The Solitary War of the Sniper

Rare find you lucky devil. Star

I'm not sure if the red label was intentionally made for rifle use, but 20-round boxes was standard packaging & the MG ammo would have to be linked anyway.

The way I heard the tale it was simply horse traded for "whatever" & then used.

Don't shoot till you see the whites of their thighs. (Unofficial motto of the Royal Air Force)

Strangely Brown wrote:

I've been loathe to mention this because the last time I did it came in for a mauling by one of the resident experts on that "other" forum.

In the late 80's on a local gun range I often shot with a lad who had seen service in Northern Ireland as I had, his regiment, The Royal Anglican's known over here as "The Poachers" were stationed in Kent at Shorncliffe barracks.

After our weekly revolver shoots we both swapped story's of daring do like most ex squaddies after a pint.

Mick, (same name as mine) was not one of those people you associate with BS, his reminisces were always believable and had a strong ring of truth about them. His regiment had been "warned for active service", once warned anybody going AWOL could (and would) be court martialed.

Weapon training ensued and the sniper platoon were not happy about the accuracy of the 4T's which rarely left the armoury.

At this point it's worth mentioning that the British army didn't have a sensible cleaning regime for rifles in 1969 and the majority of barrels would have been extensively copper fouled. Add to that the ammunition would have come from Radway Green, who history records didn't have a good reputation; RG stopped .303 production 1973.

These were the days of many squaddies having private weapons and shooting alongside civilians at local clubs, after a discussion at the local civilian gun club some .303 reloads (or possibly commercial .303?, it was a long time ago!) were obtained and proved more accurate than the issued the RG .303.

Bearing in mind I was told this about 37 years ago and the event took place 56 years ago. The upshot was an ammo can swap of RG 7.62 for a similar quantity of club .303.

This happened at a time when some Infantry regiments were a law unto themselves and having worked alongside the Royal Green Jackets in 1973 I can well believe the authenticity of the story.

My memory seems to think that Mick may have been the sniper platoon sergeant?

Mick, this story may have given me another small piece of the puzzle regarding the T. Going back thru data I’ve collected over the course of shooting the T with 3 different barrels has shown me they all have the very same behavior regarding the influence of variations in muzzle velocity! What I thought was a “bad barrel” may well be something inherent in the scoped action stiffness behavior.

With consistent velocities, the rifle will stack shots on top of each other at 600 yards, quite remarkable actually. I watched it happed again today, clusters of shots within 1/2 minute, or less, at 600x when velocities were within about 20 fps.

It might be time to break out the Dominion Arsenal 1951 Mk 7z ammo used in the DCRA matches for several years. And do some tests with it.

britrifles wrote:

It might be time to break out the Dominion Arsenal 1951 Mk 7z ammo used in the DCRA matches for several years. And do some tests with it.

Geoff, I shall be interested to hear how this goes...

Sniper ammunition over hear in the era of the L42 was the L2A2 round and once Radway Green had set up their reloading presses for a run of it the first 200 rounds were selected as "sniper grade" or Green Spot to give it's commercial name, or so popular myth tells us...

I honestly don't know if that is correct but I've certainly been guilty of repeating it in the past; actually 200 rounds doesn't sound much at all so the more I think about the commerciality of it I keep coming back to popular myth?

A friend (Seth) acquired a box of Green Spot (80's dated from memory?) and tried it a few months ago; he wasn't impressed!

Please keep us informed how this goes Geoff, I was born in 51 so it'll be interesting to see how it performs or whether the knees have gone like mine!

Mick

With y'all talking about this book so much I guess I will have to buy a copy.

Where can I get the best price on it?

Thanks

The Solitary War of the Sniper

I have one of the Shorncliff No4T sniper rifles

Thanks

I read an interesting paragraph written by Sgt Furness. He said that it was standard procedure to take head shots out to 300 yards, aiming at the mouth. That way, a high shot would hit the forehead and a low shot would hit the throat. Beyond 300 yards, only body shots were taken.

This implies that elevation spreads at 300 yds may be as much as +/- 6 inches (+/- 2 MOA), for a total extreme spread of 4 MOA. That sounds like a lot, but if you break this down:

1) Errors in range estimation of +/- 25 yards, +/- 1 MOA

2) Aim/hold errors, +/- 0.5 MOA

3) Bullet drop variation due to bullet muzzle velocity variations of +/- 50 fps, +/- 0.5 MOA

At times, these errors can cancel out to some degree (on a good day). But should the rifle have negative compensation, errors due to 3) bullet velocity variation will be amplified, perhaps by another +/- 1 MOA. If the rifle has very strong positive compensation (say at 800 yds), the muzzle velocity variations may be overcome such that the error at 300 yards is in the other direction but of a higher magnitude. So, it's easy to see why head shots would not be attempted beyond 300 yds and the need for ammunition with consistent velocity was so important.

Sgt Furness preferred to work alone, reducing the chances he would be detected. His goal was to get within 400 yards. He explained that it was potentially disastrous to miss on the first shot and take a second shot as it would often invite a massive retaliation by the enemy who would throw everything they had in his direction including rifle and machine gun fire, mortars and even artillery.

We were taught to aim at the "V" of the uniform jacket or shirt.

Same idea high was a head-shot & low was a center body hit out to about 500 yds or so.

Don't shoot till you see the whites of their thighs. (Unofficial motto of the Royal Air Force)