The 1985 competition to pick a new sniper rifle for the British military came down to a closely fought contest between the Accuracy International PM and the Parker Hale M85. The M85 was a fantastically accurate rifle, every bit the equal of the AI submission and to this day there are still people...

After the British adoption of the Accuracy International PM as the L96A1 sniper rifle, other nations began to give a very serious look at the company and its rifles. One of the first was Sweden, which requested a rifle like the PM/L96 but with a few changes to better suit the northern environment...

In 2007, the British Army placed an order for 582 AI Arctic Warfare Super Magnum rifles chambered for the .338 Lapua Magnum cartridge, formally adopting the model as the L115A3 sniper rifle. This followed special forces use of the .338 Accuracy International rifles in Afghanistan, where the A1 (f...

The Accuracy International Precision Marksman rifle was the winner of the British MoD's competition to replace the L42A1 as the standard British sniper rifle, and was accordingly adopted as the L96A1. It was the vanguard of the modern sniper rifle, with a highly modular chassis design, and it rev...

When St Etienne developed the FR-F1 sniper rifle, all the branches of the French military were given the opportunity to purchase them - and the Army, Navy, and Gendarmerie did. The Air Force, decided that it didn't need any, though. Until about 20 years later, when they decided that they did, in ...

The Canadian infantry that went to Europe in the early years of World Wa rOne were equipped primarily with the Ross MkIII rifle. The Ross would become quite the scandal, and was replaced in service with the SMLE in 1916 - but as a sniper rifle the Ross excelled. Its problems in service were large...

Czechoslovakia adopted a whole new slate of small arms in the 1950s, including the vz.52 pistol vz.52 rifle, and vz.52 light machine gun. They also adopted a new sniper rifle, developed by a Moravian designed names Otakar Galaš. Galaš was a skilled competitive shooter as well as an arms designer,...

The FR-F1 was adopted in 1967 as the French Army's marksman or sniper's rifle. It was based roughly on the MAS-36 bolt action system, but with a heavier receiver and 10-round detachable box magazine. It used the same scope as he MAS 49-56; the APX L806, a 3.85x optic largely modeled after the Ger...

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...