THE SNIPER RIFLE THAT WOULD HAVE CHANGED THE THEORY BACK IN 1998

Sad that in this period Parker Hale went through its sell off to Bremmer Arms/Modular Industries and nothing ever came of both these projects otherwise things may have been so different in Military Forces around the world for stop gap weapons of this quality.

THE M98 "BLACK MAMBA" 7.62 X 51 NATO MILITARY SNIPER RIFLE

After much digging around in old files and loft space through the Parker Hale records this rifle IMHO would have shook the sniper the world had it been manufactured reading the test results. Serial Number 001EXP one made and sold to York Guns in 2001 and then onwards to Germany.
Bill Smallwood clearly remembers shouting out dimensions in the workshop as the gun was actually cut on the lathe....history in the making!!

Will see if anything else turns up like the drawings but this did look like a hell of a weapon.

PARKER HALE "GP 24" IN 5.56/.233 MILITARY BOLT ACTION

The Australian Army trialled the rifle and loved it only three were ever made 001/002/003 Some write ups found in the papers that give an interesting piece of history on these two rifles

001 Held by a dealer in Jersey after return from Australia
002 UK Owner (known)
003 UK owner (known)

I don't think anyone would want a sniper in 5.56. The bullet doesn't carry the weight to perform at long rages, I had a 700 Reminton BDL delux varminter and at closer ranges it was stellar but with any wind it would just blow the tiny bullets off...like flies. Not ground breaking. We've gone the opposite way as you know. .338 and .50...

Of course guys liked to shoot it. It would make a nice plinker.

I have a Krico 600 Sniper Rifle in 5.56x45mm which was a Governmental sniper rifle. It came from the Slovenian Ministry of Defense (complete with paperwork). Krico told me per paperwork they sold more of them to Yugoslavia shortly prior the war, my rifle was among a batch of 40. Aside of that one I am not aware of any other official sniper rifle in this caliber, at least nothing introduced in larger numbers.

Jim,
I understand from Bill Smallwood, that the Australians were specifically after a bolt action 5.56/.223 rifle, and as stated not much good over long distances but would prove quite useful up to about 300 metres, which is where they wanted it to be.........as you say strange request, but you know what bosses are like when they have some money to spend!!:madsmile:

I have going out this Afternoon a SSG82 which is The Scharfschützengewehr 82 or SSG 82, literally Sharpshooter's Rifle 82, is a rifle chambered in the 5.45×39mm Soviet cartridge built in East Germany at the end of the Cold War for use by East German special police units.

Nice rifles ;)

Yes, close they would do loopholes nicely if the wind wasn't blowing...

Our SAS had some Tikkas in 22/250 for urban use in the '80s but until now I've never heard of the OZ army playing with a 223 DMR.

As an aside, I use a Tikka T3 223 out to 800m in our Precision Service Rifle competition firing 80.5gn Berger Fullbore projectiles @2940fps and they behave exactly as would the 155gn Dyers out of a 308.