I am very familiar with sniper systems ... Having shot expert my entire time in the Infantry and having been a designated marksman.
Someone familiar with the AR-15 / AR-10 receivers would have known that the lower receiver would have to be modified to meet this requirement. It was the concept of a swappable barrel that I was presenting.
I will also remind you that many battlefield weapons have been used as sniper weapons with modifications (M14, Galil, M1C/D, M44, etc). It is often not about how fast / far / big / hard hitting / accuracy etc..... Case in point, the .50 makes a great sniper weapon but it and it’s ammo and support systems are heavy. The Israelis have a .22LR sniper system that they use inside a city with sub sonic rounds and suppressors. Works great in close quarters.
And lastly, you seemed to have missed the point I was presenting in my post which was, just because it seems obvious (swappable barrels or going to a different caliber) it is not always so “obvious” to the troops on the ground for a number if different reasons.
Got it. Your are talking about our heavy barreled M16s. We originally designed two flat top M16s and equipped them with ELCAN and TRIGICON sights. I wrote the original Operational Requirements Document for both the rifle and sight. Our original 106 test bed rifles showed up in FAST Cos and were used in Somalia for Embassy defense with good effect. The original concept for a Designated Marksman Rifle was to provide a semi-automatic capability to the Scout Sniper Team. The concept eventually morphed into the 5.56mm DMR being installed in the infantry Squad. This permits precise covering fire for entry teams while allowing the SAW to be brought up to the point of attack. The original desire of the “belly shooters” was to rebuild M14s as the support rifle for the Scout Sniper Team. This was merely a smoke screen to build an empire at Weapons Training Battalion. Eventually, Wpns Trng Bn could not produce the rifle with any quality and no snipers actually wanted to carry a 14lb rifle. Once that failure was past we were able to procure the SR-25 as a hot need and have never looked back. SR-25 has a problem with breaking extractors. Both Marine and SOCOM snipers carry two extractors with them on all missions. Reed Knight has to my knowledge never been able to build the SR-25 without this problem. To achieve 1.5 MOA in a semi rifle, the tolerances between bolt head and chamber have to be tight. This tightness is thought to be the cause of breaking extractors.