Snipering

Crewchief, a .223 and a .308 will have similar maximum range. It's the accuracy that is lost with trave time. A .223 will destabilize a lot sooner than a .308 because it's lighter, and mroe prone to atmospheric iregularities.

I've fired both .223s and.308s (OK, technically 5.56 and 7.62 NATO respectively) in competition target shooting. In one comp, where Iw as shooting a .308, there was a girl shooting beside me with a .223 bolt action- and she was able to shoot decent scores out to one thousand yards! It was pretty impressive. The bullets themselves will easily make the distance, but as you decrease the caliber you decrease inherent accuracy in the round.

There will me muzzle velocity differences, yes, but the distance will generally be fairly similar- remember that although a .308 can travel faster, it has a wider frontal area, meaning greater wind resistance. Conversely, a smaller profile .223 will be affected a bit more for each unit of wind resistance, since it has less mass and inertia. That's why the .308 is better out to the distance; it's not so much the differing velocitis, but the mass.

Hi all, I refuse to let this thread die a proper death!

The be-all-end-all argument against PB snipering can be found in the writings and posts of oldsoldier, who puts things much better than I could ever hope to. In fact I see it as a manual for playing Rec/scenario ball. It can be found here:

http://beta.a5ownersgroup.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4511

I posted this story on a sniper thread on PB nation,. I'm just going ot paste it here as an example as to why not.

We did a "sniper reeducation game" with my buddies once. On of my friends swore that he could take all of us out if given the chance due to his superior PB Sniper skills. So we let him, we gave him a 10 min head start to get nice and camouflaged When it was time for us to go we formed a "skirmish line" leaving about 10 feet between men, walking shoulder to shoulder. we made no attempt to disguise ourselves and communicated down the line. When he took his shot and gogged one of us,. the forest echoed with the sound of half a dozen markers rapid firing into a 20 foot square. Sure we couldn't see him, but we knew where the shot came from. so we shredded the forest. And guess what. Holy overshoot batman!!

Tyger, What would allow PB snipers to exist? In addition to larger fields with more "open" space I would say the main factor is being able to shoot your opponent from such a great distance that he has no hope of returning fire. Doubling or tripiling the range. Now this wouldn't be possible unless we upped the FPS, got heavier and more solid ammunition. (Ones that wouldn't just burst under the pressure.) And possibly shaped ammunition for better accuracy.  But then if you did all of those things you would run the risk of "cracking open" masks in close combat.

I understand the though of it all but can't see the solution.

I hope your doing O.K. I really enjoy your show/site/videos!  Get well soon!

I guess I didn't make it clear,

Yes, if he had managed to get behind us and shoot someone in the back I am certain that the outcome would have been the same,. Maybe he would have survived a few seconds longer. Perhaps even a minute. We would have done what we did to him when he was in front of us. Fired and swarmed him. We would have known that the shot came from behind us and in which general section of the woods it came from,. so we would have done what we did when he shot us from the front. Everyone rushed toward the spot where the shot came from guns blazing. Yes 10 on 1 is sucky odds, but that's possibly what you are signing up for when you want to "lone wolf" and sniper. And I’m not saying that you can't call yourself a sniper, Hell call yourself a master ninja for all I care. Just realize that if you want to go and "snipe"

#1 you are not helping your team win. You are not contributing to your teams victory. While you are lying in the brush being all-cool, other players are out there earning points.

#2 there is a strong possibility that you will get "gorilla #$%@" by numerous enemies who are pissed that you shot at one of their guys. And since ghillies cause balls to bounce Allot of the guys I know make “extra sure” that the ghillie suited enemy is sure he is eliminated.

#3 since you don’t have the range advantage of a “real” military sniper all you are doing is being an ‘ambusher” which is cool if you are ambushing a squad with another squad. But you are ambushing a squad with yourself, be prepared to be known as “welt-man” (And do allot of walking back to the insert point)

SR_Crewchief wrote: Since most of the people in this forum don't understand basic ballistics I was trying to keep it simple. When you start talking about 1000yd or meter compitition matches your in a whole different world. Your talking about custom loads and non standard bullets to get a .223 to hit consistantly at those kinds of ranges. I doubt very much that she was using a 55 or even 62 grain military fmj, much less a factory load. You also have to take into account the rifling twist and the charge. All of which is irrelevant to the base discussion. I was trying to provide an example that most would readily understand about how the weight of the round and the muzzle velosity impact both range and accuracy. Neither of which can be manipulated enough in present day paintball to be segnificant. While not if match comp, I've fired the old NATO 5.56 in M16A1's, NATO 5.56 SS109 in M16A2's, 40mm from M203's and MK19's, .50cal from M2's, NATO 7.62 from M60's M60D's and miniguns. Most for over 20 years. Needless to say, I have a practical working knowledge of where the effectiveness of each breaks off. Just as you have practical working knowledge over and above mine of the effectiveness of your match loads. The point that I was making is that in the world of real firearms the differences in effective ranges is primarily controlled by what ammunition is being used. A better example probably would have been to show the difference between the old NATO 5.56 55gr fired from a M16A1 with a 1 in 12(originally 1 in 14) and the newer SS109 62gr fired from a M16A2 with a 1 in 7. That would take more research than I willing to do for a paintball topic.

Hah, fair enough. Nice to see a good solid firearms reply. I refuse to dignify this thread with anything relevant. ;)

Sounds like you'e definitely got a lot of experience with the heavier stuff. Personally I've spent most of my time on C7s (Canadian variant on the M16), C9 (the M249 SAW), C6 (M240), and some familiarization on the 203, 60mm mortar, and M67 grenades... Of all the weapons, I think the 203 is probably the most fun, followed by the C9 and C7... Good weapons.

As for my ammunition loads in the match shooting, we were actaully using standard NATO 5.56 x 45mm. SS109 I think. I only ever shot that out to 600yds though. The girl in the 1000yd competition with the .223 was only 14- I think she was using standard .223 remington; finding high quality ammo in Canada can be hard unless you're willing to lay down quite a bit of cash. Then again, how she shot that well with that ammoa t that distance is beyond me. I was personall using match grade 7.62 in that shoot- the military supplied our ammo for that competition. I got into target shooting with the Army Cadets, a military youth program. I was in the running for the national rifle tream, but didn't make it. My match experience is just two summers, one each on 5.56mm and 7.62mm. I won't claim to be an expert, so I'll definitely defer to you in terms of ammunition expertise on this one.

You mentioned the old 55gr 5.56 out of the M16 1/14. I heard a while back that one of the reasons they went to 1/12 was because the roudns were tumbling and hitting people sideways with really devastating wounds as a result- is that, in fact, what happened? I'm just kinda curious.

Pariel wrote: I seriously can't believe that people are STILL debating this. Please guys, grow up. This is debated way too much. Tiger proved they don't exist, no speedballer and very few experienced woodsballers will agree that they exist, and it's time to give up...

Heh, if only it were that easy to end these debates...