you that have not yet heard, there is a published report about a new ‘longest kill’ record (at least for unclassified operations) performed by a British sniper Craig Harrison in November 2009. Actually it was two kills on Taliban machine gunners in Afghanistan. The distance was a GPS measured 2706 yards (2475 meters) or 1.56 miles away. Perhaps the more interesting thing about these kills is that they were performed using the L115A3 which is the Accuracy International Super Magnum chambered in 338 Lapua. Most of the 2000+ meter kills, including the previous record set by Rob Furlong, of Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, were done using .50 BMG rifles. This does show the long range potential of the 338 Lapua cartridge, especially with the specially developed high power load that the UK uses, though Craig Harrison did admit it was perfect conditions with no wind.

Sightron has released for 2010 a series of three fixed power tactical scopes, 10×42, 16×42, and 20×42. These all have a rear focus ring, exposed large knobs, 30mm tubes, ZACT-7 Lens Coating, Precision ground lenses, mildot reticle, 150 MOA of elevation and a fast focus eye piece. Prices are going to be around the $550 range. If they sound to you like the SWFA SS line of scopes I would not blame you. There are some differences but the main features are very similar though I suspect the SIII optics should be quite nice.

The US Army is now getting industry response and bids on the updates to the M24. This will include rechambering the rifles to 300 Win Mag as well as new optics of up to 25x. It also includes a new stock with rails up front (no doubt for improved night vision sights) and an adjustable stock for length of pull as well as cheek height. One last interesting note was the inclusion of a 10 round magazine. The new systems are scheduled to begin being deployed in the fall of 2010.

With all of the changes that are involved I suspect the cost is going to rival that of getting a replacement system. They are changing everything except the action, which is relatively inexpensive. They are giving up all of the advantages of sticking with the M24 in terms of saving money and speeding up deployment of the updated system. It will be interesting to see if they can meet their budget as well as their time line.

MEL

The US Army announced that is will start fielding the popular “MultiCam” color pattern on ACU’s for soldiers serving in Afghanistan starting this summer. MultiCam has been a long time favorite of the Special Ops units as well as others and it appears to have won out in a small comparison between another pattern.

On February 27th at 2200 MST the Sniper Central server will be down for up to 4 hours for network maintenance to update some hardware.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Federal has joined the 338 Lapua game with a Gold Medal Match 250gr HPBT load. It launches the 250gr Sierra Match King bullet at 2950 fps. It is nice to see them get into the Lapua game, but I would like to see them offer the 300gr HPBT as well.