Longest range recorded kill

Kenny-
How about YOU providing some evidence for your stance?

 

I am after anything that gives us an insight into Soviet Optics. I have no evidence and never claimed otherwise. I am actively seeking 'evidence' that sheds light in this much talked about but seldom referenced area.

I hear the claim the Soviet Optics were 'useless' and note that someone with the actual sights can show otherwise.
I want to know more and I do not believe asking someone who claims he has used hundreds (if not thousands) of Soviet sights to post something solid from his extensive experience with them is asking too much.
I want a bit more than 'hints' that Vintovka is making it up/is lying or has been decieved.

Perhaps Gordon YOU can show us your evidence and the issue can be put to bed?

 

m kenny, you are unbelievable...

I never even as much as hinted that Vintovka was a liar, but any man can be fooled by the fakes existing out there, and there are A LOT of original scopes which have been refurbished without there being a single mark on them. People who buy & sell optics from this era know this. You don't know this however m kenny because you have jack sh*t for experience in this area. You're only here to achieve one thing, to question every post I make and twist every word I write. I pity those who fall for your tricks!


Vintovka, I don't think you're a liar, I never have. Don't fall for m kenny's tricks, this is what he is known for.

I like your rifles & scopes, they seem to be in prestine condition. The look through your own scopes looks like the best Russian ones I have seen with my own eyes, featuring some cloudiness and distortion as-well as discolourations at the edges. The picture through one of your friend's scopes however looks way better than any Russian scope I have ever seen, and I am in doubt as to wether this one has been refurbished or is even an original. I haven't layed eyes on or touched the scope myself however, so I couldn't say for sure, but the optics look way clearer than normal. I'll contact a good expert on these scopes to get his opinion.

What I can tell you for sure however is that the Russians didn't know about AR coatings until way after the war, so any scope using multiple lenses was going to suffer in clarity & brilliance. Furthermore according to all my sources the Russians didn't know about nitrogen or argon purging until after the war either, and I am struggling at the moment to find any proof that they did. I have asked a fellow enthusiasts I know about the subject, but their answer is the same; they didn't have it.

 

What-evidence of trying to prevent the thread degenerating into a slanging match?
You've asked for evidence- now back off and give him a chance to present it.

 

Vintovka do not be sucked into answering every minor query about your equipment. Give the details you have, make your point and leave it to those who dispute it to give the facts that show otherwise. Once you clear up one point you will just be distracted with another round of endless nit picking.
Can you tell us how good these sights are at 1000 mtrs plus?
I am not asking if they are good for 4000 mtr shooting but just want to know if you can see that far and if the sights allow clear vision to that distance. The Soviets impress me as a people who did not over-engineer a part and if normal combat ranges were under (say)2000 mtrs they did not waste effort building in the ability to get a 5% hit at extreme range.

 

Hello,at 1,000 meters a kill is possible with either a PU or PEM scope - as long as the person behind the trigger knows what he's doing. There is an interesting article with Anatoly Chekhov where he tells about long range shooting in Stalingrad,I will find the link ASAP,Vladimir Pchelintsev would shoot enemy soldiers out to half a mile in Leningrad. In my opinion the Germans built a hunting scope and the Soviets built a combat scope that could be mass produced yet get the job done. During 1936 to the end of WWII over 170,000 M91/30 sniper rifle's were built and sent to the front

 

The scope should not be the limiting factor at 1000 meters, even primative optics should be sufficient. During the WWI Battle of Belleau Woods Marine riflemen were routinely shooting Germans at 800 yards using iron sights, no optics. The French were impressed because sharpshooters were routinely employed out to only 500 yards. Now 500 yards is not a difficult shot for someone with a strong foundation in marksmanship techniques. I routinely fired a possible at 500 yards with iron sights, and every Marine recruit is required to qualify on a KD course of 200, 300 and 500 yard ranges. The difference is that armies during the WWI period did not stress marksmanship training, relying on mass over precision. Marines up to WWI were normally deployed in very small groups, marksmanship was important because lacking numbers each individual soldier had to be more effective. Furthermore when the initial brigade of two regiments (5th and 6th Marines) was formed for the fighting in France the Commandant refused to take any Marine that wore glasses or had not qualified as expert with his rifle. The rifle, the round fired and shooter's ability are the limiting factors between 800 and 1000 meters. When you're shooting out to 1000 meters the shooter really has to be locked on and attuned to environmental factors and very good with his range estimation. Out past 1000 meters up to maybe 1200 meters optics are much more critical, as is shooting ability. At these ranges only exceptional shooters are really effective. The .30 caliber these weapons fire, be it .30-06, 7.62x54R, .308 or 7.92x57 are just not effective past this range. BTW, M Kenny the Mosin Nagat, Kar98 and '03 Springfield all have similar maximum effective ranges.

Optics are really a non-issue out past 1200 meters unless you are going with a larger caliber or magnum round. The round just won't get the job done, you may can see the target but you're not going to hit it, unless it's a fluke.

 

Vintovka, those scopes are good and i bet that it is possible to hit a man sized target at 1000m with such an sniper. The most .30 rounds will go out to 1000m but the problem is that they are loosing energy and as i said the bullet speed is falling into the subsonic speed and are loosing accuracy. Would be great to make an test with your and mine rifles!

 

Vintovka, Gebirgsjaeger speaketh the truth.

 

I love to speaketh the truth!

 

To see a person with the simple 3.5x PU or PEM scope at 1,000 meters is definitely possible, but hitting them will be very hard. Generally a 4x scope is good out to 600 meters, whilst you'll need a 6x scope or higher for best results at 1,000 meters. And whilst the Russian rifle scopes do have problems with clarity & distortion, their little use of extra lenses makes sure that it doesn't get too severe, but this on the other hand also limited the FOV they could obtain.

It's an entirely different matter when talking about Russian tank sights however, which because of their articulated design had to use a large number of lenses, and without AR coatings this is going to cause poor clarity, cloudiness etc etc.. that is just fact, something you can read about in any book concerning any form of telescope optics.

To make matters worse the Russians didn't purge their telescopic sights with nitrogen or argon, which often led to the lenses getting clouded.

 

What exactly is the problem with having blurry edges on a sniper rifle scope?

 

If you can see it you can hit it. If the shooter knows the rifle, the scope and the ballistics of the round and applies the proper firing solution, it doesn't really matter if you can read his rank insignia or he's just a 1/4" high dark blob. Military sniping is different from police sniping (Police sniping is normally done at minimal ranges and requires an instantaneous kill), at 1000 meters a military sniper is going to aim at the center mass of the upper thorax. Head shots at these ranges can be made but are not the optimal shot placement. Environmental factors are critical and greatly effect the strike of the round at these ranges, so you want the largest possible target area in case the rounds point of impact is off a little. Center mass, upper thorax provides maximum hit probability without sacrificing lethality. Aim at the head and a slight variation in the wind or hot air rising off a road, or denser air over a bog, can alter the point of impact enough to make the round miss. FOV can be important for target acquisition but even the best scopes are limited. That's why optimal employment of snipers is in pairs, one to spot with binoculars and talk the shooter onto the target, one to take the shot.

Agreed, the ranges a tank can engage at would make clarity more important. Also, tanks often fight buttoned up, optics are more critical for situational awareness.

 

Fella's I am going to be honest with you,none of my 13 original Russian WWII scope's have cloudiness or blurry edges when looking through them in real time,I have Russian WWII scope's that have dirt/dust in the lenses,a chipped lense and they all still give clear views,none have edge distortion either. I own a newly made reproduction PU scope that is nitrogen filled and has coated lenses fitted on a 1942 M91/30,The optical clarity is the same as my original PU scopes...
The repro rifle


Another scope view from the 1942 Alloy model I posted earlier,As well I have realized what seems to be edge distortion is simply the ocular shadow that my camera lens picks up.



Article by Vic Thomas that is worth reading,Remember these Russian scope's were all made on 1931 supplied German Zeiss equipment,The Soviets said their scopes are updated versions of the German Zeiss.

http://mosinnagant.net/sniper section/snipertext1.asp

 

Vintovka,

I'd say that's a pretty good indication that the Russian's produced a good piece of equipment. I think most of us accepted your original assesment of the scopes. That aside, I'd say from the pictures you posted that they are more than adequate to meet the requirements of the rifle out to it's maximum effective range which is generally given as 1000 meters for a scoped version.

 

USMCPrice said it good and clear. A good shooter can hit a target if he can see it. And and if he can deal with all the circumstances that a long range shoot will have and if he is experienced he can do the job!Think of the Marine´s shooting matches where they are shooting at 1000yards wit open sights and hit their target without any problem. You will be surprised to see the Swiss shooting competition that they have every year with BP Muzzleloaders at 800yards. And if a man can hit a target with an leadball ammo and open sights he is able to make the 1000yards with an 3 or an 3.5 power scope. Not a big job.

 

Quite often repro scopes aren't of the best quality, and far from always are they purged or coated, so one shouldn't just take that as a given if owning a modern made scope. It depends a lot on where it's made.

One also needs to remember that the precision manufacturing of the lenses is very important to how the scope comes out. Now it is quite well known amongst enthusiasts that the Russians had, along with their purchases of a great many German scopes in the mid 30's, acquired some German manufacturing equipment from Zeiss, which would've made sure that the lenses made there atleast were fine. But the Soviets still knew nothing about AR coatings, which was a closely held German secret, and neither did they know about nitrogen or argon purging, and that was going to hurt them in many areas.

In the words of our expert in Russian optics and Mosin Nagants at the club: "I have never heard of, or seen any PU scope purged with any form of inert gas other than air"

The US military for example didn't get their first purged scope until late 1945 (M84), which was based on lessons learned from captured German opticians.

Now it is quite possible that a few ww2 Russian scopes featuring lenses made with the Zeiss equipment acquired some years earlier possess a better than usual clarity and distortion free view. But the far majority of the Russian scopes were made with Russian lense manufacturing equipment and they quite simply didn't possess the precision of the German lense manufacturing equipment, and thus the best scopes usually came out as on the majority of pictures posted of the PU here, featuring edge cloudiness and distortion. I have looked through so many of these scopes that I know this to be the truth.

That having been said the simple PU design however went a good way to eleviate the issues that the Russians had with manufacturing decent quality lenses, and that by using the lowest possible amount in the first place.

 

I think you're forgetting that these rifles weren't as accurate as the match rifles of today, for a good number of reasons. Therefore if you could see someone at 1,000 meters then it wasn't a given that you would hit him first try, you being an expert shot or not. Other factors decide wether one hits or not than just the shooter himself.

Modern advances in technology has made sure that hitting a target today depends almost entirely on skill of the shooter. During WW2 however very few armies even equipped their snipers with ammunition fit for the proffession of sniping, the main ammunition type handed being a light, flat based spitzer design. This was the only type of ammunition available to snipers in the Russian or US military during WW2 for example, which also became a great area of complaint.

Infact the only nations to deal out special boat tailed sniper ammunition during the war were Switzerland, Germany & Finland.

On top of this snipers back then weren't given special training on taking into account earth curvature, interleaving cross winds etc etc.. whilst today snipers not only recieve extensive training within these areas, they are often also equipped small ballistics computers taking these factors into account, as-well as laser range finders to acquire the exact range to the target..

True, but the main problem was that because tank optics required the use of a lot more lenses than a simple rifle scope, they also required the use of AR coatings to stay clear; and as such the Russian tank optics, which were articulated, suffered a great deal in terms of clarity & distortion, having to use a great number of subpar, uncoated lenses. The end result was sights with such a poor performance that consistently hitting targets more than 800 meters away was a real challenge for Russian tankers.

 

Thought I add this comment from our expert on Russian optics:
"If your PU is sealed with anything other than Beeswax and/or purged with any form of inert gas, then you have yourself a fake."

 

I don't recall ever mentioning or considering modern match rifles. In fact I believe the original example I gave, was of the Marine Brigade at Belleau Woods. They were using the standard 1903 Springfield service rifle with no modifications, using standard iron sights and firing standard issue ammunition. In fact all examples I gave were using the standard service rifle.
All rifles shoot differently, once you learn how your specific rifle shoots, given a firm foundation in marksmanship principles, you can determine the proper dope to dial in to put the round where you want it to strike.

Modern technology has just minimized certain variables, the skill of the shooter has always been the most important factor.

No argument here, it's a fact.

Where did I mention laser range finders or ballistic computers? I stated "range estimation" a technique long used by marksmen. If you are good at estimating the range, and know how your rifle shoots at specific ranges, you can dial in the proper dope/adjust point of aim, and hit what you're aiming at. Experienced long range shooters have always used techniques like watching for movement of grass in a field to judge wind speed and direction or heat mirages rising from the ground to compensate for environmental factors. Ever heard the term "Kentucky windage"? That dates back to the 1700's when frontier riflemen made estimated changes in point of aim to compensate for wind effects on bullet strike. None of the statements I made was anachronistic in relation to WWII shooting, all these shooting techniques existed and were utilized for decades if not centuries prior to WWII.

Why even mention this? I agreed with you initially that tank optics were a different story.