American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U. S. Military History

Mk-11
O
fficially called the Mk-11 Mod X Special Purpose Rifle and also

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known as the SR25, this is an extremely versatile weapon. I
particularly like the idea of the Mk-11 because I could patrol with it
(in place of an M-4) and still use it as a sniper rifle. It didn’t have a
collapsible stock, but that was its only drawback. I would tie the
suppressor onto my kit, leaving it off during the start of a patrol. If I
needed to take a sniper shot, I would put it on. But if I was on the
street or moving on foot, I could shoot back right away. It was
semiautomatic, so I could get a lot of bullets on a target, and it fired
7.62 × .51 mm bullets from a twenty-round box. Those had more
stopping power than the smaller 5.56 NATO rounds. I could shoot
a guy once and put him down.
Our rounds were match-grade ammo bought from Black Hills,
which makes probably the best sniper ammo around.
The Mk-11 had a bad reputation in the field because it would
often jam. We wouldn’t have jams that much in training, but
overseas was a different story. We eventually figured out that
something to do with the dust cover on the rifle was causing a
double feed; we solved a lot of the problem by leaving the
dustcover down. There were other issues with the weapon,
however, and personally it was never one of my favorites.
.300 Win Mag
T
he .300 is in another class entirely.
As I’m sure many readers know, .300 Win Mag (pronounced

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“three hundred win mag”) refers to the bullet the rifle fires, the .300
Winchester Magnum round (7.62 × 67 mm). It’s an excellent all-
around cartridge, whose performance allows for superb accuracy
as well as stopping power.
Other services fire the round from different (or slightly different)
guns; arguably, the most famous is the Army’s M-24 Sniper
Weapon System, which is based on the Remington 700 rifle. (Yes,
that is the same rifle civilians can purchase for hunting.) In our case,
we started out with MacMillan stocks, customized the barrels, and
used 700 action. These were nice rifles.
In my third platoon—the one that went to Ramadi—we got all
new .300s. These used Accuracy International stocks, with a
brand-new barrel and action. The AI version had a shorter barrel
and a folding stock. They were bad-ass.
The .300 is a little heavier gun by design. It shoots like a laser.
Anything from a thousand yards and out, you’re just plain nailing it.
And on closer targets, you don’t have to worry about too much
correction for your come-ups. You can dial in your five-hundred-
yard dope and still hit a target from one hundred to seven hundred
yards without worrying too much about making minute adjustments.
I used a .300 Win Mag for most of my kills.