Seems a Springfield Armory M1A National Match with a stock made to look more like a M4 would be a good choice.
AR10.
Probably too simple a solution for the Military though.
How many already paid for M-14 rifles do we have gathering dust in warehouses?
They should get innovative and use the bullpup general concept for a sniper rifle.
It should be much shorter and not appear nearly as Sniper-esque.
“The presence of a 7.62mm rifle in the formation is nothing new, but when [units] leave theater, they have to turn their guns in,” he said. “A lot of the division and the corps commanders are very adamant saying, ‘Hey, we need to get those assets back in order to train with them to be competent.’........”
I ETSd July 15,1996. The battle between the Skilcraft commandos and the operators has obviously not abated. Nice to know some things never change. Ranks right up there with Planck’s constant.
I thought they were looking at 6.5mm creedmoor as well?
CC
Bring back the M-14, rechambered for the 30-06.
Nothing wrong with an AR10 or HK-91. Wouldn’t waste billions of dollars and years of time getting the kinks out of a G3.
I carried an M14 for my first 6 months in Vietnam, until they took it away and gave me an M16. The M14 isn’t as heavy as they make out. It weighs 2-1/4 pounds more than the M16.
Of course the ammo also weighs more too, but I’d rather have 100 rounds of 7.62 than 200 rounds of 5.56. More knock down power and small twigs and branches are less likely to deflect a round.
Springfield Armory SAR-48 built on the FN-FAL platform works very well.
From reading the article it sounds like they are looking for a medium range rifle, not a sniper rifle.
They don’t even want to put a scope on it.
The Soviet Dragonov rifle was used more as a "squad marksman" rifle, than as a real sniper rifle.
Rather than engage in a billion-dollar procurement cycle, just authorize purchase of an existing, off the shelf, semi-auto marksman's rifle. But that would not put $$$ into the pockets of people inside the Beltway, so that's unlikely to happen.