I'm reading a book about the Navy Seal's and was surprised to learn that in the early 90's they used the .300 Win Mag as their preferred ammo. Which rifle/platform would they have used or are currently using? And what would be the closest to a commercial rifle that I could use to build for long range target practice? I was under the impression that most military used either the .308 or .50 BMG?
.300 Win Mag sniper rifle question?
- Thread starter Alfonso
- Start date
No, they often use a variant of the Mk13, which is a long action, but little to nothing to do with an M40.
They are still using lots of them. If you get a sendero in 300WM, put it in a tan folding AICS, and rattle can the snot out of it, it will look similar, but I doubt you'd want the strange barrel profile on the mk13mod5. The real deal is about as custom as you can get off a 700 action though. One of the past versions used a super thick recoil lug that had another bedding screw in it for example.
Navy SEALs did/do use 300 Win Mag in custom Remington 700.
Recently the AICS stock has been extremely popular but McMillan used to be gold standard.
Barrels were McMillan and Lilja with 27 or even 30" length.
No much information is available on these rifles since they were custom jobs for the Navy SEALs.
The Mk13 is much more recent and is well documented. It was so effective in combat that the US Army had its long action Remington 700 converted to 300 Win Mag 220SMK as an interim sniping system.
For the long term, a 338 rifle program is proceeding.
Alex
My SEAL shootng buddies tell me that all their sniper rifles are custom made in their own shops by Navy gunsmiths. I think they told me they used a bolt action single shot 50cal sniper rifle. Single shot for better bedding and stability.
The only point that I would see is that US Army is deploying 300 Win Mag as an interim sniper weapon system...
It might be as much interim solution as the M16 was in Vietnam (Is the M16 still in service anywhere ?
)Alex
- Location
- currently downrange
Ok so if I go out and buy a Rem Sendero in 300 Win Mag and either place it in a AICS OR McMillan stock and throw on a 10X Leupold scope I should have something close to a repro Seal sniper rifle for s**ts and giggles at the range right??? Or would any heavy barrel Rem 700 (non sendero, such as police variant) work too?
Thanks
Thanks
I have a Rem 700 XCR Tactical in an AICS 1.5 in 300WM - imagine my surprise when I found out it was a SEAL 'sniper rig' look-a-like . Gotta be worth an extra few hundred now eh ! Actually I know nothing about the SEAL Mk 13 but I will say that the AICS very nicely absorbs the recoil of this, unbraked,.300WM.and allows me to get some pretty good accuracy with 190g SMK's.
. Gotta be worth an extra few hundred now eh ! Actually I know nothing about the SEAL Mk 13 but I will say that the AICS very nicely absorbs the recoil of this, unbraked,.300WM.and allows me to get some pretty good accuracy with 190g SMK's.Depends if you want more ####s, or giggles.
Action+barrel ~1800-2K
AICS ~1300
You are into TRG territory as far as cost goes. I would expect the TRG to be a better rifle. The Mk13 upgrade path makes sense for a military that had long actions, gunsmiths, and did it in stages though.
So do you think the Sako TRG 42 would also be a decent substitute for "makebelieve" sniper shoots?
Ar180shooter
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Ottawa, ON
The Sako TRG is a military rifle. I have two TRG 22's (26" and 20" barrels) and both are half minute rifles. I don't own a TRG 42 but expect them to be every bit as good as the 22's. I understand they are available in .300wm and .338 Lapua.
