A small British company, which has a fascinating history, called Accuracy International (AI) had been established as a small-scale precision rifle manufacturer for civilian competition shooting. It was the competition to replace L42A1 that would mark the transition of sniper rifles to the specialised high performance systems that they are today. The end result was the L42A1 rifle which served for nearly 20 years. The solution selected was to convert some 1,000 No.4 Mk.1 (T) and No.4 Mk.1* (T) to the 7.62×51 mm calibre with a new free-floating barrel, change the wooden furniture to accommodate the new barrel and refurbish the No.32 telescopic sight. These 7.7×56 mmR sniper rifles remained in service to the end of the 1960s.īy this point, the 7.62×51 mm NATO round had been the standard round in the British Army for some 15 years and it was decided to develop a sniper system that used this calibre. This was followed by the No.4 Mk.1* (T), with the No.32 sight undergoing various improvements as well. This saw changes to the wooden rifle furniture to the sniper configuration and attachment points were added to mount the No.32 3.5× telescopic sight, with the weapon designated as the No.4 Mk.1 (T). When the No.4 Mk.1 Lee Enfield was the standard production rifle, the most accurate rifles were identified during the production process and put to one side for conversion to a sniper rifle. Like many others, the British Army would base its sniper rifle on the in-service rifle. The starting point for this is with the Lee Enfield bolt action battle rifle in 7.7×56 mmR (.303) calibre, this was manufactured in Britain from 1895 until 1956. The British Army provides an excellent example of how sniping and the provision of equipment for sniping has changed over the years. In the past though the picture as regards sniping was far less indulgent, sniping was acknowledged as having real value, but weapons that were specifically designed for sniping applications were simply not considered as necessary. The HK416F rifles are equipped with Aimpoint CompM5 optics, France ordered 120,000 CompM5 optics in July 2018. Ideally having the ability to acquire different rifle solutions, usually in different calibres, for anti-materiel and anti-personnel applications.įrench forces on exercise in Estonia, with their standard HK416F 5.56×45 mm assault rifles, note the blank firing adaptor. The asymmetric conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan proved conclusively that possession of a high quality sniping capability is essential on the modern battlefield. In parallel there is a large selection of precision optics that can be utilised by these sniper rifles offering high precision anti-personnel/anti-materiel capabilities at extraordinary ranges, compared to previous sniping capabilities. Today, there is a vast choice of sniper rifles, and these come in a multiplicity of calibres. On the other hand, there were no objections to fitting telescopic sights to sniper rifles, people had been doing this for more than a century! Obviously in that period the quality of optical sights increased significantly. Again if we use the 1970s as our starting point the quality versus cost argument did not appear to be that persuasive in terms of an optic for an individual rifle. Spending money on optical sighting systems for ordinary infantry might be considered unnecessary, and as an expensive and pointless luxury when existing methods are perfectly satisfactory. Then innate conservatism comes into play, the infantry have been using rifles with iron sights virtually forever, teaching marksmanship is a fundamental part of the training regime and obviously gets results. There are a multitude of reasons for this, some are technical, a lot of the technologies that are commonplace today were, exotic and expensive, and in many cases not that impressive, or simply did not exist in the 1970s for example. The roads to personal weapons having the ability to accept a profusion of different sights, accessories and ancillary systems has been a long one. Certainly Special Operations Forces (SOF) seem to be particularly keen on maximising the accessory count on their weapons. There appear to be no limits as to what users wish to attach to weapons, almost to the point where the original assault rifle appears to be totally unbalanced due to all the bits and pieces that some users feel are absolutely essential to conduct their mission. These days it is no surprise to see an assault rifle festooned with all sorts of accessories, all accommodated on rail systems attached to the body of the weapon.
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