Sniper weapons have recently become the most popular among people who are fond of studying hand-held firearms. In general, everything is clear and logical in this phenomenon. For many years we have been taught that a lone hero can do everything, and a sniper himself is closest to this not the most truthful image, even though he alone works very, very rarely. Recently, Tsar Cannon and Orsis made a significant contribution to people's interest in sniper weapons, showing unprecedented characteristics of their samples, and the phrase "unparalleled in the world" again made us believe that we are the best and ahead of the rest of the planet. But, unfortunately, not everything is as perfect as the layman might imagine.
First of all, it should be noted that precision weapons are a very expensive tool, and ammunition of the appropriate quality is not cheap at all. At the same time, you need to understand that such a weapon is not needed for all tasks, but only for very, very rare ones. Of course, it's not bad when the characteristics of a weapon have a margin in their characteristics, but when you need to pay 5-10 times more for this stock, then it is worthwhile to prioritize correctly. In the end, you can just look at what the armies of other countries are armed with and see that high-precision long-range weapons are not at all as common as they seem, and models and manufacturers who are ready to provide their samples are above the roof. So, for example, one can note a small, but rather well-known in narrow circles company with a big name Surgeon Rifles, which is engaged in the production of high-precision weapons.
The characteristics of the products of this company are really impressive, but only those who directly encounter such weapons have heard about it, neither computer games, nor cinematography will simply advertise the products. However, this is the very rare case when the characteristics of a weapon are more important than any advertisement, the target audience is still very small. And if you look for other weapons companies that produce precision weapons, you will find that there are very, very few large companies. The costs of development and production are very, very high, and the profit is not so and large despite the high final cost of production, therefore large arms companies are rarely interested in the production of such weapons, unless a large order looms in the distance, and they, due to the specificity of the weapon, are quite rare …
Among the products of Surgeon Rifles, you will not find self-loading weapons, only "bolts", since no self-loading rifle can provide high accuracy - the operation of the automation system affects the effectiveness of the hit. Actually, this can be observed with other companies involved in the production of high-precision sniper rifles. In principle, it makes no sense to list all the samples produced by the company, since almost all of them are built on the same principle, debugged several decades before the ideal. All the difference lies in small solutions that increase the ease of handling and transportation of weapons, as well as in the quality of fitting parts.
The accuracy of the Surgeon Rifles rifles is 0.5 arc minutes or less. On the one hand, 0, 5 MOA is a result that will not surprise anyone, on the other hand, there are plenty of examples when a weapon with a higher accuracy proves to be unreliable.
A very good fit of the parts is of course great, but a few grains of sand can cause the weapon to fail at the most inopportune moment or the movement of the shutter will be difficult. Of course, there are solutions that can ensure reliable operation of even tightly fitted parts, however, they also affect the accuracy of the weapon, not to mention the fact that they increase the cost of the final product. Thus, creating a highly accurate, reliable sample is almost impossible, because everything depends on the balance between accuracy and reliability that Surgeon Rifles has found.
It was the idea of weapon balance that became central to the man who created the Surgeon Rifles, Preston Pitchett. Seeing that there are rifles on the market that have perfect reliability, but insufficient accuracy, and vice versa, the idea came up to find a middle ground, which came true in early 2001. Since then, the company has gained a significant share of the high-precision sniper rifle market and not only for the civilian market. Skillfully feeling the new trends in weapon fashion and observing all the new products, the Surgeon Rifles company not only does not give up its positions, but also develops on the contrary. By creating samples of weapons for the most promising ammunition, the company fully satisfies the needs of the civilian market for people who like to shoot accurately and far, and the fact that the company does not forget about older cartridges provides it with stable orders for the US Army.
As an example, let's try to consider one of the company's rifles, which was chosen just at random - the 6XC Scalpel A-5. The rifle has a polymer stock, the stock is adjustable in length and the height of the cheek rest. The original solution was to compensate for the lack of a free-weight barrel by its thickness, which significantly increased the weight of the rifle, but at the same time added accuracy. The rifle barrel itself is 26 inches long. The bolt has a spiral valve, which ensure the reliability of the weapon in case of contamination. The receiver has a mounting bar for an optical sight, the weapon does not have open sights. The bipod is mounted on the rifle's forend. The weapon is produced for several common ammunition, but there is no quick opportunity to switch from one to another - the price is for accuracy.
Despite the fact that the weapon looks more like a civilian and at first glance you might not even realize that you have a high-precision rifle in front of you, it is quite successfully used by the army and the police, not to mention the civilian market. Where this rifle has established itself as an excellent tool for recreational shooting, as well as hunting at ultra-long distances, which has become a very recent entertainment.
Naturally, there can be no talk that someday Surgeon Rifles will become the only leading company, there is too much competition among manufacturers, but the fact that Surgical Rifles are already one of the leaders is undoubtedly.
