Ragnar Benson - Ragnar's Urban Survival - A Hard-Times Guide to Staying Alive in the City

Are accurate 500-yard shots inside cities sufficient? Perhaps yes and perhaps no. Firearms are always very personal matters. My position is that sniper rifles of some sort are extremely important, and that an 800- to 1,000-yard rifle will also do well at 500 yards. But it doesn't work the other way around.

My analysis of this Beiruti fellow's grasp of this subject was complicated by the fact that, although he had been an active soldier engaged in fighting in the city, he had no clue regarding differences between hunting and sniper rifles. He did not even know how to sight in a rifle with optic sights!

Israeli army tacticians started it with development of their Uzi submachine guns. Instead of taking careful aim, the concept here was to let a hail of bullets fly in the direction of a potential target, who cowered to hide or ran in terror.

Sniper rifles will ground these machines just as effectively as a 20mm cannon.

The concept of just firing toward a target rather than taking aim became doctrine in the Middle East and then in the old Soviet army. Things are slowly changing back again, but we still see military units today composed of infantry who engage the enemy by firing AK-47s blindly around corners or over the tops of barriers. There are also increasing numbers of soldiers who carry what we might refer to as scope-sighted deer rifles. They are called snipers, but these are the guys who are supposed to shoot at specific enemy targets out to the limit of their weapon's range (about 500 to 600 yards). Will shooters aiming at an enemy again outnumber general-direction shooters? Changes seem to be occurring. How far they go is anybody's guess.

My personal conviction is that true long-range, superaccurate sniper rifles are the next wave. This is principally because these weapons can inflict incredible material damage on enemy equipment without actually physically engaging enemy personnel. For those who can really acclimate themselves to coldly shooting another human, sniper rifles can also be a real deterrent to invaders. Shoot the pilot or ruin his helicopter on the ground; the results are similar.

There is .always the danger of fighting this war with last war's technology. Sniper rifles may fall into that category, but for the foreseeable future they seem to have secured their role as destroyers of valuable, often irreplaceable property from great distance and as a deterrent to infantry. It also seems that after a veritable explosion of recent sniper rifle technology, things have stabilized to some extent. It's a good time to put a sniper rifle together.

A Sako L691 action is an excellent basis for sniper rifle.

Accurate ultra-long-range sniper rifles are costly and time consuming to assemble, but for city survivors, their ability to destroy valuable equipment at long range is priceless.

ASSEMBLING A SNIPER RIFLE

Assembling a tactical rifle takes at least 18 months and about $2,000. City survivors who might need this type of equipment are well advised to get cracking. Not only does assembling all the components take time, it only takes one nut to bring the wrath of the government down on these weapons. Absolutely everyone with any qualifications who makes these weapons is currently booked ahead about 6 to 8 months. If new regulations are proposed, prices will zoom skyward and waiting lines will become hopeless.

There are, of course, many ways to proceed. First and easiest, but not usually best, is to purchase a completely assembled, heavy-barreled Winchester or Remington sniper rifle. Because these stock packages are not usually 1/4-minute-of-angle grade without further tuning by a competent sniper rifle gunsmith, this is not usually considered to be the best course of action.

Properly mounting a scope can be expensive and complicated. Fortunately, this is the last step to putting together a genuine tactical rifle.

Bill Hicks and Co., Ltd., 15155 23rd Avenue North, Minneapolis, MN 55447, often seems to have the best inventory of these types of rifles. Hicks is a wholesaler, so one would have to ask a local dealer to order for them.

Most basic actions used in tactical rifles require extensive hand turning on the part of skilled gunsmiths who have worked on many rifles of this type. One dramatic exception includes rifles and actions manufactured by Sako in Finland. Sakos are usually very accurate right out of the box. Alas, bare Sako actions are not imported in large numbers. When one is found for sale, the price will be high to very high. Bill Hicks and Co., Ltd., is often a good place to inquire about Sako actions. If not, contact Stoeger Industries, 5 Mandsard Court, Wayne, NJ 07470, to find out which wholesale distributors recently took delivery on a number of actions. Probably it will be a Sako Model L691 Mag action unless you intend to try and make a much smaller .308 or .223 into a tactical rifle. Sako's small actions are Model S49s.

The price when an action is finally located will be about $375. That's what the last one cost me.

Several excellent gunsmiths in the United States have experience making tactical rifle barrels and fitting them to actions. No matter who does this work, be double sure to ask how many tacti cal rifles he has done in the past. Experience at this business is not only handy, it is vital.

Brian Sipe, of the Montana Rifleman, 1765 Montana Highway #35, Kalispel, MT 59901, has done most of the tactical rifle barrels on guns I have put together. However, Sipe is often booked solid 7 to 10 months ahead. Mel Doyles, RR 2, Box 196M, St. Maries, ID 83861, is another good hand at this business.

Most of the tactical rifles I have assembled have been in .300 Winchester Magnum. Egt:.ipped with 26-inch barrels, they shoot out about 3,200 feet per second using 168-grain Hornaday boattail National Match bullets. Off-the-shelf ammo is not available. Start with 68 grains of 4831 powder in handloads.

Tactical rifles have been built in .308, .30-06, and even .223, but these cartridges present too many additional trajectory problems, especially for initially unpracticed users. On the other end of the spectrum, we are currently working on a .30/.378 tactical rifle. It is made to use .378 Weatherby Magnum cases necked to .30 caliber. This may be overkill rather than underkill, as is true with the smaller family of cartridges.

The cost to barrel anc. cut a chamber is about $400, depending on whether it is fluted, has a removable muzzle brake, or deviates from the standard 1:10 twist. Our fluted, barreled rifles have not shot better than plain barrels, even when shot very hot, which should never happen in real life with tactical rifles. Even if the rounds are delivered over a matter of hours, the maximum rounds from one position-even in a combat situation-is always three! After that your position will be dangerously exposed.

Longer, heavier 26-inch barrels, measuring .90 inches at the muzzle tapered back to 1 25 inches at the breech, with a tactical rifle recessed crown cut in them, are very important to the success of the project. These larger, heavier barreled action sets absorb heat and recoil to great advantage.

The next task is bluing. Mel Doyles usually does this work for me. His dull-black ranch finish is especially practical for tactical rifles. These finishes don'i. glare or shine. The cost for a polished "in the white" action and barrel is about $50.