Does anyone know? I wonder if it is a gun that the gun-grabbers have labled as a "killing machine"

IIRC, the dipshit used a pistol, I believe a Beretta 92.

really? I assumed he used a rifle.

Quoted: really? I assumed he used a rifle.

Nope, it was a 92.

BKVic

sniper pistol

Kind of a hijack, but along the same lines....what model Bushy did the DC sniper have?

Please don't call these fuks snipers. It throws on the names of good men doing a tough job in Iraq and Afganistan.

Quoted: Kind of a hijack, but along the same lines....what model Bushy did the DC sniper have?

IIRC it was some type of post ban. I believe it had the A2 stock and a short barrel.

Quoted: Kind of a hijack, but along the same lines....what model Bushy did the DC sniper have?

XM-15 E2S .  

They originally had a Remington 700 in .308 (I belive it was a 700 PSS). They ended up abanonding it in a field after someone in a pick-up truck spooked them.

Quoted: Please don't call these fuks snipers. It throws on the names of good men doing a tough job in Iraq and Afganistan.

I am usually better about those things....and I am usually the first to bitch about people calling semi autos 'assault rifles'.

Point well taken..these people dont deserve the title of sniper.....that isnt what they are or were...they were simply shooters...plain and simple.

I stand humbly corrected

They originally had a Remington 700 in .308 (I belive it was a 700 PSS). They ended up abanonding it in a field after someone in a pick-up truck spooked them.

I never heard that. Did they actually use that rifle?

Snipe:  to shoot at exposed individuals (as of an enemy's forces) from a usually concealed point of vantage.

That makes them snipers.  There is no dishonor implied to military snipers.  They are performing a difficult task honorably for their country's military to secure the interests of their nation.

These dipshits just shot randomly at innocent people on a highway or at gas stations.

But they were sniping.

Quoted: They originally had a Remington 700 in .308 (I belive it was a 700 PSS). They ended up abanonding it in a field after someone in a pick-up truck spooked them. I never heard that. Did they actually use that rifle?

Supposedly, they were within seconds/minutes of using it to shoot at someone when they got startled and ditched the rifle.

www.gunweek.com/2004/beltway0420.html

A bolt-action rifle that could have provided a critical link between “Beltway snipers” John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, and the Tacoma, WA, man who bought it for them, sat at the Pierce County, WA, Sheriff’s Department gun range for three months because another police agency in the county did not enter the firearm as reported stolen after it was left in an empty lot almost six weeks before the sniper killings occurred.

During that critical three months—Aug. 18 to Nov. 20, 2002—the two killers replaced their rifle with one they shoplifted from the same store where the Remington Model 700 was illegally purchased for them by Earl Lee Dancy Jr. They used that stolen second rifle to gun down more than a dozen people in Maryland and Northern Virginia.

Now, the former owner of the Bull’s Eye Shooter Supply—the Tacoma, WA, gun shop from whence Malvo shoplifted the Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle used in the killing spree—is wondering if their crimes might have been prevented, had the authorities acted more quickly to trace the Remington Model 700 rifle.

Dancy bought the rifle for Muhammad in a “straw man purchase.” Muhammad and Malvo abandoned that rifle when they were startled by a truck cutting through the empty lot early on the morning of Aug. 18, 2002. There is some speculation they were within seconds of firing a shot, perhaps toward a nearby freeway or at a nearby apartment building. There was a live round in the chamber when the gun was recovered.

Two days later, at Muhammad’s suggestion, Dancy reported the rifle stolen to the small Fife Police Department. Dancy apparently was never asked by Fife police why he waited three days to report a gun theft. Dancy could not be reached for comment.

It is possible that Muhammad and Malvo intended to use the Remington in their killing spree, and that once it was lost, they substituted the stolen Bushmaster. The Bushmaster arrived at Bull’s Eye in early July 2002, and disappeared later that summer. Bull’s Eye managers did not realize the gun was gone until federal agents traced it back to the shop.

Dancy told about buying the rifle for Muhammad during testimony at Muhammad’s murder trial in Virginia last fall. This particular rifle, Serial No. E6727175, is a “Varmint Synthetic,” with heavy 26-inch barrel and gray synthetic HS Precision stock. The rifle was manufactured in 2001, according to Remington records.

However, one other strong clue that the snipers may have intended to use this rifle for their murder spree was the fact that, according to a source with the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department, the barrel had been “cut down several inches” and threaded near the muzzle. This is not the way the rifle left the factory, and it is possible the barrel was threaded to accept an illegal sound suppressor. A source at Remington confirmed that no Varmint Synthetic rifles have threaded muzzles for muzzle brakes.

According to copies of police reports obtained by Gun Week, Fife police did not enter the rifle as stolen on the NCIC or Washington state crime computer networks until Nov. 20 almost a month after Muhammad and Malvo were arrested at a northern Maryland rest stop Oct. 24, and three months to the day after Dancy falsely reported it stolen from his truck in the parking lot of a Fife sporting goods store.

Meanwhile, the Remington rifle, with a telescopic sight and bipod attached, was held at the Sheriff’s Department range, according to the documents. There was no immediate explanation why Fife police failed to enter the rifle as stolen on the computer networks. Fife Police Chief Rob DeGroot was not on the job at that time. He has been chief of the agency for less than a year.

Immediately following the data entry on Nov. 20, according to the documents, Fife learned that the rifle had been recovered by Pierce County in August.

An officer’s report noted, “By phone, I contacted Pierce County evidence room and was told that the weapon, instead of being destroyed as scheduled, was being held at their range and would be available should an owner ever turn up.”

That officer was subsequently contacted by the Sheriff’s Department and told that the rifle would be returned to the evidence room the following day (Nov. 21) and would then be available for Fife officers to pick up.

In that same follow-up theft report, dated Nov. 20, 2002, the officer noted that another officer “told me that the weapon from this case was never entered stolen as he requested, and asked me to enter it as soon as possible. When I entered the weapon into WACIC/NCIC, I got a notification from NCIC that this weapon was a recovered weapon out of SO Tacoma. . . . The weapon was reported as stolen in Fife on Aug. 17, 2002, reported to our department as stolen on Aug. 20, 2002 and found by SO Tacoma on Aug. 18, 2002.”

The revelation has infuriated former Bull’s Eye owner Brian Borgelt, who is now being sued by survivors and relatives of victims of the “Beltway sniper” killings. He contended that if police had entered Dancy’s stolen gun report right away, they might have been able to trace the gun back to Dancy and establish his connection to the killers. Dancy has told authorities that Muhammad and Malvo had access to at least two handguns owned by him while they were living in Tacoma. One of those guns, a .45-caliber pistol, was used to murder Keenya Cook, and the other possibly in a vandalism shooting.

“The gun was recovered in August,” Borgelt said. “That’s before I was victimized by a shoplift, and before anybody but Keenya Cook was dead, that we know of.”

Borgelt also wonders whether the snipers were intending to use the Remington, chambered in .308 Winchester, for their killings.

“For all intents and purposes,” he asserted to Gun Week in an exclusive interview, “had that gun not been found and recovered, that’s probably the one they’d have used.”

‘We Didn’t Know’
Borgelt said he heard a rumor about the Remington having gone to the police range, where it was—according to the rumor—used by Pierce County SWAT officers. Gun Week acted on that tip and obtained the police files.

Pierce County Sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer told Gun Week that at the time the gun was recovered, and for the following three months, his agency had no idea of the rifle’s connection to Dancy, Muhammad and Malvo.

“At the time, it was nothing to us, just a gun,” he explained.

The rifle was recovered by Ryan Vadmais and Chris Roy. When they spotted it in the empty lot at approximately 3 a.m. Aug. 18, it was in a green duffle bag. They picked it up, called the sheriff’s department and met Deputy Kevin Roberts several blocks away and turned the rifle over to him. According to the deputy’s report, Vadmais had opened the action of the rifle, ejected a live round and put everything in the truck. They drove to a nearby Mini-mart and called the sheriff’s department.

Pierce County logged the rifle’s description and serial number on the computers as recovered property, but that was really as far as the case went.

“It wasn’t entered (by Fife) as stolen right away,” Troyer noted.

Rifle’s Whereabouts
As soon as it was, Fife got a “hit” and contacted Pierce County, learning the rifle’s whereabouts. Troyer suggested that the rifle was taken to the range—actually stored in a secure gun vault—for safe keeping, and because it might have applications to law enforcement. He dismissed the rumor that the gun had been turned over to the department’s SWAT team, noting, “The SWAT guys drooled over it, but they never took it out and fired it.” Troyer also noted that, while similar Remington rifles are used in law enforcement, “all our guys already have their own guns.”

Troyer said that, contrary to the Fife officer’s report, not all guns are destroyed on a schedule. Some illegal guns, and firearms deemed to be unsafe, are destroyed. Other guns in good working order, or that might be valuable, are retained. Some are sold to licensed dealers if they are left unclaimed, or perhaps used by the department if they have law enforcement applications.

Even if the rifle had been fired at the police range, Troyer insisted that no “chain of evidence” had been broken, because the gun was always in police possession.

As it turned out, the rifle was never released to Fife police, because by that time, the Beltway case investigation was in high gear. Pierce County retained the rifle, eventually sending it to federal authorities in Virginia, Troyer said. That’s where the rifle is today.

Lost License
Borgelt lost his federal firearm dealer’s license after an investigation of the shop revealed a history of problems over lax records keeping and the shop’s inability to account for more than 200 firearms.

Sloppy records keeping appears to have been a repeat problem at the Bull’s Eye, according to federal documents filed early in the investigation. When Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agents investigated at the gun shop after tracing the murder gun back to the Bull’s Eye, they reportedly discovered many federal gun forms stashed behind a cash register, and others placed in boxes. Documents state that ATF had previously cautioned Borgelt about the records problem. He counters that a filing system ATF recommended did not work well in his business.

New Bull’s Eye owner Kris Kindschuh told Gun Week that some of the alleged missing guns had actually been in Borgelt’s office, where he had them on display. Borgelt still operates a shooting range upstairs from the gun shop.

Borgelt and business partner Charles Carr have filed suit against the ATF to get the license reinstated. Meanwhile, they face the civil lawsuit, and Borgelt may also face a criminal charge in relation to the shop’s poor record keeping.

Since the gun shop was purchased by Kindschuh, at least three of former managers who worked under Borgelt have been terminated. One of them, according to Borgelt, handled the sale of the Remington to Dancy.

Quoted: www.gunweek.com/2004/beltway0420.html

Great read.  I never knew about that bolt-action rifle.