National Defense

Here’s Why The Military Stuck With Old Sniper Rifle

Flickr/U.S. Department of War

The Department of War (DOW) is equipping snipers with a rifle using a technology it discarded for front-line troops over 85 years ago.

The Barrett MRAD rifle was selected by DOW to serve as the Mk 22 Precision Sniper Rifle. The Army is paying the Tennessee gun manufacturer $49.9 million for 2,800 rifles, while the Marine Corps is acquiring another 250, according to Soldier of Fortune. The Mk 22 comes in three calibers: 7.62x51mm NATO, .300 Norma Magnum and .338 Norma Magnum. It has a ten-round detachable magazine and uses a bolt-action system, which at first glance seems obsolete, but one former sniper told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the older system was still useful.

“Bolt action rifles are more consistent, more reliable, more durable, easier to maintain in the field,” attorney Ryan Cleckner, a former sniper with the United States Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment, told the DCNF. “Secondary, kind of like, I’m not a NASCAR fan, I don’t know if you are, but NASCAR, they still use manual transmissions, they still shift with the clutch when we have great automatic transmissions in cars now. Why? Well, because an automatic transmission is too complicated, too finicky, and doesn’t allow the amount of control and robustness that the manual transmission needs. That’s a fair analogy to bolt action rifles.”

“When it comes to a rifle extracting a spent case, especially when it gets dirty or it is not perfect lubrication around in battlefield conditions, I, as a sniper grabbing the bolt handle, can easily rip the cartridge case out with my arm and push the next one in” Cleckner continued. “But if you’re relying on gas systems and things like that to work, they don’t always work. And then now you have a malfunction and your gun’s not even working, which is much, much slower than a bolt.”

The United States ditched bolt-action rifles for regular infantrymen in the months prior to World War II, replacing the M1903 Springfield with the M1 Garand to give troops additional firepower. Since then, regular infantrymen have used the M14, M16, and M7 rifles alongside the M4 and M8 carbines.

“The Army has fielded both gas and bolt operated sniper systems in multiple calibers. Each system meets distinct Warfighter requirements across a range of operational environments,” a U.S. Army spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The Mk 22 Precision Sniper Rifle (PSR) reflects a balanced, capability-based requirement that prioritizes deliberate precision, first-round hit probability, modularity, and mission adaptability.”

Snipers, though, mostly have used bolt-action rifles, like the M40 and M24/M2010 systems, but semiautomatic sniper rifles have been used by the United States military in the past. The M110 Semi-Automatic Sniper System, based on the Knight Armament Company’s SR-25, was introduced in 2008, according to GlobalMilitary.com and can fire either 7.62x51mm NATO or 6.5mm Creedmoor rounds, with a 20-shot magazine.

The M21 rifle was adopted by the United States Army during the Vietnam War, and was the weapon used by the top American sniper of the war, Army Staff Sgt. Adelbert Waldron, who had 109 confirmed kills.

The .338 Lapua has been used for some of the longest sniper engagements in history, including a shot of just over 2,700 yards by Corporal of Horse Craig Harrison of the British Army’s Household Cavalry. It was primarily used with the Accuracy International Arctic Warfare Magnum bolt-action rifle during the Global War on Terror.

Two companies, Rock River Arms and Noreen, have offered AR-15 platform rifles chambered for the .338 Lapua Magnum for sale on their websites. Both rifles are semi-automatic and have ten-round detachable magazines, but Cleckner said that the companies may not have been able to meet the DOW’s production standards, even though Rock River has secured contracts to produce firearms for the FBI and Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

“Those rifles are neat, but even some of these other contracts that come up by these smaller companies that will build field two to five really nice working samples for the military to decide that they like,” Cleckner told the DCNF. “In my experience with government contracting, I’ve had experience as the sniper in the military and I’m an attorney for gun companies for government contracting. So I help them help companies field these and get them through the selection process. The military invariably finds out that rifle number 1000 not only is that the same as rifle number one in standards, they often have different parts. They’ll just start using different springs at rifle number 400 because they ran out of the first springs or because their supply system isn’t robust enough.”

Barrett also made a popular sniper rifle used for some of the world’s longest shots, the M82/M107 rifle, a semi-automatic system which fires the .50 BMG round and has a ten-round magazine. Barrett, Noreen and Rock River Arms did not respond to requests for comment from the DCNF.