New From TrackingPoint: Squad-Level M1400 Extreme Distance Precision-Guided Firearm

1. Another game changer from Tracking Point. I only wish I had the cash for one of their Star Trek like guns. This is the future!

   • You are joking, right? This is the company that declared bankruptcy last year, stopped taking orders, and laid off most of their employees.

     • Someone else bought them out. This tech became a national security threat in a nut shell. They didn’t have much of a choice. Any civilian sales will be nearly useless pieces of equipment going forward. Maybe 600 yards. But a 6.5 would shoot flat and cut the wind; so save your money. The good stuff will go to LE/Mil only. If you enquire about longer ranges; they’ll say they don’t make such. The govt always wins as far as its citizens goes.

2. Until our current occupant of the white house sells it to our enemies.

   • All Presidents authorize weapon sales. The weapons manufacturers are in the business to sell…..weapons.

     There are photos of Cheney hugging up to Saddam Hussein.
     Who gave Stingers to the Mujahdeen? Why?

     Global business and weapons sales are outside of our partisan likes and dislikes. Tell me what control you have had over this in the last 80 years.

   • A real problem in battle is loss of guns. The scum steal guns and ammo when they can. This will be a prize for sure

3. This is awesome, and everything. Seriously it’s freaking awesome! And anything that keeps more of our boys alive, and more of the enemy dead is of course a great thing. But am I the only one that almost dislikes the idea of long range shooting moving away from trained snipers? Not to mention what seems to be computer controlled (or heavily assisted) small arms?

   • It’s really heralding the end of an era. The tech will only get better/lighter/smaller to the point where it’s on every small arm.

     • Some day, probably long after I’m dead, everything deployed to the battlefield will be unmanned. War as we know it will be transformed into one giant episode of geopolitical Battle Bots.

     • Science fiction often becomes science fact. Trackingpoint is “Gen 0” of this:

       http://shadowrun.wikia.com/wiki/Smartgun

       • Big fan of the shadowrun series,
         love the back story. Surprised it never made it into some kind of movies

4. “eliminating error from shock, vibration, or environmental changes such as temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure.”

   Hasn’t anyone else noticed how specifically the “environmental change” of the WIND was left out of this sentence???????? Is there anyone foolish enough to think the wind isn’t THE major factor in long distance shooting? Along with the bullet drop,OFC, but that is quite predictable. Its the wind that isn’t.
   Even if this comes with a complete weatherstation setup bluetoothed to the weapon from behind the camera, it can still only know the wind velocity at THAT location atthat moment.
   Anyone who has done some long range shooting has to know that the wind is always gusting and shifting. Guessing just how much by careful examination of the bushes or grasses in between the muzzle and the target is the art. And that cannot be done by a computer, not even if it has perfect information available at the moment of firing. It would only be accurate if the bullet didn’t travel away from the location it was fired. But that would kind of defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it?
   Sorry to have to bust all of those great dreams.
   POP! That’s just what bubbles do….

   • A camera/sensor that can analyse the air activity at, say, 20yd intervals, would do that

     Like one that can focus on a distance and read the mirage, then move on 20yd farther and repeat

     It needs a field of view that covers the max ordinate, and nighttime capability

     • Mirage is a different issue, and it has no relationship to the wind. Mirage looks the same whether the wind is howling, like it usually is here in Montanta, or completely still. Its due to uneven heating of the ground, and the resulting RISING air. Since the air is rising, it will only flatten your trajectory slightly, but the nigger issue is the bending of the light as it travels to the scope. Its tricky to know whether you are actually aiming at the target, or just at the mirage of the target. Mirages are objects that look displaced from where they really are, due to the light bending in the conditions that caused to mirage in the first place.
       Wind is just air moving mostly all horizontally, without the added handicap of a mirage, a different issue.

       • I’m sure you meant to say “BIGGER issue”…

       • Whoops! I did, indeed mean to use the “b” word instead. That could certainly have proven problematic if I had said it, instead of typoed it, wouldn’t it?
         🙂

       • “Its due to uneven heating of the ground, and the resulting RISING air.”

         Rising *and* sinking air, in the near vicinity. It ain’t all one direction, unless blowing laterally.

       • Absolutely correct. Good understanding of phsyics, BTW. It is obviously not possible to have some air rising without some cooler air somewhere else sinking to compensate. Otherwise it would create a vacuum at the ground level, and as the saying goes; Nature abhores a vacuum. The rising air does create a partial vacuum which pulls the cooler air down.
         I was simplfying what was already a lengthy post, so I won’t even attempt to explain why no vacuum ever actually pulls anything. This thread is getting complex enough already. The word “pull” should suffice for now. If it should become nessessary I can always post links to full explainations later.

       • Nature abhores vacuum. That’s why universe consist almost completely of vacuum. 🙂

   • Computer to calculate wind downrange?

     Sounds like a job for the Googleplex Star Thinker in the Seventh Galaxy of Light and Ingenuity to me.

     • Lasers and semi-complex algos. The hardware and computing capability have off-the-shelf solution sets, so I’m sure DARPA or Navy Labs has something going. If not, Tracking Point does.

       Don’t have to do much prediction, merely measure direction, speed, and then how that will effect trajectory. Sounds really complicated to a human, for a computer it’s a fraction of your cellphone downloading a picture.

       • You know of a laser sensor from somewhere that can react to the movements of air? Really? Care to post a source from any (non-joke) site(the onion doesn’t count:-) that might explain how that’s possible?
         I’ve been under the impression that lasers travel through the air instead of reacting to it. That the dot does not show up until it hits something reflective. And that that’s why the photos and movies always have smoke in the shot. So the laser will look like a line instead of just a dot where it interacts with the target.
         I am, ofc, suggesting that perhaps your understanding of physics is somewhat imperfect…

       • It’s understandable to doubt that which you are not aware of. or just don’t know how it works. I’ll be happy to provide you with some reading material. I’m not 100% current either, the Israelis have gotten farther that I was aware of.

         http://www.accurateshooter.com/optics/new-wind-reading-lidar-laserscope/

         I was going to post a bunch of dry white papers and commercial ads demonstrating how LIDAR works, but I think that the above product is pretty much all the info you need.

       • Thank you for the response. I get so very few that wish to have a polite discussion of the issue at hand.
         Onward to the problems I see with your source:
         A: “Such technology may appear in riflescopes fairly soon.”. This is the same claim that DARPA has been making since at least 2009. http://www.wired.com/2012/08/sniper/ This is titled “Coming Next Year: Darpa’s Super Sniper Scope”. That was in 2012. Where is it? 2012 was much longer than last year ago. Yet still, all that exists is bankrupt tracking point, and lots and lots of CLAIMS. As we all know, darpa and many others make all kinds of claims in order to secure funding, but claims do not make a technology work. Although they do make many people a lot of money, tracking point included. Funnel away all the money and then declare bankruptcy to get out of all the claims that didn’t pan out. The Cosa Nostra do it so often it was even on TV. “Busting out” a firm, they call it.
         I’ll do the rest in other posts. If they get too long they tend to vanish into the memory hole.

       • B. The most important paragraph in your source is this one, so for now, I will confine myself to it:
         “From what we can tell, the LIDAR system, and America’s competing One Shot System, are both designed to measure crosswind speed and angle AT THE TARGET primarily. But as any experienced long-range shooter knows, wind is rarely constant along the entire path of the bullet. There can be a 10 mph left wind near the firing point, a 5 mph tailwind in mid-trajectory, and a 20 mph right wind 1000 yards away. Importantly, wind close to the shooter has more effect on the bullet’s path than wind far downrange — that’s a matter of simple geometry. Therefore, any wind-reading system could provide incorrect solutions if it is not able to read and calculate different wind vectors along the full bullet flight path. Presumably LIDAR and One Shot systems will attempt some kind of crosswind averaging, but that will be a very challenging task, without multiple wind sensors downrange.”
         Almost exactly the same things I said earlier. Without some such way to measure the wind ENROUTE, such systems will almost always fail. Again DARPA, and others, have been promising this for many years, but always “in the near future”, and “next year” many times over.
         The problem is, ‘tomorrow’ never comes! When it arrives it’s always “today”, and the promise is always off in the future.
         EXAMPLE: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-10/aiming-help-snipers-lockheed-develops-one-shot-solution
         TITLE; Darpa’s Self-Aiming “One Shot” Sniper Rifle Scheduled for Next Year.
         That was in 2010. Where is it? After so many years(and many millions of ‘dollars’) of promises with no results, I think I should be forgiven my skepticism that there will ever be anything other than empty (but expensive!) promises.
         But I look forward to discussing the possibilities. Your thoughts?

       • God, you’re a moron.

         My cites are in the actual world, of what is actually working. Type a dozen paras of nonsense, it means nothing to the actual reality that is actually happening right now.

         Do come back to this 2 years from now and see how stupid you were.

5. Anyone who has done some long range shooting has to know that the wind is always gusting and shifting. Guessing just how much by careful examination of the bushes or grasses in between the muzzle and the target is the art. And that cannot be done by a computer, not even if it has perfect information available at the moment of firing.

   No, but it can be keyed in by the operator.

   The fallacy is that this eliminates trained snipers, but that only suggests that shooting is their sole expertise, which is not true.

   However it can make a trained sniper better. If it can help them shoot from cover, all the better. They can shoot better from their off hand if injured, for example. And since most shots are NOT performed at 1400 meters, it benefits poorer marksman at those shorter ranges where issues like Wind have less impact.

   So, it still acts as a force multiplier.

   • “The fallacy is that this eliminates trained snipers, but that only suggests that shooting is their sole expertise, which is not true.”
     That is indeed, one of the many fallacies that so many believe in today. Another being that belief is the same thing as knowledge. No matter how strongly one believes, or how many times it gets repeated. It doesn’t make it so.
     Major Plaster himself said in his book; http://xgpdf.abhappybooks.com/book/978-1581604948
     that sniping consists of at least three skill areas, marksmanship, tactics, and fieldcraft. And marksmanship covers wind, mirage, trajectory, ranging, and eveything else related to firing a rifle.
     Fieldcraft is the ability to get into the proper position quickly, quietly, and unspotted. Tactics is largely the skill of figuring out just where that proper position is.

   • I forgot to mention that such a rifle does make things easier. It obviously makes breath and trigger control simple and easy, as just two examples.
     My point has been that it does NOT(And never will, barring the invention of some type of wind sensor that does not now exist) make a trained sniper out of a newbie. Which has always been tracking point’s main PR sales scam.
     Maybe they have figured that out, now that that stagegy has failed so miserably. Now out of bankrupcy, they seem to be focusing instead on military sales as a DMR, which OFC is NOT a sniper.
     As a DMR, I can see its utility. It will probably make long range shots quicker and somewhat more accurate for the Designated Marksman, who has no need for one shot hits. He is there to support his squad at long range, not to make one shot kills on high value targets behind enemy lines. It might even make a DM out of anybody in the squad, which could be valuable. If the DM is hit, perhaps anyone could pick up this rifle and take his place.
     Since he will be behind his squad, he has no need for the fieldcraft portion that is so important for the real sniper.
     So, it would then be largely a question of cost, e.i. is the ability to have anyone be a slightly better DM worth the cost of putting one of these in every squad, plus training every man to operate it in time of need?

     • Has no one ever heard of LIDAR? Wind speed is off-the-shelf semi-mature tech.

       The Israelis have done this…

       http://www.accurateshooter.com/optics/new-wind-reading-lidar-laserscope/

       • Sure, we’ve heard of it. We just know it’s not what you think it is. See Kenneth’s excellent reply to you above.

         Though I’ve got to say, it’s interesting that since the last time we hashed this very issue (technologically reading distance resolved windspeeds from one point source) out you’ve moved from SFMR and onto LIDAR. Kinda surprised you didn’t accuse Kenneth of “just going to Google,” as you’ve done in the past.

         Here’s the key clue that these technologies are not as “mature” and generally “useful” as you think they are: Tracking Point has not included them on the dang rifle yet. No one has.

         Maybe, just maybe…it’s a harder problem to actually solve than writing an acronym in a blog comment and declaring the technology “mature.”

       • JR so, you have no idea what the state-of-the-shelf is either. Got it.

         So, you who claim to do science have no idea how LIDAR measuring of wind speed works, that it’s very real, and that many very expensive systems actually depend on it, well , working. Got it. That it’s been around for a long time, that the patents are real, that the actual products are in the field, working everyday. None of that’s real. Got it.

         You didn’t know shit from Shinola last time, and you apparently know even less now. Unfortunate to see you embarrass yourself, but the Earth is not flat anymore.

         Once again, I’ve shown proof of my assertions. There are real products, on real machines. doing exactly what I have said they do. You have, the sad ramblings of someone who doesn’t know what is actually happening in science and technology.

6. This is something I’d like to try, and I’m curious how reliable the technology is under actual battlefield conditions.

7. I feel like this is the next evolution of projectile weapons. From bows to muskets. From muskets to rifles. From rifles to bolts. From bolts to semi/auto. Everything keeps progressing but this is a major leap. This might be bigger than the jump from open sights to magnified glass. This is awesome but also kinda scary with its implications

8. Smart bullets is the better way to go. Some company I forget who is workin on a smooth bore 50 bmg with bullets with fins that deploy and the bullet seeks a laser designator…

   • Here’s a story on that self guiding projectile.
     http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-01/video-new-smart-bullet-deploys-fins-and-guides-itself-laser-designated-target
     I agree that this is much more promising than trying to figure a way to feed enough info into an algo to estimate the total wind effect on the bullet’s way to the target before firing. With this system it would just be a matter of steering the projectile onto the target, much like a TOW, no matter what the conditions might happen to be.
     OFC, note that this too, is many years ago, and still not available. I would imagine there are serious problems with cost and the ability to keep an IC and actuators operative at the G loads the projectile must undergo at launch.

9. “The M1400 streams video to TrackingPoint’s ShotGlass wearable glasses. The Soldier or Marine can see the battlefield without putting his head behind the gun. He or she is completely unexposed and can see and eliminate targets exactly as if looking through the scope. Soldiers and Marines can shoot over berms and around corners with an extremely high hit rate on moving targets at extreme distances.”

   Does the action work itself then?

10. Wind…

    I’d give up all these functions if it did wind

    • Your squad light reconnaissance drone will do that. Mark my words, that will be a thing in the next decade.

      • How? Through its downwash?

        • If a human eye can read the mirage so can a computer.

        • jwtaylor, Very good. Yup, one can read wind velocity and direction using a small collection of lasers and sensors. I would imagine they are working on integrating with the rifle in the near future.

        • “Yup, one can read wind velocity and direction using a small collection of lasers and sensors. ”

          AGAIN, I ask: Care to post some evidence of this? Or are we all just supposed to take the word of an anonymous Inteneter above or own knowledge? Or perhaps its the ability to spell “yup” that makes your words so special??
          Come on, get real. Its time to put up or shut up. I’ve called, now show your hand. Unless you think I’ll just take your word for it that you have a royal flush, but you just refuse to show it?
          Again, get real… 🙂

        • You know Kenneth, the access to greatest knowledge library in human history is right at your fingertips. Google, DuckDuckGo, whatever the search engine of choice is. The tools to attempt to shut me up are right in front of you. Think I’m crazy? Feel free to prove it.

          If you hang around here for a while you’ll learn that I’m opinionated, some folks hate me for my beliefs, and that if I tell you something exists, it 100% damned well does. If I put in science without cites, it’s because I expect people who are interested to type a few sentences into a search engine, or know what I’m talking about already.

          Too lazy to do the work? I don’t owe you the time of day. That you don’t know what LIDAR is, how long it’s been around, and that it’s off-the-shelf tech, speaks volumes to your “bonafides”.

          http://www.accurateshooter.com/optics/new-wind-reading-lidar-laserscope/

          I use words like “yup” as they are more general conversational English, and accessible to most people. This is a website, not a frakkin’ country club. or an Ivy League lecture. I can channel my inner Buckley, but the average person finds it rather dry. And the humor is pretentious.

        • 16V: You are aware that in order to discuss the source you are using it is abslutely nessessary to first know what your source is, yes?

        • Kenneth, you made a wholly inaccurate assertion that lasers can’t measure wind. They can, and do commercially. I proved that with one cite. But since you wish to belabor the point.

          https://www.technologyreview.com/s/411149/laser-sensors-for-wind-turbines/

          http://www.laserfocusworld.com/articles/print/volume-33/issue-3/world-news/world-news/non-doppler-laser-sensor-measures-wind-speeds.html

          http://www.gizmag.com/catch-the-wind-racers-edge-laser-wind-mapping/14083/

          http://www.windarphotonics.com/lidar-technology

          It’s semi-mature, off-the-shelf tech. One of the early uses of laser in the 1960s was measuring wind speed. Shrinking it down and fitting it to rifle scopes is the only challenge. Wind mapping tech has been around for many years. That you are unaware of what happens in science is up to you to change.

        • 16V:
          I can’t help but notice that your sources are again all from the 2010 time period. And yet still unavailable. Just as has already been expounded upon at length. Would you be able to find anything more recent, that could perhaps show that any progress has been made since then? Or do you expect me to attempt to make your points for you?
          Also, what I actually said was: “I’ve been under the impression that lasers travel through the air instead of reacting to it. That the dot does not show up until it hits something reflective. And that that’s why the photos and movies always have smoke in the shot. So the laser will look like a line instead of just a dot where it interacts with the target.”
          Does that not make it clear that I do understand that it is REFLECTIONS that lasers work off of? Just as your old sources say as well about using small particles in the air to bounce the laser off of, such as the smoke I’ve already mentioned?
          My point has always been that it is NOT any one point through the projectile’s flight that is of importance, but the ENTIRE FLIGHT PATH that would need to be measured to have some sort of algo have any chance at all of figuring the wind drift.
          The mental stimulation is almost gone now. If you cannot be polite and stick to the points we are on, I will quickly grow tired of these an hominim attacks and snarky comments about things that did NOT say.
          Is it possible for you to put aside the fact that you seem to have not checked your own sources very closely, and instead put your focus towards rebutting some or all of the points that I have made?

        • What a pathetic troll you are. I have posted sources from 2008-2010 to show that what you said was “impossible” was done a half-dozen years ago.

          The Israeli “patent” could be easily gotten around, just like every “TrackPoint” patent. Nothing special about the sensors, or the math. All someone else has to do, is to do them. And by attempting to use that as refutation, you agree with my case. But still…

          You have spouted a bunch of gobbledey-gook, about nonsense. None of it amounts to a piss in the ocean, or a fart in a windstorm. You made a steaming pile of bullshit claim, and I debunked it with actual science. Everything you say is filtered through that cow dung, for those with a brain anyway.

11. Perfect for the liberal soldier….allows you to fire from your “Safe Space”.

    • +1

12. I love Tracking Point and I hate Tracking Point. It is the future, but it’s a shame to de-skill a great art.

    • As an occasional amateur long-range shooter, I can appreciate your ambivalence. But I also recall that setting your mixture and advancing your spark via levers on your steering wheel was once considered “skill”.

      I guess like most stuff, it’s important to know how to do it yourself, but it’s better to let the computer do it. Because computers are better at this sort of stuff than humans.

      • You wouldn’t happen to also “occasionally” work for tracking point would you? 🙂

        • Ummm, nope. The product is easily replicated, the functional pieces/processes are non-patentable, and 8-10 years (or less) from now will likely be available on a $1000 rifle at Wallyworld.

          Why would anyone want to be on a ship that is sure to be torpedoed?

        • Hey, kenneth?

          You’re well on your way to losing this pissing match in a spectacular fashion.

          Consider cutting your losses now…

        • I really do feel bad for people who never learned how to learn, you know? If there’s something I don’t know, or want to learn more about, punch a few buttons, read some articles, an extracts, a paper. Someone makes what you feel to be a spectacular claim, it’s so easy to fact check, why wouldn’t you? I assume that’s what everyone else did – they knew what I was talking about, or they looked it up. And learned something.

          I knew for sure that a few parties were actively working on it, but I didn’t know the Israelis had finished one. On the not-a-waste-of-electrons front, the interaction was useful in that I learned there’s a completed unit extant.

        • 16V: “the functional pieces/processes are non-patentable”
          Really?
          The one source you cited says, and I qoute; “The Israeli Government’s Soreq Nuclear Research Center has received a U.S. PATENT (emphasis mine, ken) for a new laser-based technology” -http://www.accurateshooter.com/optics/new-wind-reading-lidar-laserscope/
          Did you even read the source you cited? THIS is exactly WHY listing the source you choose to use is SO IMPORTANT?
          Anyone can say they saw whatever they choose to, but once their source is KNOWN, the error(s) in same can easily be pointed out. But without knowing exactly which error(s) you fell prey to, it is impossible to address them.
          Asking everyone else to do the research for you, blindly groping around for exactly which error you might have bought into, is an exercise in futility. That is the REASON for the well-known principle of always posting where you heard something, as opposed to just claiming that it’s the other’s fault for not knowing what you might be talking about.
          Do you understand now?

        • 16V: ” but I didn’t know the Israelis had finished one.”
          From your source; “Imagine a “smart scope” that can range your target AND calculate windage correction. Such technology may appear in riflescopes fairly soon.”
          Just FYI, the word “imagine” does not mean already exists. Neither does the phrase “may appear in riflescopes fairly soon.”
          You are aware that a patent and a working prototype are two very diferent things, are you not?

        • Geoff PR:
          You give up way too easy. Where do you think the debate points fall in the so called “pissing match” now? 🙂
          Just FYI, I do NOT see this that way. This is not a contest for me, I am after some intellectual stimulation, and perhaps to learn something. I haven’t seen anything new to me yet, but its not over until the weight challenged female performs the oral finale. One should never judge before the match is over.
          But I’ve already been intellectually stimulated, so its all good.

        • Egads, you have no hold on actual reality, eh?

          The Israelis proved that it works, and have an actual product that shows same. That you continually deny this, with a bunch of nonsensical drivel is really sad, and pathetic.

        • What “nonsensical drivel” would that be? When I quoted YOUR OWN SOURCE (THIS ONE! DUH! http://www.accurateshooter.com/optics/new-wind-reading-lidar-laserscope/) as stating: ““One Shot” System to Have (“to have” means does not currently exist… and currently means; “Belonging to the present time” Even you ought to be able to figure out how to look up a word, yes?) Wind-Reading Capability”
          AND:
          “AND calculate windage correction. Such technology may appear in riflescopes fairly soon” Again, MAY appear FAIRLY SOON means NOT RIGHT NOW! You do understand past, present and future tense of verbs, yes?
          On second thought, I’m guessing…. NO! 🙂
          And to think I actually thought that you might be good for an intelligent conversation. What a rube! [Me, not you. I let you fool me into thinking you might actually have enough brain cells left to be able to think. So much for THAT! You’re more like “trollish fool”]

        • kennethm TAKE YOUR MEDS. Because they are obviously off.

          Argue the facts, or you have nothing but your nonsense-speak to stand on. I have proved your bullshit statements wrong, time and again with actual companies, building actual things, that one can actually buy.

          All of which map wind using lasers.

13. Downside: it’s the electronic gun slippery slope. Tracking point applies for some patent related to wifi controlled “locked out” guns.
    Electronic firearms that can be turned off via wifi? Who wants that? I’ll stick to cold steel and glass.

14. Dumb enough that could have come out of DARPA. Always bucks for never going to happen BS but not for
    “Reality”. Can’t afford the microsized DOD of Obumer but can spend endless $ on gimcracks and toys. As MRAPs, “drones” on and on. DOD never changes.

    Perhaps forgetting that what REALLY matters is “soldierettes”/comfort girls into Combat Arms units is what REALLY matters.

15. So, it is available to “qualified United States citizens.”
    I submit that being a United States citizen IS qualification.

16. Meanwhile, in other tracking point news:
    http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2016/04/27/breaking-news-tracking-point-suppressor-not-exactly/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

    It would appear that they are now offering the products of another company(listed as “optimized” for their rifles) under their own brand name after being told; “Tracking Point approached Dead Air for the purposes of supplying silencers to function in combination with Tracking Point’s own products. On or about April 22, 2016, Tracking Point published information confirming an intent to rebrand Dead Air’s products, and to change certain material terms such as the MSRP and the warranty without the express permission of either Dead Air or its parent company. Accordingly, Dead Air has taken the above stated action and will not supply any of its products to Tracking Point nor license any intellectual property to Tracking Point.”

    It would seem that tracking point is a little cavalier with both the truth and the laws of the land. Somehow, given their history, I’m not surprised. Anyone care to bet that the unauthorized changes were a higher MSRP and a lesser warranty?

17. I don’t agree. Look at http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/06/study-better-athletes-have-more-heart-arrhythmias/276768/
    Sincerely, Ileana

18. After reading these comments, I wonder if any have actually worked a rifle, much less a precision rifle in a combat theater. Unless a mission expressly revolves around the elimination of a high value target. A sniper team’s mission is one of reconnaissance. The elimination of a target is generally one of opportunity. The exception is when the mission requires several teams of snipers to slow an enemy’s advancement.

    From a snipers perspective, the Tracking Point rifle simplifies the placement of precision fire in that rifle incorporates a laser rangefinder, compensates for the hold required when shooting uphill or down and partially eliminates the need for a weather station by compensating for barometric pressure and can lock on and track a target moving at a speed of up to 20 mph. All of the foregoing eliminates a lot of gear that would otherwise be needed in the field. As for reading the wind? it’s a learned skill. Some learn faster than others, but it’s far from rocket science, snipers have been doing it in this Country since the Revolutionary War. The Tracking Point rifle is akin to a calculator in that we all learned the fundamentals of doing math. The calculator simplifies the process, but most of us can still do the math when the batteries go dead.

    The problem that’s not been discussed is the proprietary ammunition that’s required for the claimed accuracy of this rifle, the cost of which is $1800.00 for a 200 round case. That’s $9.00 per round. This proprietary ammunition is going to be a non starter for the military and is already a non starter for civilians. At the present time, its only loaded by Barnes. I’m sure there are those that have run this stuff past a chronograph and have measured and matched the powder, but it’s not like Barnes has the capacity to handle a military contract.

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