XM3 Sniper Rifle Marine Corps

United States Marine Corps snipers in Iraq are now using the finest sniper rifle in the world bar none. Iron Brigade Armory creates the rifles, and Precision Shooting is the premier journal that concerns itself with accurate weapons and their use a good match for this “first to be printed” report on the XM3 sniper rifle its capabilities, its procurement, and its use. A use long overdue. For some years, IBA had been unable to interest the Marine Crops or the US  in the rifle that Soldier of Fortune magazine’s Peter Kokalis describes as “the best.” An organization titled DARPA stepped up and provided funding for the production of sixty two of the superior sniper rifles that are now in USMC hands.

Most will not be familiar with DARPA (Defense Advance Research Project Agency), but in laymen’s terms, DARPA is a department answerable directly to the Secretary of Defense that was organized during the Eisenhower Administration to get needed things (whether rifles or small ships) to the troops quickly without suffering the arthritic obstructionism of often glacially-ponderous development and supply channels that are notorious for providing appropriate weaponry almost as the fighting ends. DARPA chooses projects their experts deem urgent and worthy and provides expertise at levels of competence unavailable to most military research and development. DARPA gets things done, but toes are sometimes stepped upon and knee jerk selfinterest turf-protectionism can surface. The XM3 rifle was one of those projects.

Our descriptions and our captioned photos of the XM3 will detail the rifle, but long time readers of Precision Shooting and former sister publications may recall articles explaining how Iron Brigade rifles were built to such high standards standards that make them tougher than “British Oak,” and more durable than any other rifles we have encountered. Those who do not recall can review our bedding methods in The Accurate Rifle, January 2004, pages 7-14. That article explains a lot. The December 1999 and the August 2000 editions of Tactical Shooter offer more useful descriptions and opinions.

It will also be revealing to discover how superbly the rifles are doing in actual combat. Snipers using these rifles routinely e-mail Iron Brigade to report their activities. We cherish their commentaries and repeat a few of them here. The first XM3 rifle used in combat has recorded over one hundred confirmed by its first two snipers. That was months ago, the gun is still going strong, but we hesitate to include repetitive kill reports lest the detailing be resented or inflation of body counts be suspected. We will include one more, however. Gun number two accounted for ten confirmed with its first seventeen shots.

Those statistics are impressive, but the best is yet to come and here it is. All of those shots were at night at ranges up to eight hundred yards hits that would be highly improbable with any other rifle. There was no aimed return fire. This is the story of one of those firefights. Three men armed with Kalashnikovs were detected setting a roadside bomb in the dark of night at about four hundred yards. The sniper fired and dropped number one. Numbers two and three saw nothing except their companion’s collapse and could have heard nothing more than the directionless snap of a bullet’s supersonic passage or the flat smack of the bullet’s strike. They chose to flee.
Unfortunately for them, they ran directly toward the sniper, who shot each one time.

Every XM3 Rifle is capable of shooting sub-minute of angle (three shot groups) at 1000 yard. These days, that may not seem exceptional, but the XM3 has only an 18 ½-inch long barrel and wears a Sure Fire© sound suppressor. “Wait a minute,” you say. “Only an 18 ½-inch barrel and it shoots sub-minute at 1000 yards?” That is correct. Now how could that be? We began attaining 1000-yard accuracy from an 18 ½-inch long barrel by going to a six-groove barrel with a 1 in 10 twist. We use Hart barrels, and Hart makes no bad barrels. Start from there, and you might approach 1000-yard capabilities, but you would beunlikely to match an XM3 without the rest of  our accuracy story.

The US Army has attempted to modify its M24 sniper rifles by similarly shortening their barrels, and they liked their result, but they only tested under 20-inch barrels to three hundred yards. The M24 has a 5-groove barrel, and its twist is 11.25. Beyond 600 yards, the accuracy of their shortened barrel is gone. We call that failure. The M40 series Marine Corps rifles are in the same boat. The M40A3 boat anchors have 1 in 12 twist, and if seriously shortened, they cannot be accurate beyond six hundred yards. To retain accuracy in a barrel less than 20 inches long in .308 Winchester, you absolutely must go to a 1 in 10 twist barrel. The services should purchase new barrels in that twist.

In testing, Iron Brigade uses Match grade, 175-grain Black Hills ammunition. Using M40A1, M40A3, and M24 sniper rifles as standards to test against, the XM3 shot straighter under every condition. When being tested for safety and accuracy beyond 1000 yards, by Crane Naval Weapons Station, the XM3 out-shot all of the .308 (7.62 NATO) rifles, including those listed above, and at those extreme ranges, the XM3 rifles equaled the accuracy performance of the .300 Winchester Magnums being used as standard test weapons.