The TrackingPoint 338TP, the Linux rifle that's accurate up to a mile

ZD Net ^ | 18 January 2015 | Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

[ShadowAce]

[no-to-illegals]

Impressive ...

[going hot]

Even the best aiming device loses control of the bullet the moment the bullet leaves the end of the barrel.

Hitting long distance targets is not so much a function of aiming, rather reading the winds and distances.

[circlecity]

"Even the entry-level TrackingPoint rifle, the Precision-Guided Semi-Auto 5.56, starts at $7,495."

Don't know that this would be much of an improvement for a 5.56 which isn't very effective at a range of 1000 meters, if at all. I would still prefer to train using iron sights or a traditional scope. No electrics to go out on you.

[thorvaldr]

“Hitting long distance targets is not so much a function of aiming, rather reading the winds and distances. “

And these magical scopes don’t even attempt to help you with your wind call.

[jsanders2001]

Now I wonder why those raised around guns that shoot them all the time hardly ever shoot anyone or have any accidental shootings in their homes?.../s

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

Definitely overkill and way too much homework for a .223. I like my guns all analog.

[ShadowAce]

from the article:

More than just a laser-targeting system, its sensors also track wind speed, direction, temperature, and barometric pressure.

[going hot]

At the end of a mile flight, that .223 is probably going downward and to the left/right at a significant rate as compared to the forward trajectory.

Putting that aiming device on a .50 or a .338 might be fun. Still need to read the wind.

[NorthMountain]

Read the article, gentlemen.

[going hot]

What would be cool is to adapt the mechanism of a decent camera for focus to the elevation mechanism of a good loupold, to enable point, focus(read distance) and shoot.

[NorthMountain]

At least two of the usual Gun-rags have written up variations on this thing over the last year. IIRC, one variant also computes coriolis effect.

[going hot]

Ok, I will now officially take the time to read the article.LOL

[Billthedrill]

Hmm...forty grand for a gunsight?

OK. I'll take two.

[KarlInOhio]

I'll wait for the Apple iSniper to come out. :-)

More seriously, WTF does the embedded operating system on the rifle have anything to do with this? User interface? Well it might be easier to program, but it's not integral to the device. ultitasking? Also no. While useful it's not necessary. Memory management? You probably don't have gigabytes of RAM and terabytes of disk space. So Linux has nothing to do with the core operation of the long range targeting on the rifle.

[NorthMountain]

$40K is a bit steep ... I wish I could afford a thermal rifle sight ... but $6K is way too much.

[ShadowAce]

WTF does the embedded operating system on the rifle have anything to do with this?

Lack of a blue screen.

[oblomov]

To flip on the safety, just redirect the bullets to /dev/null.

[NorthMountain]

I trust that you're joking.

This is yet another example of a stripped-down Linux getting buried in some device that you normally wouldn't even think of having an operating system.