Book excerpt: ‘Sniper’s Notebook’

The second edition of The Sniper’s Notebook by John Simpson delves into the “why” of sniping, focusing on the science and dispelling myths, unlike many books that only teach the “how.” Drawing from years of teaching, Simpson provides valuable insights for novice snipers preparing for training, experienced snipers seeking better techniques, and instructors aiming to improve their teaching methods. This practical guide addresses common misconceptions and offers a deeper understanding of the craft.

To order, send check or money order for $30.00* to Simpsonian Institute, 2774 N. Cobb Parkway, Suite 109 #141, Kennesaw, GA 30144. For more information, contact the author at: the-institute@live.com. * This pricing includes shipping. GA residents add 4% sales tax. Copy of police or military ID required for purchase. Orders will not be processed without a copy of your credentials. Add $10 for a supplementary CD-ROM that expands on the book.

Range Estimation for Police Snipers

NOTE: With the publication of the 2007 Sniper Utilization Survey, it has become obvious that police snipers have a demonstrated need to train to at least 200 yards. The ballistics of the .308 Winchester round at that distance requires a certain skill in determining distance. Too often, police snipers have had to rely on military manuals for range estimation methods that were inappropriate or impractical for them. Military techniques are more suited to standing men or even chest shots at distances like 600 yards. In too many cases both in and out of the military, range estimation is taught as a stand-alone subject with no thought given to targeting, ballistics or marksmanship. Or it’s taught incorrectly as a fieldcraft skill. So I kept all of that in mind for what I hope will be a fresh approach to this subject for an audience of police snipers. In order to make this a stand-alone chapter some topics addressed in more military relevant chapters are included here.

The First Question…

Before we can get into any discussion of techniques for estimating range, two questions must be answered: why is range estimation important and how good do we have to be at it?

In sniping I like to put forth the idea that “The Target Determines the Means.” Basically, this is the principle that we first define the nature and characteristics of our target and work backwards from there in order to design our hardware needs and training strategies.

Meet Our Target…

The target in this case, is the cranial vault target of a human being. From the wound ballistics chapter we can define a 4-inch diameter circle as being a reasonable representation for the cranial vault.

From there we look at the dispersion of our sniper, rifle and ammunition. Now rather than buying into the hype of sub-minute of angle groups, we’ll look at a more reasonable expectation. This is because most “sub-minute groups” only have 3 rounds in them, were fired from the prone bipod position and took about three minutes to shoot (after a few “warm up” groups, naturally). If on the other hand we look at what we can do with a 10 shot rapid-fire group against a non-cooperative target we are actually looking at about two minutes of angle.

Meet Our Bullet…

Finally, we’ll look at our bullet; for this chapter I’m using a round of ammunition that more and more police snipers are using and even more should be using it. This is the .308 Winchester Hornady TAP round in 168 grains.

Now when we say that a rifle/ammo combination has a “flat trajectory” that’s only in relative terms. The bullet exits the muzzle about 1.5 inches below the scope (or line of sight), crosses the line of sight, curves over the top of the bullet path and descends back down to the line of sight where it (hopefully) hits the target.

So, if we are zeroed for 100 yards our bullet path looks like this:

It’s easy to see from the above that within 100 yards, anyone telling you that you need the precise target distance within 100 yards is trying to sell you something! After all a target at 50 yards and a rifle zeroed for 100 yards and the center of your shot group would be about six tenths of an inch low. I don’t know if you shoot well enough to see that difference but even if you did, I doubt if you have a scope with tenth of a minute clicks! [1]

Even if you did want to compensate for these insignificant differences, stop thinking about paper targets and think about a suspect walking back and forth with a handgun at his side. As he walks from 60 yards to 30 yards to talk to a negotiator are you going to be frantically twisting your elevation knob to keep up with him? When he walks back are you going to change the knob to follow him? Hopefully you’ll be watching to see if he points the gun at anyone so you can shoot him.

When we look past the zero range however, we see that the path of the bullet begins to drop off rather fast past 125 yards (where it’s about a half inch low) to the point where we have to do something about it.

Now let’s pause and look at the bullet path when we have a 200 yard zero on the gun:

We can see that we don’t have the same room for error that we had within 100 yards. In fact at around 100 yards the bullet path begins to rise above the top edge of our four-inch diameter circle if we aim at the center. Notice that at 175 yards the path is 1.17 inches above the line of sight. Since this works out to about a minute and a half we can reasonably have an elevation setting for this range. The same goes for 225 yards since 1.61 inches low works out to almost ¾ of a minute at that range.

However….

Just having different zeroes for different ranges is only part of the solution. Without printing range tables for every sight setting below are some graphic representations of a particular situation.

In the following example, we are going to see where a two-minute of angle shot group winds up on the target when we aim at the cranial vault and use one of three sight settings:

A is shot using a 200 yard zero and the target is at 200 yards.

B is shot using a 225 yard zero and the target is 200 yards away.

C is shot using a 175 yard zero and the target is at 200 yards.

Since the target in the case of A is at the range zeroed for we see the shot group centered where we aimed on the cranial vault.

In the case of B the shot group is displaced 1.43 inches above our aiming point. This means that the possibility exists for rounds to crease the suspect’s scalp or even pass over his head.

In the C example the shot group with a 175 yard zero at 200 yards is now 1.34 inches below the aiming point. This could cause a serious wound but not necessarily instant incapacitation.

The First Answer…

After all this we can see that range estimation only becomes important after about 125 yards after which it starts to become critical. Around 200 yards a sight setting that’s off by only three quarters of a minute of angle high or one and a half minutes low could be a miss.

Reference

1. 0.06 divided by .5 inches equals 0.12 MOA or about a “half click” on a ¼ moa scope knob. By the way, there’s no such thing as a “half click.”

About the author

John taught at his first military sniper school in 1985 while his first law enforcement class was in 1986. He spent five years teaching sniping to Special Forces at the Special Warfare Center at Ft. Bragg, NC, and 3 years in a Special Ops unit in Germany as a team sniper and finally the Company Master Sniper, with 2 years as Chief Instructor at the 10th Special Forces Group Sniper Committee at Fort Devens, MA before retiring in 1994 as a Sergeant First Class.

While at Ft. Devens he trained police snipers in New York and Ohio as part of Project Northstar. John is currently a Staff Instructor for Snipercraft and the Owner of The Simpsonian Institute. He has been an Adjunct Instructor for sniping at the Smith & Wesson and SigArms Academies. He has contributed chapters to “The Wind Book for Competitive Shooters” and the ASA’s “Police Sniper Operations and Training Manual” and written many articles on sniping and precision rifle instruction for publications such as Police and Security News, Journal of Counterterrorism, Tactical Shooter and others. He currently writes for the Snipercraft newsletter and continues to train military and police snipers. His most recent books, “Foundations of Patrol Rifle Marksmanship” and “Foundations of Sniper Marksmanship” are published by Blue360 Media.