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.50 Caliber
T
he fifty is huge, extremely heavy, and I just don’t like it. I never
T
used one in Iraq.
There’s a certain amount of hype and even romance for these
weapons, which shoot a 12.7 × 99 mm round. There are a few
different specific rifles and variations in service with the U.S. military
and other armies around the world. You’ve probably heard of the
Barrett M-82 or the M-107, developed by Barrett Firearms
Manufacturing. They have enormous ranges and in the right
application are certainly good weapons. I just didn’t like them all
that much. (The one .50 I do like is the Accuracy International
model, which has a more compact, collapsible stock and a little
more accuracy; it wasn’t available to us at the time.)
Everyone says that the .50 is a perfect anti-vehicle gun. But the
truth is that if you shoot the .50 through a vehicle’s engine block,
you’re not actually going to stop the vehicle. Not right away. The
fluids will leak out and eventually it will stop moving. But it’s not
instant by any means. A .338 and even a .300 will do the same
thing. No, the best way to stop a vehicle is to shoot the driver. And
that you can do with a number of weapons.
.338
W
e didn’t have .338s in training; we started getting them later on
during the war. Again, the name refers to the bullet; there are a
number of different manufacturers, including MacMillan and
Accuracy International. The bullet shoots farther and flatter than a
.50 caliber, weighs less, costs less, and will do just as much
damage. They are awesome weapons.
I used a .338 on my last deployment. I would have used it more
if I’d had it. The only drawback for me was my model’s lack of a
suppressor. When you’re shooting inside a building, the concussion
is strong enough that it’s a pain—literally. My ears would hurt after
a few shots.
S
ince I’m talking about guns, I’ll mention that my current favorites
are the weapons systems made by GA Precision, a very small
company started in 1999 by George Gardner. He and his staff pay
close attention to every detail, and his weapons are just awesome. I
didn’t get a chance to try one until I got out of the service, but now
they’re what I use.
S
copes are an important part of the weapon system. Overseas, I
used a 32-power scope. (The powers on a scope refer to the
magnification of the focal length. Without getting too technical, the
higher the power, the better a shooter can see at a distance. But
there are tradeoffs, depending on the situation and the scope.
Scopes should be chosen with a mind toward the situation they’ll be
used in; to give an obvious example, a 32-power scope would be
wildly inappropriate on a shotgun.) Additionally, depending on the
circumstances, I had an infrared and visible red laser, as well as
night vision for the scope.
As a SEAL, I used Nightforce scopes. They have very clear
glass, and they’re extremely durable under terrible conditions. They
always held their zero for me. On deployments, I used a Leica
range finder to determine how far I was from a target.
Most of the stocks on my guns used adjustable cheek-pieces.
Sometimes called a comb (technically, the comb is the top piece of
the stock, but the terms are sometimes interchanged), the extension
let me keep my eye in position when sighting through the scope. On
older weapons, we would adapt a piece of hard-packed foam and
raise the stock to the right height. (As scope rings have gotten larger
and more varied in size, the ability to change the stock height has
become more important.)
I used a two-pound trigger on my rifles. That’s a fairly light pull.
I want the trigger to surprise me every time; I don’t want to jerk the
gun as I fire. I want no resistance:
Get set, get ready, put my finger and gently start squeezing,
and it goes off.
A
s a hunter, I knew how to shoot, how to make the bullet go from
point A to point B. Sniper school taught me the science behind it all.
One of the more interesting facts is that the barrel of a rifle cannot
touch any part of the stock: they need to be free-floating to increase
accuracy. (The barrel will “float” in the stock, due to the way the
stock is cut out. It attaches only to the main body of the rifle.) When
you shoot a round, a vibration comes through the barrel, known as
barrel whip. Anything touching the barrel will affect that vibration,
and, in turn, affect the accuracy. Then there are things like the
Coriolis effect, which has to do with the rotation of the earth and the
effect it has on a rifle bullet. (This comes into play only at extremely
long distances.)
You live all of this technical data in sniper school. You learn
about how far to lead someone when they’re moving—if they’re
walking, if they’re running, depending on the distance. You keep
doing it until the understanding is embedded not just in your brain
but in your arms and hands and fingers.
I
n most shooting situations, I adjust for elevation, but not for
windage. (Simply put, adjusting for elevation means adjusting my
aim to compensate for the drop of my bullet over the distance it
travels; windage means compensating for the effect of the wind.)
The wind is constantly changing. So about the time I adjust for
wind, the wind changes. Elevation is a different story—though if
you’re in a combat situation, a lot of times you don’t have the luxury
of making a fine adjustment. You have to shoot or be shot.
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