Looking for sniper tips and training? I am probably like most of you reading this article in that I wish I knew more on sniping and general marksmanship. The last place I thought I would get detailed information on something so difficult was from a book. I was wrong.
Growing up I spent a great amount of my time at the library. I had the entire place memorized. I would spend hours in there checking out books from a variety of different fields. One of those fields was military manuals, and it was because of this love of the library that I’ve ended up having read a good number of them. As a teenager, I would then spend hours pouring over every single detail contained within.
Sniper Training is to date the best military manual that I have ever read. I don’t say this simply because I write for Prepper Press, I say this because it is true. There are items that I’ve realized that I wish I had bought years ago. I wish I had bought a karambit sooner, so that I could’ve been training with it longer. I wish I had bought Peterson’s Edible Wild Plants sooner, as I know I would’ve spent hours after school out in the woods discovering what every plant was around me.
Even now, after years of having studied edible plants, I still feel like I am playing catch up to an extent. I wish I had bought those apple trees sooner, so that I would have had bushels of apples coming in right now before a presidential candidate is threatening to completely shut down the country once more.
And I wish I had bought Sniper Training sooner. Seriously, it’s that good.
First Thoughts
The first thing that stood out to me upon getting the book was the sheer size of it. When it comes to military manuals, I’m used to small manila pamphlets.
Sniper Training is huge, which makes sense when you later discover the wide variety of information contained within. It’s 240 pages of solid information, which is fantastic, considering that most other military manuals I’ve read are somewhere within the 120 page range.
I suppose I should have expected such though, as Prepper Press is known for putting out some absolutely massive military manuals. Check out Combined Arms Operations in Urban Terrain, if you don’t believe me.
There are plenty of old-school style military drawing pictures inside that help one to visualize just what is being talked about as well. Pictures are always a plus in my book, and anytime I find a book with them my inner five-year old rejoices.
Sniper Tips You Will Learn
Right off the bat, I knew this book was going to have information in it that would make me a better shooter. I’ve grown up with firearms all my life, spending quite a bit of time as a kid with a .22LR shooting squirrels, or target practicing in my back yard with my dad’s .243, so that we could zero in the scope just one more time. I can hit a target if I need to, is the point I’m trying to make.
However, inside this book you learn a whole lot more, like…
- clean an M24,
- how to zero iron sights,
- adjust for wind speed/direction,
- hold a rifle in various ways for maximum accuracy,
- how to estimate range,
- compensate your aiming for various shooting situations, and
- how to zero a scope.
That was the information that I expected, and this manual delivered it in bucket loads.
How to Evade Dogs
How to evade dogs was something that I was not expecting from this book. It was a subject that I was delightfully surprised to find covered within, as it was something that I had long been wondering about, with my prior thoughts being that if dogs were after you that was the end. You were going to get caught one way or the other, and you would start your time being caught with a severely lacerated forearm.
Snipers regularly have to evade such obstacles while conducting missions, and this manual will tell you how to do so as well. For example, did you know that pouring motor oil around where you’re hiding can help to mask your scent from dogs? No? Well good, that means I’m not alone in this.
How to Lose a Tracker
In the same vein, the manual goes over how to lose a tracker. Multiple methods are discussed regarding how to trick somebody who may be tailing you through the woods. Here is screenshot sample from the book:
It was fascinating information that I’ve not been able to find anywhere else after years of reading survivalist literature, and very much gave the feel of being enmeshed in a pool of potentially life-saving information.
Building Sniper Shelters
I learned that snipers often have to construct their own shelters from which they can potentially spend days observing the enemy and reporting their findings. That was something I was completely unaware of. I guess I always figured that snipers snuck into a spot, shot the target, and then snuck out. Sure they may have to lay there for an hour or two, but I’d never even thought of the prospect that it may be days before the target ever actually presented itself, much less the idea that the sniper may just lay there for days to observe and report without ever actually engaging at all. This manual will not only tell you how to build various sniper shelters, but also in which situations they are useful. I found all of this interesting, whether I ever use it or not.
Ham Radio
Were you expecting detailed ham radio advice from a sniper manual? I most certainly wasn’t, and it was certainly not a sniper tip I had anticipated. Yet within these pages I found an entire chapter devoted to field radio operations. How to properly set up various types of radio antennas is discussed, with extra sections devoted to radio operation in arctic, jungle, and desert areas.
Tracking and Counter-Tracking
Chapter 8 is all about tracking and counter-tracking, and though I touched on this a little bit above, I was surprised to see that tracking was included in here as well. Perhaps I am flaunting my ignorance of what a sniper actually does out in the field, but when I picked up this book I truly didn’t think it was going to include anything other than “this is how you zero a rifle,” “this is how you counter for wind,” and the like. Learning how to track people, how to tell when somebody is attempting to throw you off their trail, how to estimate group number from footprints, how to tell how old tracks are – these are all skills that I was not expecting to find here.
5-Day Army Sniper Training
There was an entire chapter on “Sniper Sustainment Training,” and a sample 5-day sniper sustainment training program. In essence, it’s a template for what sniper training in the Army looks like. Getting the opportunity to look through all of the tests and to see how they are scored was fascinating.
I’ve long had an interest in snipers, always thinking that’s what I would want to do if I joined the Army, and I’ve watched a fair amount of sniper documentaries as a result. These pages detailed what I’d watched. Inside were all of the objectives, tests, and ranking systems that I’d always wondered about.
Various Sniper Rifles
If you’ve ever wondered about different types of sniper rifles other nations use, that information is included in the book as well. If you’ve ever wondered just what it is that a sniper carries into the field, that information can be found herein as well. Having this information could very well help you to better pack for bugging out or even what to carry in your EDC. Not that you’re going to be involved in sniper situations necessarily, but just knowing what it is that they take to survive out in the bush for days at a time could be incredibly beneficial.
Would You Benefit from Sniper Training: FM 23-10
What shooter doesn’t want to know more sniper tips?
If you know of anybody who is graduating high school soon and is considering joining the armed forces, I highly recommend this text as a graduation present. If they’re particularly wanting to join as a sniper, then this will give them a very good understanding of not only what it takes to actually make it as a sniper, but what they can expect in sniper school. Even if you know somebody who wants to join the armed forces, but isn’t exactly sure what it is that they want to do, I would still recommend this book as it will help them to narrow down the field. They can see if sniper school is right for them or not from a distance that way.
If you’re looking at just improving your hunting ability, this book can even help with that. I think the long-range shots to down a deer are the most exciting, as they seem to be a truer test of who is a good marksman and who is not. If you read through this book and follow the advice given within, you will be a better and smarter shooter.
Seriously, this is an incredibly well-rounded book, and I wish that I had bought it a very long time ago. If you haven’t had the opportunity to do so yet either, I highly recommend adding this text to your stack of prepper books. This could very well contain information that you’d want to have in a TEOTWAWKI scenario, and post-disaster, you may be kicking yourself even harder for not obtaining this information sooner.
Are there other military manuals out there that you’ve found to contain an unexpected abundance of information? Have you read Sniper Training before? Add to the conversation by leaving a comment below! We love to hear your sniper tips!