I think the only reason to kill an animal is to have some food, for sports sorry both thumbs down

Originally posted by Pryde87
And what are you going to do when the batteries run out for your scope? I doubt lithium batteries will be abundant when the SHTF

I spend copious amounts of time in the bush observing and recording wildlife with my thermal imager. It, like all modern thermal imagers is a battery hog because the technology that cools the imaging chip requires a lot of power. I get away with it though by carrying a small fold up solar array which gives me indefinite use of the devices I carry.

Originally posted by IgnoranceIsntBlisss
Yeah. It's brutal, and that could be YOU.

Lesson learned.

Your enemy shows up at night with that scope, with your crew lacking any form of night vision, and you have no chance whatsoever.

I would not say that is entirely true. These hogs were in an open field with no cover. In a SHTF scenario people would likely be in cover and the sound and muzzle flash would reveal the shooters position for retaliation.

This scope definitely gives a huge advantage however those on patrol at night would likely have NV also. So I wouldn't say game over, even if you did not have NV you could use cover. It does remind though the NV should be part of your preps.

Oh and these feral hogs destroy crops and root up fields etc. they are a pest and there is no shortage of them.

[edit on 3-7-2010 by hawkiye]

I want that fricken scope.. talk about having a great advantage when hunting for survival and defense.. They start at $2200 and go up to about 5k.. dang..

Originally posted by moonwilson

Originally posted by darthlung1
But as for the main topic of this thread. The sniper may get 3 people before he is lit-the-!@#$-up. i dont know about most folks, but I dont need IR or night vision to send 30 rounds screaming towards a muzzle flash.

Which is why sniper rifles have flash suppressors on them. No visible muzzle flash- even at night. Usually, a sniper will only fire a single round before displacing, so the report of the rifle won't reveal his location. At night, against a sniper with night optics, if you have no optics of your own, you're hosed. Against a trained sniper, even if you have optics of your own, you're hosed. Firing blindly in the general direction of where you think the guy may be is useless. All you're doing is revealing your location. He'll just put his head down behind cover until you're done shooting.

A Lot of sniper rifles do NOT have flash suppressors, as they tend to alter the trajectory of the round unless they are perfectly concentric with the bore. The puff of smoke, and the sound of the shot are more useful for locating a sniper than the flash is. You generally won't see the flash unless you are already looking at the shooter when he fires. A sniper will generally hold his fire unless he HAS to take the shot then, especially if there are OPFOR downrange near the target.

Even if a rifle has a flash suppressor, it is not meant to hide the flash from the target, it burns more of the powder off in a controlled manner and lessens the size of the fireball visible to the person firing the weapon. It is meant as a way to minimize the loss of night vision to the firer. Also, most flash hiders serve as a muzzle brake, lessening the felt recoil, as well as limiting how much dust is kicked up by a shooter in the prone position, or in a dusty location. I can attest to the fact that a flash suppressor does little to hide the flash from those being engaged by the weapon, or those in the area. The muzzle flash can be quite visible in all but the brightest sunlight. It is therefore VERY apparent at night.

The only device that really does a lot to hide the flash is a silencer. But they carry with them their own problems.

Originally posted by ZodiacFlyer

A Lot of sniper rifles do NOT have flash suppressors, as they tend to alter the trajectory of the round unless they are perfectly concentric with the bore. The puff of smoke, and the sound of the shot are more useful for locating a sniper than the flash is. You generally won't see the flash unless you are already looking at the shooter when he fires. A sniper will generally hold his fire unless he HAS to take the shot then, especially if there are OPFOR downrange near the target.

Even if a rifle has a flash suppressor, it is not meant to hide the flash from the target, it burns more of the powder off in a controlled manner and lessens the size of the fireball visible to the person firing the weapon. It is meant as a way to minimize the loss of night vision to the firer. Also, most flash hiders serve as a muzzle brake, lessening the felt recoil, as well as limiting how much dust is kicked up by a shooter in the prone position, or in a dusty location. I can attest to the fact that a flash suppressor does little to hide the flash from those being engaged by the weapon, or those in the area. The muzzle flash can be quite visible in all but the brightest sunlight. It is therefore VERY apparent at night.

The only device that really does a lot to hide the flash is a silencer. But they carry with them their own problems.

Incorrect. Flash suppressors are designed to suppress muzzle flash. Hence the name. I have never heard of a flash suppressor "affecting bullet trajectory". The only way you would know, is if for some reason you had a removable flash suppressor, and your zero shifted when you removed it. If you have a rifle sighted in without a flash suppressor, and then attached one to your barrel, then yes, you would likely have to sight your rifle in again. Once.

As for detecting shooters by the "puff of smoke", that is a useful tactic, if you face assault by a column of Napoleonic infantry, armed with muzzle-loading rifles. Ever heard of "smokeless powder"?

Yes, they ARE designed to suppress flash, however, the great majority of them do not ONLY do that. A Lot of them are also muzzle brakes/compensators. For instance, the one on the M-16 is cut in such a way that the admittedly small recoil from the 5.56 round is reduced even more. Also, there are no slots on the bottom in order to lessen the dust signature.

They are flash SUPPRESSORS, not flash eliminators. In most fairly short barreled rifles in use today, there is a lot of unburned powder in the bore when the bullet leaves it. There is a notable flash, often visible by day, and definitely visible at night. The primary party that the suppressor is hiding the flash from is the firer himself. This is to save his night vision, allowing him to reengage, or to move on to other targets sooner than would be otherwise possible.

The primary individual my first post was directed at is the individual that stated that sniper rifles had flash suppressors mounted to them so that there was NO flash. A lot of this class of rifle in fact DO NOT have this feature; the M-24/ M-40, the SR-8, SR-25,-60,-90, Savage 10FCP, the PSG-1, H&K MSG-90, None of these rifle have a flash suppressor. The M107 has what looks like a flash suppressor, but is only a muzzle brake. (Good luck shooting a .50BMG from a shouldered weapon without one of those.) To be fair, there are a few that do come equipped with them, such as the M-21, and M-25. These are specially tuned M-14 rifles, and already had the suppressors on them at time of conversion.