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Rifle For $820,000 By VO Vapen
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During and after World War II it became accepted that most infantry engagements occur at ranges of less than 300 m; the range and power of the large battle rifles was "overkill"; and the weapons were heavier than the ideal. This led to Germany's development of the 7.92 x 33 mm Kurz (short) round, the Karabiner 98, the MKb-42, and ultimately, the assault rifle. Today, an infantryman's rifle is optimised for ranges of 300 m or less, and soldiers are trained to deliver individual rounds or bursts of fire within these distances. The United States Marine Corps, however, continues to train all of its riflemen to accurately engage targets out to 500m. Typically, the application of accurate, long-range fire is the domain of the sniper in warfare, and of enthusiastic target shooters in peacetime. The modern sniper rifle is usually capable of accuracy better than 0.3 mrad at 100 yards (1 arcminute).
By contrast, civilian rifle design has not significantly advanced since the early part of the 20th century. Modern hunting rifles have fiberglass and carbon fiber stocks and more advanced recoil pads, but are fundamentally the same as infantry rifles from 1910. Many modern sniper rifles can trace their ancestry back for well over a century, and the Russian 7.62 x 54 mm cartridge, as used in the front-line Dragunov Sniper Rifle (SVD), dates from 1891.
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