April 13, 2006
Marines Get New Sniper Scope
For the last 25 years, the United States Marine Corps has equipped its snipers with a fixed-power 10X scope made by Unertl Optical Company. But no more. While roaming the aisles at the SHOT Show in February, I saw the Unertl’s successor, which is the Schmidt & Bender PM II LP, and is a 3X-12X variable with S&B’s Gen II mil-dot reticle.
This scope is so big and so complicated that I could not comprehend the thing if I studied it for a month. It was the winner in a competition in which 25 optics companies submitted entries, and it was the only one to meet the Corps’ specifications.
If you would like to get your hands on one, you can join the Corps, go through boot camp where you must qualify as expert with the M-16, and then get into scout-sniper school, which is tough, and graduate, which is even tougher. The Corps will then give you a M40A3 sniper rifle, all 19 pounds of it, lots of match ammo, and a chance to use it where it will do the most good.
Or you can simply pony up $2,849, which is the MSRP for the civilian version of the Marine scope. It doesn’t have USMC on it, and the adjustment turrets revolve in a different direction, but those are the only differences. If any of you buy one, or become a Marine sniper and shoot one, let me know.
April 13, 2006 | Permalink
Comments
That thing costs more than my first THREE deer rifles combined!
Posted by: Michael | April 13, 2006 at 05:38 PM
I wonder how much this scope would cost if it was originally developed for retail sale instead of the folks that are willing pay $10,000 for a toilet seat. $700, maybe?
Posted by: bobdog | April 18, 2006 at 06:49 AM
I dont know why they are still fretting about the scopes on the m40 when the Barret still does not have its own scope. The old scope for the 40 was working just fine, but you know, the Marines always have to have the elite for their grunts. They need to quit improving and just start developing. Why not make a scope developed just for the Barrets ballistics instead of slapping an old scope from an inadequate M40?
Posted by: Jordan Spitler | April 22, 2006 at 01:28 PM
Bringing a military grade optic to market is quite an expensive process which in these days includes testing for everything from drop resistant to rapid elevation changes. In this case the scope had to survive a rapid atmospheric elevation change equivalent to 40,000 feet. Seems extreme but when you consider the infiltration techniques used by US Special Operations Forces not too unreasonable.
For what its worth, the USMC scope is really a updated and improved version of an existing S&B military scope which unlike the Unertl can be moved around to different platforms since it is not caliber specific. The Unertl while a good scope is far behind technologically (30 years) and the Leupold ULTRA series (now known as the Mark 4) is more than 20 years old. Adopting the S&B instead of having different optics for different guns makes a lot of sense tactically as well as fiscally.
I have examined the scope several times and have spoken at length with both S&B and Premier Reticles who actually assemble the things. On the whole, I am convinced the price paid and the flexibility gained are worth the effort put into getting these things to the Corps.
Posted by: Marc Palmer | March 13, 2007 at 10:43 AM
I have in my possession an old Unert scope - It is marked J.UNERTL USMC
SNIPER-SCOPE and the numbers 1040 - How would I find a fair value price for this scope
Posted by: Frank Raymond | May 01, 2007 at 09:25 AM
