Courtesy of PGM Precision USA, we have a chance to take a look at a Hecate II sniper rifle today. This rifle's story begins with the Ultima Ratio, a classic-based 7.62mm precision rifle designed by Gilles Payen in France circa 1991 for the French RAID police unit. The rifle was very well-received...

When World War One began, the British did not have a formal sniping program, and by 1915 the British found themselves thoroughly outclassed by the Germans in this area. They responded by developing tactics and equipment for sniping, and by mid 1916 they had really outclassed the Germans. However,...

There was a fair amount of small arms production in Croatia during the breakup of Yugoslavia, but most of it was not particularly high quality. After the government of Croatia had become established, it looked to arm a formal military, and turned to the Elmech company to produce a sniper's rifle....

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The Japanese Army made significant use of snipers (or in today’s terminology, designated marksmen) as part of its infantry combined arms doctrine, and produced about 22,000 Type 97 sniper rifles for use in WWII and ...

The main British sniper rifle of World War Two, and arguably one of the best looking military sniper rifles of all time, the No4 MkI (T) was something the British military knew they would want even before the No4 MkI rifle had gone into real production. The first No4 snipers were built on leftove...

During World War One, Austria-Hungary produced about 13,000 sniper rifles and carbines - and while the significant majority of these were full length rifles, the Empire was the only major power to produce a scoped sniper carbine during the war. These continued to be produced until about 1920 or 1...

Everything was going great in Sweden until 1940, when they looked up and realized that on one side they were next to a bunch of Finns busy trying to fight off the Russians, and on the other side were a bunch of Norwegians not being quite so successful at fighting off the Germans. It was a dangero...

Unlike Great Britain and Germany, the French military never developed a formal sniper doctrine during World War One - they had no dedicated schools or instruction manuals for that specialty. The three major arsenals did produce scoped sniping rifles, however, with models of 1915, 1916, and 1917 (...

When the British military adopted the FAL (L1A1 SLR) in 1960, they adopted the 7.62x51mm NATO cartridge along with it. While the Brens guns were converted to the new cartridge, efforts at converting the Lee Enfield into a precision rifle were not successful t the time. However, civilian target sh...

This Winchester M70 was a rifle owned by the Captain of the Camp Pendleton rifle team, and as such it is an excellent authentic example of the US sniper rifle of the early Vietnam era. It is chambered for the .30-06 cartridge, with a Winchester heavy target barrel and shorter stock. The scope is ...

The primary sniper rifle used by the United States in World War II was the M1903A4 Springfield, a version of the exisiting 1903A3 with the iron sights removed and replaced with a Weaver 330C scope (adopted by the military as the M73B1). This was a low-power optic, but was centrally mounted on the...

The United States had two primary types of sniper rifles during World War One, although both were based on the M1903 Springfield rifle.

The most common optic used was the Warner & Swasey "Telescopic Musket Sight", a rather clumsy prismatic optic mounted on the left side of the rifle, on a detach...

Around 1980, Israeli purchased a batch of modern Mauser SP66 precision rifles to supplement or replace their stocks of M14 and Mauser K98k sniper rifles. This new rifle was based on the Mauser 66 sporting rifle action, and had been developed by Mauser in the 1970s to meet the new demand for serio...

The Timberwolf is a bolt action precision rifle made by Prarie Gun Works of Manitoba, Canada. It was initially made as a commercial rifle in a number of different calibers, and in 2001 it won Canadian trials to become the C14 Timberwolf Medium Range Sniper Weapon System (replacing the C3A1 Parker...

The primary sniper rifle used by the United States in World War II was the M1903A4 Springfield, a version of the exisiting 1903A3 with the iron sights removed and replaced with a Weaver 330C scope (adopted by the military as the M73B1). This was a low-power optic, but was centrally mounted on the...

The British started World War One without a sniper program, but were quick to develop one once faced with the threat of well-trained German snipers. The initial equipment used by the British was a motley collection of commercial hunting rifles, but by 1915 the government was issuing contract to m...

The standard Spanish infantry rifle from 1943 until the adoption of the CETME was the M43, an 8mm Mauser short rifle made at the La Coruña arsenal. As is fairly common, a sniper rifle variant was made form the standard rifles, with an early version made in the mid 1950s and a later model about a ...

Thanks to Creedmoor Sports for sponsoring this video, and providing a couple of fine shooting mats to experiment with. Check them out for all your long range competition needs!

The Ultima Ratio was the rifle that created PGM Precision as a company. It originated with a tender for a new sniper ...

Make sure to also check out 9 Hole Reviews' field trial of the SSG-69 in military configuration out to 800 yards!

In the 1960s, Steyr Daimler Pusch developed a modern sniper rifle for the Austrian military (and also for commercial civilian sale). It was adopted as the SSG-69 (Scharfschützen-Ge...

In the aftermath of World War Two, the Austrian Army was basically disarmed and disbanded. When it was allowed to reform in the 1950s, it needed new armaments, and in 1958 it adopted the SSG-98k as a new sniper's rifle. This replaced the leftover German K98k snipers that had been used by the smal...

The United States Army entered World War Two with neither sniper rifles nor a sniper training program. As troops began to see combat, requests began to come back to the War Department that both were urgently needed. The newly-adopted dM1 Garand rifle was going to be a bit tricky to mount optics o...

The Finns developed several difference scopes rifles in the 1930s, but none were made in large quantities, and they were not really much used during the Winter War or Continuation War. The first post-war consideration was given to a new model in 1954, but that led instead to a decision to make a ...

Today we are taking the Remington M1903A4 out to the range for some shooting. This was the standard US sniper rifle during World War Two, and I'm curious to see how one actually handles...

Argentina was one of the first countries to adopt Mauser rifles, with the Model 1891. These were replaced by newer Model 1909 rifles a couple decades later, and in 1913 they bought 500 telescopic sights to make sniper rifles. All of them appear to have been put on cavalry carbines like this one, ...