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okay this next video on long-range optical parameters
we're going to discuss a magnification
we're going to discuss both fixed versus variable magnification and also
magnification values what power scope is actually going to be appropriate for
your purposes
now I this video series if you haven't seen some of the other proceeding videos
is focusing primarily on long-range shooting or extreme range shooting but
for this part of the video on magnification we're going to do a more
broad spectrum and present a general overview of a different weapon systems
used in the world currently and discuss some of their optics selection criteria
particularly in in the field magnifications that we can get a good
general overview about what different countries have found to be the most
effective for military purposes now it's true that although this video is also
covering a target shooting sports and hunting not just military but a military
and hunting although they're not directly synonymous like we said before
there are a lot of commonalities between the two
you're going to have moving targets that are going to present themselves in less
than ideal conditions
so for long-range practical purposes military is actually a good place to
start
and there's a lot of experience that the different world military's have a gained
in this area because when I their butts drawn the line they really put a lot of
energy and time and research and you know
hashing out what's going to work best so we're going to discuss some of the
primaries sniper weapons of the world and we're going to look at the
cartridges they are using so we can get an idea for the range that they're
shooting and also we're going to look at the magnifications that they have chosen
as the primary of sniper optics on their weapons systems then we're also going to
do historical overview of applications of some of these different sniper optics
throughout history including in terms of confirmed kills by some of the top
snipers in the world and us so that we can gain further knowledge
as to what is effective on the battlefield in real life
there's a wish was shooting at targets is one thing but shooting in hostile
environments is really the final test
so we're also going to go through and we're going to look at kind of a list of
us snipers of history arranged by number of kills
now mind you when we're doing this historical overview in this first video
and magnification here
i I'm not trying to glorify killing or warfare in any kind of way
I warfare it's not like you might think it is if you played Nintendo games or
you know from what you see on a movie
it's not it's not a happy thing is not fun especially when it's in your own
backyard for a lot of these guys so I history but war is terrible and it
should always be conducted reluctantly
so when we're going through some of these battlefield statistics let's do so
respectfully and with sobriety
we shouldn't be wagging their tails too much as we're talking about this because
war is not a fun thing is not a not a happy deal should always be the absolute
final last resort to defend yourselves basically
ok so let's kind of begin by discussing some of the general misconceptions that
are out there concerning rifle optics in long range of applicability of them
perhaps the biggest misconception about rifle optics is that people will kind of
rank scopes in their minds
according to magnification values they'll figure that the highest powered
scope is going to be the best scope and as well see in a minute here that's not
always true
and many people might be surprised to see some of the low magnification is
used by some of the world's most successful snipers and some of the
military's of the world even currently don't use that what we would classify is
very high magnification the second general misconception is that variable
power optics like you can adjust from three to nine sculpture you know if we
have different power settings that those are also
going to be superior to fix power optics and that fixed par optics are obsolete
and that's also not true
so I just want to lay those out on the table so we can think when we're going
through the source historical overview keep in the back of your mind
magnification like low versus high power and also variable power and you might be
surprised what we see here so let's get started by quickly looking at some of
these confirmed kill statistics
ok this is a sniper's of history arranged by numbers of kills and as
you're going to see here is a lot of Russians on this list
now one of the reasons for this is in world war two one of the Russians
primary combat systems was a sniper team and they were kind of one of the first
places to really widely used snipers being a war of attrition
Russia was kind of running out of a lot of resources so they had to be extremely
efficient in their use of equipment and ammunition and things like this so they
discovered that if you actually train people to use the rifle effectively and
aim that uh one sniper on the battlefield with one shot can suppress
an entire company of soldiers for a huge amount of time
now if you're on the battlefield and it was just a firefight a contest of who
has the most firepower those two sides are going to expend a lot of material
and basically come out even
you know 300 guys vs three hundred guys and not in an all-out firefight and some
of these World War two battles
not a lot of rounds get thrown around not a lot of stuff gets hit sometimes
but a sniper with one round found there's a huge psychological effect two
wen Hao a sniper operated with deadly precision really scared a lot of these
guys on the battlefield and the suppressive fire power of a sniper just
with a couple of rounds with the bolt action rifle can successfully suppress
even a large unit for a long amount of time
so that's why so many of these are Russians there I don't know if I a lot
of you are familiar with some of the stats of World War two but the United
States lost around 400,000 soldiers in World War two and that's a lot of people
to lose but up
Russia actually lost about 10 to 12 million soldiers and another you know 12
to 14 million civilians in world war two fighting the Germans and the Japanese on
the other front as well but the Russians took the brunt of that one there
they actually kind of one of the reasons that most people in Europe aren't
speaking German right now is because they were able to really take the brunt
of the Nazis and then we can we fought him pretty hard too but the Russians
really really took the big hit there so they were engaged in fierce combat for
quite a while that's why a lot of these guys have the can on the higher
confirmed kills here
so you look up that in this is the highest recorded confirmed kills
mihail Surkov had a 702 kills
now these Russian snipers were using the most nagata bolt action rifle
that's another thing to consider we should have talked about this little
more in our rightful selection but I most people in America today would
consider the most of the got to be kind of a pilot junk
it's not used to be able to pick them up for 40 bucks apiece you know and they're
kind of sloppily built the machining isn't that well or whatever a lot of
people would like to complain about it and they they're pretty crudely main
rifle but actually if you've ever shot one
they're just as accurate as any other rifle I mean that they'll hold minute of
angle or less no problem with with good ammunition so up
that's something to keep in mind the equipment selection is not not all there
is to it
I mean training and at the effect of employment of whatever weapon have is
kind of the that that's what really takes the cake here
yeah
Samson I don't know if you've ever had the the book of Judges but that guy
killed over a thousand guys with the the jaw bone of a donkey and i'm not sure
what up what kind of optics used on that jaw bone
I'm not sure what magnification he had on his scope for his job on that he was
whacking dudes with but up
he was extremely effective with his weapon system ok now Sampson lot of guys
would have a accused him of to have an inadequate equipment for combat
but as you could see he was extremely effective with that jaw bone
ok now ah if you look at that even King David back in the day he killed
thousands more than Samson did in battle he killed a lot of Philistines and
Syrians that they were riding their chariots and when he went to war and
this was all with no magnification at all on these optics
so as you can see here effectiveness on the battlefield is not contingent just
upon equipment it has to do with a lot of other factors it has to do with like
how good of a warrior you might be how fierce ER probably whose side you're
fighting on in the case of these last two guys if you think about it right
that's pretty important to so battlefield effectiveness is not
contingent upon just your equipment a lot of guys have that idea like oh if
you buy a good sword
are you automatically going to survive the battle you know you can have better
odds well no you have to learn how to use it right
if you buy a really good guitar are you going to be able to just rock out better
than Hendrix not know as it doesn't work that way right
so up it's the level of training and and lot of other factors that come into this
so these Russians were all using the most of the GaN primarily here these are
most of these are pretty much all these high confirmed kills amongst Russians
are with the most of the gun rifle in world war two and uh of of the optics
available for the most of the gun rifle during that time there was the pu optic
and the PE sniper scopes and they were very very crudely made
scope by today's standards the glass was good for the day but it was what today
we consider that like worse than a pellet gun scope quality with the
three-quarter inch tube some of those pellet rifle scopes might have grown up
with these things were pretty crude and the cross hairs in a more huge but for
patent battlefield purposes they were very very effective with these optics
they were there are very tough that they're very rugged optic and that's the
primary reason why they like to use them
crude is good for ruggedness usually and also the magnification on these optics
was three and a half power and for power they're both straight power scopes one
of almost three and a half and the other one was for very low magnification for
what most Americans are for sporting purposes would consider that to be not
all that's not a real good even deer rifle scope that's not enough
magnification is probably what you would hear if you want to the gun store
most guys are going to try to push you need at least a three by nine or if you
have a you know a 16 power scope than your even better
but if you consider in let's scroll down here and look at some of these kills
pretty much shot all these confirmed kills here we're done with the most of
the gun rifle in a for power scope at the absolute max all these Russians you
see a lot of these guys also debuts open sites they didn't all you'd like to use
the optical sight they just some of them preferred open sites which are zero part
of magnification right
so as you can see historically speaking statistically uh number of kills and
battlefield effectiveness of sniper rifles is not contingent upon a high
magnification value on the battle optic ok that's the primary uh part of the
message here as we're looking at the statistics
now let's talk about some of these guys real quick here up i'm going to scroll
down if you look at the the guy in fifth place
his name is seen simo haha - hi i cannot pronounce that correctly but i use a
from finland in the 1939-1945 interwar the Soviet Union actually tried to
invade finland and there is some fierce battles
going on there in the winter but a lot of these and Finland also employed a
whole bunch of snipers as well encima was one of these guys and he's kind of
defending basically his backyard you know is that I mean finland is home and
just in a couple months he racked up over 500 confirmed kills with his most
in nagaon rifle and his optic of choice
this is C most considered probably one of the most effective snipers that has
ever existed
he's a like fifth place according to these records and of course these
records are not completing areas discrepancies between some of the other
ones people argue but basically he made he made over 500 confirmed kills and C
Mo's optic of choice was actually no optics
simo actually preferred the use of open sights
he found you know during the wintertime optics do fog up and give you a problem
so he just went four straight ruggedness he said you know I don't want to have to
worry about my scope fogging up or the issues that optics do have so we just
went with open sights and he was one of the most effective snipers in history
and if you look a lot of these other Russian one side there's a lot of
fighting going on between Russian in Germany and a lot of the man just a
terrible
whatwhat them guys had to go through so as you look at all these guys that most
of these guys using very very low power rifle optics
if any at all so up see are the ones and pink here these are female snipers
let's look at that Ludmilla Palecek oh she's kind of a one of the more famous
female snipers in World War two
she had 309 confirmed kills and I believe her optic of choice was the PE
but they did switch around sometimes you know the pu also but that's a for power
optic in the PE so magnification
I mean that that chick was able to take off 309 Nazis and that's a pretty
effective that's more than
any American sniper so far thus been disclosed okay so where's the Americans
they seem to have the higher power scope swear they add on this list let's keep
scrolling down we have a couple of Germans in here some more russian chicks
and Chinese guy that was from the Korean War and that was also a very low powered
optic let's look down Germany
ok here's a here's our first American currently on the books
chris kyle has the most confirmed kills for any American sniper and uh he has a
hundred sixty confirmed kills by this count and I probably has more like 255
actual kills but that still puts them at like a hundred some place
now I'm not saying that these Russian snipers in world war two were more
effective overall than Chris Kyle there's a lot more going into these
statistics than just their abilities I mean you think of the target rich
environment in world war two there in fierce combat for years and years a lot
of it urban settings and everyone were uniform back then
it's a lot of people got killed in World War two there's a big difference between
World War two and the conflicts we've been in the last few years
chris kyle is probably way way way better trained sniper than these other
guys but I'm still if you look at he's a hundred some place here
historically speaking now I what he was a US Navy in their primary optics are
usually straight 10 power scopes
that's generally what is issued for the United States Chris Cole I think you
said 300 Winchester Magnum most the time but I you know Special Operations
nowadays does have a lot more diversity of equipment they're allowed to use they
did God complain about that for a long time in the sum of the brass and the
Pentagon wanted to keep equipment more I uniform but a special operations finally
explained to them that hey sometimes you know different pieces of equipment work
good for different environments for example you know in Afghanistan some
some of those places you have to make really long shots but are the primary
optics even in Afghanistan for most the snipers they use 10 power optics
some of them do use a
I aftermarket sculpture Schmidt and vendors are different objects that are
variable but up primarily speaking the United States uses straight 10 power
under military optics
so that's Chris Kyle he's the first American on the list here and then we
see we got a bunch of Russian she was another chick and scroll down some more
ok so I ll Bert wall Waldron
he's a United States sniper he's another famous when he has a hundred nine
confirmed kills his primary optic as well was a straight 10 power sculpt
that's what would be issued and i'm not saying that's the only thing these guys
use but that's the primary optic of choice and the famous carlos hathcock
from Vietnam the Marine sniper kind of wrote the book on modern sniper tactics
he had 93 confirmed kills in Vietnam and his primary optic of choice was a
straight 10 power in erdle scope and so if you look at the general trend here
just looking at the statistics one cannot draw the conclusion that higher
magnification equals more effective us sniper rifle system because as you can
see by this list here and by looking at the statistics the most effective sniper
rifle system in history is probably one of the least expensive
you can pick up even at i am most of the gun sniper rifle package with the optic
on it for probably out what they used to be just couple months ago there 350
bucks her four hundred dollars or something like they can get them for so
it's very very inexpensive and most of that's going for the scope the rifle
itself is usually under ahundred dollars and then the optic another couple
hundred bucks in there you got a sniper rifle
that's the most effective weapon system historically speaking so a lot of guys
who think that you need to spend you know a couple thousand dollars on a
system that's nice and I do like a high-quality rifle but it's definitely
not necessary and sometimes as pretty as history has proven the more rugged
system the fixed power low magnification optic on a real ruggedly built rifle
that's not real refined but is going to be very heavy duty
is the more effective system when you're talking about using it in serious
business
ok so that was our historical overview
let us look at some of the primary sniper weapon systems of the world
currently being fielded now most of these I got this information from the FM
23 - 10 Field Manual in the back they have an appendix on the primary sniper
rifles of the world some of the information and there was incorrect
so I tried to edit this all just a tiny bit in some cases and some of the
information was incomplete but this is the general trend so if you see
something in here that looks a little goofy don't get too worked up
I is I mostly just pull this up to 23 dead - 10 field manual but I Australia
this is one actually annotated add this in here to use that one of their sniper
rifles they they currently feel this model 82 and that's a three-way caliber
and that's a six power magnification if you look over here at the magnification
of all these different optics
most of these guys are using that the nato cartridge most of these countries
that's the standard world standard sniper cartridges the three way that's
the 76 to NATO
that's the military designation slight differences in the case and chamber
dimensions but I'm let me go back to it here
lost it okay but you'll notice the magnification values are very very mild
or low us-australian austria you six power
these are fixed power magnification is not variable so uh they use six power
belgium and the Czech Republic
they used for power optics on the VZ 24
that's used the POS ESO one that's kind of like what's on the dragon off scope
finland they have the that silenced sniper rifle the SSR one that's usually
equipped with the Schmidt & Bender p.m. - so that's a variable optic that's a
three to twelve power but you if you look at the magnification 12 power would
be considered you know like a a good long-range dear scope or uh you know
maybe a varmint hunting scope but these rifles are full board currently issued
military sniper rifle
it's very low magnification a lot of guys think you need 16 power 20 power
sometimes 24 power 25 power Germany they have some really high-quality equipment
actually and they are equipped their sites are usually the zeiss d'ivoire II
and the in the variable two point five to ten now if you also notice to these
variable power scopes that are on this list are all extremely high quality
sites these sites are like several thousand dollars apiece so they're not
using cheap variables and as we discussed before and as we're going to
elaborate on more clearly here in this magnification part of the series
there's a a big reason why you need really high quality optics if you do
want to use variable power scopes
but most of these military sorry are equipping their soldiers with fixed
magnification Israel uses a straight six
Nimrod on there I Galatz it like a good lil sniper rifle and most of these other
guys you can look at the list here
you know the United States is kind of a strange one we are we in the United
States for our military our primary I magnification choice for sniper optics
is straight 10 power if you look at the marine course m40 rifle to use the
funeral scope and it's got the straight 10
same thing with the Army's m24 they like to use Leopold m3 which is a straight 10
and even the Barrett 50 cal a lot of guys think all man the 50 that's got to
have a real good real good scope on their well it's still a straight 10
power and most of these other countries would consider tend to be very very high
magnification
even the united kingdom they filled one of the probably the most advanced sniper
rifle system in the world the Arctic warfare super magnum made by accuracy
international and as I right here is that L of 115 a one that's their
designation for but that's in the 338 Lapua Magnum
that's like the Arctic warfare super magnum and that's going to be shooting
that those guys train out to 1600 meters and beyond their shooting at were what
we're going to consider extreme ranges and their optics choice for that is
primarily the Schmidt & Bender three to twelve variable
now I England is feeling some of the five to 25 powers as well but I there
that the most commonly issued one on the system is the 3 2 12
so if you look at the general trend here
the military's of the world currently for their sniper rifles which these are
the guys are gonna be shooting the farthest k lot of these rifles are you
know the three weights are going to be effective out - 800 meters and your 300
win mag that's 1200 meters at least and then your 338 that's going out to case
sometimes and the highest magnification really use is like 10 power
some of these guys are pushing a little past 10 and most of them are going for
fixed power magnification so we need to keep that in mind as we continue this
research and look at our magnification values
ok so i wanted to get that out of the way I historical overview so that when
we start talking about magnification in the mechanics of it in the psychology
the battlefield psychology of like fixed magnification and also just the general
battlefield effectiveness of rifle optics that you'll have the statistics
in mind so it's not just one guy arguing against another come but I that's what
the military's of the world use and that's the historical overrun of the
most effectively employed sniper rifles and their combined optics in history
ok so the next video we're going to get into the mechanics of magnification
we're going to start off by talking on fixed magnification versus variable and
there are some we're going to talk about the applicability of both systems and
then we're going to talk about actual magnification
what power should you pick for your long-range rifle set up so stay tuned
yeah