Alright, had drill this week, last one before I take off. It was kind of a goat rodeo, but we won't get into that.
The highlights were familiarization with the new M110 sniper system, which is basically an accurized AR-10. The weapon system wasn't bad, I'm thinking if we get some match grade ammo we'll be able to shoot up to the limit of the rifle. I don't prefer it over the M-24, but there you go. After that, we took out the M-107 Barrett .50 Cal "sniper rifle". It's not bad, but not real great. We put quite a few downrange with that, and shot an APC out at 1200 meters with it. Biggest problem with that is that it's a 3 MOA rifle, so it's really not for shooting people. Mostly cars and other hard targets.
On our third day of shooting, we went back to the range with the M110. The first day with the M110, there were a bunch of police snipers from all over the country out there coaching us with our shooting. My biggest problem is that since it's a semi-auto rifle, I can crank off the shots, one with each breath. The shot group tightened up some when I took a longer time between shots, but not a whole lot. Mike Tkac from a company called Center Mass Inc. was out at the range both days, helping everyone with our shooting, and running us through some different drills. We did a couple stress drills, but the most interesting one, and ultimately the most useful, was the box drill. Basically, you shoot three rounds in the center of the target, then make adjustments to upper left, lower left, lower right, and upper right, to ensure that your scope is moving as it should be. This is valuable for anyone shooting a scoped rifle, as we found two scopes that weren't adjusting properly.
We had a bit of an argument on the first day with the NCOIC and the RSO, about shooting with our suppressors. The M110 comes with a suppressor that attaches easy as pie. The RSO and NCOIC weren't sure why we would be interested in zeroing without the suppressor, even after we tried to explain that we wouldn't be using the suppressor all the time. Bottom line, the suppressor changed the impact of the round significantly. Also, the suppressor quieted the rounds to little more than that of a .22 rifle. You don't even need ear protection with these things, and I'm thinking it will be great for urban sniping.
Ultimately, Mike from Center Mass Inc. shared a lot of insight, knowledge, as well as experience. I'd recommend them for anyone interested in some advanced training for their department or unit.
www.centermassinc.comKent
