A friend said that I should not call the sniper rifle I'm having built a sniper rifle. He says I should call it a long range target rifle, or a tactical bolt gun, anything but a sniper rifle as that wouldn't be right unless i plan to go "beltway" and start killing people, which i have no need or want to do. So other than the screwed up preception of the sniper that he has, what would you guys say. To me there is a differance between a gun ment and built for sitting on a bench to punch holes in a target and a gun that is built to be dragged through the brush, over hills and through rivers and swamps, mud, sand and all that to put one well placed shot into a target. I know where he was coming from, and his preception of a sniper plays into why he thinks the way he does. Most if not all of us here do know what a sniper does, both in the military and in LE so we may see it diferently. What do ya'll think. Do you call them what they are or do you go the PC route, or does it depend on the crowd your with at the time. this even goes for AR's and AK's too do you PC them based on the people your around? Just wondering.

you can call it whatever you effing like, but your friend is on to something.  The term 'sniper' has been seriously sullied by those two Beltway MURDERERS, who killed by making unremarkable shots from unremarkable distances.  

I would call it a target rifle if it were me.. or a tactical target rifle... Since I don't consider myself a Sniper, the rifle will be defined by how I think of myself- a target shooter.  

Call it what you want.

I think people get off more on what their gun is called (Assault Weapon, Sniper Rifle, Tactical,...) than they do on the actual gun itself.

Face it. You like calling it a "sniper rifle".
That's why you bought it in the first place.

how about precision rifle.

I don't know, are you a 'sniper'???

Its your gun, call it whatever you want

Thats part of it. But the other part is that to me a target gun and a sniper rifle are two different things. Like the guy I shoot with the most. His brother has two rifles one he shoots in long range BR comps and another he shoots in sniper matches why because they are both built for different things. I guess i look at my guns to much as tools I want different tools for different applications and a couple of multi function tools as well like say my AR which I view as a sport utility rifle. Sure it can do a lot but there are better tools for some of the jobs that you can use the ar for.

He is WinNar! The term [b]is[/b] "precision rifle".

What you call your rifle is up to you, of course, but personally I shy away from calling mine a "sniper rifle" because of the public perception of anyone using a rifle to commit a murder as being a "sniper". If I have to refer to mine as anything, I call it a "tactical" rifle, or a "precision" rifle. Some agencies even refer to their long-riflemen as "counter-snipers", but that gets long-winded pretty fast. The term "sniper" has been so distorted and overused by the media that it has a bad connotation to most people.

It seems like a small issue to quibble over, but shooters need to do whatever they can to counter the negative perception the public has of guns in general, IMO.

Call the rifle what you want, it’s yours.  Heck, I call my car a “super high-performance race car” when I’m driving even thought it just an old Honda Civic Del Sol.  It’s just your perception of what you are doing with the tool (rifle, car, boat whatever), whether you are using it for pleasure, profit, or survival.

I always get a laugh when I see the stickers on the junior rifle teams’ hard cases that say “Caution: precision paper punching tool inside.”

Just do as I do and deny owning such a thing or any guns at all. and if caught carrying to and from the range tell your friends it's just a machined part, made of chrome moly

Aimless you hit it on the head. It's preception. Sometimes I don't think shooters do enough to change those preceptions either. Is it our job to?, I think so, I mean we can't get a fair representation with the mainstream media, and the majority of the media in the shooting community is too busy sucking up and kissing the collective asses of the manufacturers to get involved, though it would do no good because they're preaching to the choir.

When I think of the term "sniper system," I think of a set of components.  A precision rifle, a spotting scope, and a trained shooter being the major components.

I avoid purpose-built terminology when I don't use a device for that purpose.  A steak knife is no longer a steak knife unless you're stabbing a person with the intent of making steaks of them.  If I beat a man near death with a baseball bat, I would get arrested for assault with a deadly weapon.

I prefer to use the phrase 'precision rifle' or as an alternate, 'hunting rifle' I feel either is correct. A sniper rifle is anything from a 10-22 to a 577 Snider. It's whatever tool a shooter has chosen to use to 'snipe' with.

While I am not a sniper I've had other shooters refer to my Rem 700VS as a sniper rifle. I usually correct them by saying that according to Remington, it's a 'VARMIT' rifle...(the'V' in VS). I'm not a PC kind of person but I hate to see tools get stigamtized...That said, if I WERE a Military or LE sniper, you're darn right I'd refer to my duty weapon as a 'sniper rifle' and PC be screwed.

Call it "Bob".

Regardless of what you do with that bat or that knife they are what they are. The baseball bat doesn't stop being a baseball bat because you crack a skull with it and a steak knife is a steak knife no matter what you do with it. How you use it and who uses it for what doesn't change what it is or is not. It's like saying it's not an assault weapon because i haven't assaulted anyone with it, that would be BS. But I guess it all depends on what the definition of "is" is.

Actually you're correct photoman. If the intent of this rifle you're building is to snipe, then indeed it could, and SHOULD be called a sniper weapon. If it's purpose is to punch holes in paper or ring steel, then it's a target rifle. It may well be a very durable target rifle, but a target rifle it is. As I remember, the early sniper rifles were in fact hunting rifles with few if any specialized mods. It does seem like we're going around in circles on definitions here...My opinion is that in reality it's either a hunting rifle (be it deer hunting or people hunting) or a target rifle (i.e. intended to produce high scores in shooting match's). Fancy scopes, ultra heavy barrels, high dollar rings/bases do not make a sniper rifle. No flames intended, just my thoughts on the subject.

Spearweasle beat me to it.

I was going to say, "Call it Gladys".

It's hard to hide the 'Ultimate Sniper' brand on the side of my stock...