In 2007, when the Navy SEALs went looking for an alternative to the Barrett weapons system it already used — an ultra-high-caliber rifle capable of firing .5-inch cartridges at distances beyond 1,200 meters — it talked to the best weapons manufacturers across the globe. Eventually it contacted a small company with 50 employees, who, it had heard, could make a weapon suitable for its tactical and operational demands.
The Portsmouth company, Accuracy International (AI), equips the British Special Boat Service and Special Air Service with sniper rifles. In 2008, it signed a 3.7 million-pound contract to supply almost 600 sniper weapons to the UK Ministry of Defence. What came out of the SEALs’ approach to AI was a new gun.It didn’t buy American; it skirted around the excellence of German and Scandinavian weapons design; and, unsurprisingly, it didn’t call the Russians. It went British. It approached an enterprise that embodies a high-tech, design-focused approach, blending traditional British engineering with the latest technological innovation.
“The fact that such a small company can be a world-beater in the manufacture of quality weapon systems in a market dominated by huge American and European companies is a huge achievement,” says Color Sergeant Lee Chevenix, a British Army sniping-team instructor. “I know from first-hand experience how revered the AI product is, even in the States, where traditionally U.S. producers are favored.”
AI’s weapons are now part of long-range sniping lore. Craig Harrison, a British Army sniper from the Household Cavalry, hit two Taliban machine-gunners with two consecutive shots at a range of 2,475 meters in Helmand province, Afghanistan, in 2009. Inadvertently he had taken the world sniping record using an L115A3, the 0.338-inch caliber military sniper-rifle system made by AI that is now standard issue for the British Army.
“We saw two insurgents running through a courtyard,” Harrison said in interviews. “They came forward carrying a PKM [a general purpose Russian machine gun], set it up and opened fire…. Conditions were perfect, no wind, clear visibility. I rested the bipod of my weapon on a compound wall and aimed for the gunner firing the machine gun. The driver of my Jackal [patrol vehicle] spotted for me, providing all the information needed for the shot, which was at the extreme range of the weapon.”
Harrison killed one machine gunner with his first attempt and hit the other with the next. He then let off a final round to knock the enemy weapon out of action. His gun was the same as the one used by Black Watch corporal Christopher Reynolds, who killed a Taliban commander at a range of 1,853 meters. In 2009 another AI rifle, the L96A1, was used by two snipers from 4th Battalion, The Rifles (formerly the Greenjackets), part of the Welsh Guards battle group, to make 75 confirmed Taliban kills in 40 days. In one instance, two human targets were killed with a single bullet.
There is no sign for AI at its headquarters and manufacturing base on an industrial estate in Hampshire. But pass through a plain steel door and it’s clear where you are: There’s a meter-square photograph of two British Army snipers in action in Afghanistan on the wall. A sign reads: “Welcome to the home of the world’s finest sniper rifle.”
It is a bullish claim to make in such a competitive market, but it is one that is supported by many who have used the company’s weapons on the front line.
Writing about AI’s Arctic Warfare version of its AW sniper weapon’s system, American Rifleman magazine, the publication of the National Rifle Association, had the following to say: “The AWP is one of the very few rifles designed from the get-go to be a sniper’s rifle…. Every component of the AWP was designed from the outset for one purpose only, to culminate in a production rifle that would raise the standard of long-range performance to a new and higher level.”
Although the British Army — which, along with the Israelis, Canadians and the Americans, is considered to have among the best-trained and most operationally effective snipers in the world — buys weaponry from AI, the Ministry of Defence isn’t shy of shopping outside Britain: along with AI sniper rifles, the Special Air Service uses Swiss Sig-Sauer handguns, Canadian Diemaco assault rifles, German Heckler & Koch submachine guns and Minimi 5.56mm squad assault weapons. A MOD purchase order tends to mean that a product has proved its value.
“It all started life out of a garage in 1978,” says one of the company’s founders, Dave Walls, a burly and genial 65-year-old. “We wanted to make a weapon that had all the features of a good and accurate target rifle with the rugged applicability of a military weapons system. We listen to the soldier on the front line, we are flexible, we would work on something written on the back of a fag packet.”
He and a colleague, Dave Caig, along with two-time Olympic shooting gold medallist Malcolm Cooper, started out working on other people’s weapons in Caig’s garage in Worthing. Their first deal was to supply the Special Boat Squadron, or SBS, with a 7.62mm weapons system. The gun was deemed so successful that they won a tender to re-equip the British Armed Forces with 1,200 rifles in 1982. In this way, the L96A1, which would eventually segue into the L115A3, was born. Almost 30 years later, AI was supplying weapons to 60 countries.
Sniping, and the design, engineering and manufacture of sniper rifles, revolves around one characteristic: precision. There are no grey areas with sniping — a bullet fired at long range either hits its target, or it doesn’t, depending on how good the rifle and its human operator are.
“The underlying issue regarding the physics, design and manufacturability of our weapons is the fact that somebody’s life is relying on it,” explains Ian Scrace, who runs AI’s engineering department.
The task facing sniper-rifle designers is to make sure that, up to the point where the bullet leaves the barrel, its journey is as exact as possible. To do this, manufacturers must design and engineer a rifle barrel that sits in a completely stable chassis assembly that doesn’t move when fired.
Scrace attempts to perfect the physics of this process in AI’s engineering department. There, the former design technologist at Rolls-Royce sits in front of his computer screen, using 3D modelling softwarecalled SolidWorks. In front of him — laid out in blue, red and green on the screen — is a 3-D representation of the trigger assembly, bolt and magazine housing of a rifle.
Other weapons manufacturers use software, of course, but AI combines it primarily with solid input from combat snipers on the front line. AI has a website and e-mail address where snipers serving in the field in, say, Helmand province, will send in comments, photographs and descriptions of their use of the weapon, commenting on such minutiae of design as the degree of reverse incline on the bolt handle.
“A lot of our training had been focused on what [British paratroopers] had learned in battle in 2006, and as snipers we knew that the new A3 rifle had been greatly enhanced due to their combat experiences,” says Cornwall. “Not only did we have a great weapons system that could outshoot our opponents by at least twice the distance, we also had an improved sight and tactical suppressor [devised by AI through crowdsourcing] that could keep the sniper hidden when firing in the dust and darkness.”
“SolidWorks allows us to get away from guesswork in drafting, and draft in a virtual world,” says Scrace. “The program allows us to appreciate appearance and ergonomics. And it means we can easily accommodate user requirements because we have a virtually configurable system.”
In 2006, British paratroopers, commandos and infantrymen, faced with counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan, realized they needed a sniper weapon with a larger caliber (and hence more powerfully charged cartridge) and longer range than the AI 7.62mm L96 they had been using. British troops in Iraq were predominantly based in urban areas, but Afghanistan changed that. They needed something that could hit targets beyond the 900 to 1,000 meters at which the L96 operated.
“The British Army was forced by the insurgent-sniper threats in Basra and Helmand to rediscover the art of sniping,” says Tim Ripley with Jane’s Defence Weekly. “Every British Army rifle company, and in some cases infantry platoon, now has its own snipers. Few British troops in Afghanistan will now leave their bases without a sniper on post — they are mission-essential kit.”
AI modified the L96 sniper-rifle system, producing the AX338 munition, which fires a larger cartridge — or round — than the L96.
The company uses a totally modular manufacturing system, and all components apart from the rifle barrels are created in-house, in two plants five minutes’ drive apart.
Scrace continues to revolve the section of the rifle on his screen, moving the cursor so that he can change the size of the magazine housing. “Essentially, I’m manufacturing virtually,” he says while working onscreen. The software allows him to see how individual parts of a bolt assembly fit together and interact in considerable detail before physical prototypes are made.
Mechanical analysis is accomplished using finite-element analysis or FEA software, which offers a precise analysis of how a component or assembly will behave when forces are applied during use. This does not replace the need for physical testing, but can significantly reduce the number of prototypes required before AI commits to manufacture.
Scrace and his colleagues work to monitor, observe and control the effects of the “harmonics of vibration” of a weapon when it is fired. This means studying — to the millisecond — the moment when the weapon is fired, and when its component parts move most, invisibly to the human eye, and thus affect what is known as “fall of shot.”
The moment the percussion cap of the bullet is hit by the firing pin and the propellant ignites is when the working parts of the weapon — the steel of the barrel, the way the barrel lies in the chassis assembly — are under the maximum physical stress. It is at this split second that the weapon vibrates, parts move, the barrel moves microscopically off the sight-line, and the bullet can itself change track almost imperceptibly.
Downstairs from the engineering department is one of the machine rooms where the three main parts of the rifle are cut from aluminum. The parts are the front frame, which holds the barrel; the center section, which houses the bolt, chamber, trigger assembly and working parts; and the rear frame, which accommodates the pistol grip and the butt.
The basic action — the main working and firing parts — is made out of steel and housed on top of the center section. Parts such as the chassis, the stock and the magazine are made in an assembly area containing a welding room and presses. Once the three main sections and the basic action have been assembled and embedded into the AI customized chassis assembly, the butt plate and bolt are added.
The company then carries out extensive quality checks: at least one in five weapons will have its barrel given a 100 per cent check before it leaves the factory.
In the early ’90s, when developing its Arctic Warfare variant of the AW rifle, engineers would test them by hosing them down with water, leaving them in a freezer over the weekend, then loading a round into the weapons on the Monday morning to see if they functioned.
“Once, with the Welsh Guards in contact with the Taliban, all their SA80 assault rifles jammed,” says Frank Fletcher, AI’s senior firearms instructor. “Only the GPMGs [general purpose machine guns] and their sniper rifles still worked.”
The AX338 sniper rifle, which was modified to become the Army’s L115A3, currently in use, is a direct descendant of the various models of the AW variant of rifle AI started making in 1991. Some models are for police use and sold to law-enforcement agencies in the U.S. and elsewhere; others are primarily military.
The .338 Lapua Magnum round was adopted by AI in 1998. The ammunition has good ballistic design, says Scrace, and consistently high-quality production methods. The projectiles most often consist of a lead and antimony core with a copper jacket. A tungsten carbide core can be used to provide an armor-piercing capability.
Prior to this, the caliber of bullet used in the British Army’s sniper rifles had been the NATO standard round of 7.62mm caliber, the same size as the old .303 round used in the second-world-war Lee-Enfield.
Nowadays, the standard infantry weapons used by the American and British armies, indeed by most of the world’s armies, is the lighter 5.56mm, which the Americans use in their Colt M4 carbines, and the British in their SA80 assault rifles.
Both calibers have varying benefits: The 5.56mm is lighter, so a soldier can carry more ammunition, and the lighter charge gives a sufficient killing range up to a maximum of about 450 meters. The downside is that the rounds are light and fast so they tend to pass through the human body, thus having little “stopping power.” Advocates of the 7.62mm say that the heavier round tends to stop a human being even if a hit is made off the “CBM”, or central body mass.
The British Army has realized that 5.56mm alone is not sufficient, so a typical 10-man infantry section would now carry a variety of weapons in both calibers. These include a 7.62mm GP belt-fed machine gun, an 8.59mm sniper rifle, a 7.62mm sharpshooters assault rifle, a 5.56mm Minimi squad assault weapon and the 5.56mm SA80 assault rifles carried by the individual soldiers.
Improved sniper-rifle technology has also led to improved antisniper technology. An exchange of information between designers and users had led the US military to fund a project known as RedOwl, or robot-enhanced detection outpost with lasers, which uses laser and acoustic sensors to determine the exact direction from which a sniper round has been fired.
The basement below the assembly area is the domain of AI’s firearms instructor, Frank Fletcher, the former color sergeant and sniping instructor who served with the British Parachute Regiment in Northern Ireland, Afghanistan, Macedonia and Iraq. A Para tattoo graces his right bicep and a Parachute regiment ring is attached to the strap of his watch.
“I deal with the clients,” he smiles, exuding calmness and confidence. “The SAS [Special Air Service], the SBS, the Parachute Regiment, the Special Forces Support Group.” He holds up an AX338 which is sitting at rest on an ergonomically designed firing table, pointing down the 100 meter-long shooting range.
Fletcher opens a box of .338 ammunition and takes out five shining brass rounds. He beckons me over and hands me the weapon. The design of the weapon, Walls said upstairs, forces the shooter into the optimal shooting position. And so it proves. The ergonomics of its design mean that the weight of the weapon is distributed through its bipod and resting butt.
I’m no stranger to weaponry, having fired the .303 Lee-Enfield and Bren Gun as a cadet, the 7.62mm FN self-loading rifle and GP machine gun in the TA Parachute Regiment, the 5.56mm FAMAS assault rifle in the French Foreign Legion and, as a journalist for 15 years across Africa and the Balkans, 10 variants of Kalashnikov.
But the AX338 is a completely new experience. It seems almost weightless. A suede bag containing sand supports the bottom of the butt, a bipod props the front stock of the weapon. I place a hand into the ergonomically perfect pistol grip; the other arm wraps around the butt.
Shooting can require enormous effort: in order to keep the sight from dancing in front of the marksman’s eyes, the weapon must be kept still using force by supporting all the rifle’s weight with one arm. But the AX338 seems to configure itself to individual idiosyncracies. Looking through the telescopic sight, I acquire the target 100m downrange.
“Aim just above the center of the target, keep the weapon still, squeeze the trigger gently,” Fletcher says. “Exhale gently, then hold your breath, and squeeze to fire.”
The AX338 delivers a loud percussive crack. The recoil seems controlled, as if it is spread through the entire weapon; the bolt-action for the ejection of the spent cartridge case is light, fluid and smooth. The bolt glides. I fire another four shots, the click-clash of the bolt-action flicking the bronze cartridge case high and right from the weapon. Fletcher retrieves the target and grins.
“You see,” he says, “that weapon will do anything for you. Your first two shots are straight through the same hole.”
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