2 of Chris Kyle’s favorites .300 Win Mag and TAC-338 Lapua (16 Photos)

2 of Chris Kyle’s favorites .300 Win Mag and TAC-338 Lapua (16 Photos)

 

In American Sniper, Chris Kyle starts by describing the AR-style, semi-auto, black guns that he used, like the US Navy Mk-12 5.56 Rifle, and the SR-25 7.62 Rifle (aka Mk-11). Although those rifles served a purpose, Kyle wasn’t a huge fan of either. In fact, he talked about how the SR-25 had a bad reputation of jamming up in the field. He finished the section on the SR-25 by saying “There were other issues with the weapon, however, and personally it was never one of my favorites.” That was immediately followed by his words, “The .300 is in another class entirely.”

Kyle was a huge fan of the .300 Win Mag, and for good reason. It has vastly superior stopping power over the common 5.56 NATO (aka 223 Rem), and vastly improved ballistics over the common 7.62x51mm (aka 308 Win).

In his book, Kyle said, “I used the .300 Win Mag for most of his kills. It’s an excellent all-around cartridge, whose performance allows for superb accuracy as well as stopping power. The .300 is a little heavier gun by design. It shoots like a laser. Anything from 1,000 yards and out, you’re just plain nailing it. And on closer targets, you don’t have to worry about too much correction for your come-ups. You can dial in your 500 yard dope and still hit a target from 100-700 yards without worrying too much about making minute adjustments.”

TAC-338 Lapua:
In his book, Kyle mentioned they didn’t have .338 Lapua rifles in training, but started getting them later during the war. Unlike his other weapons, it wasn’t type classified rifle or caliber, meaning there wasn’t a detailed specification for the rifle. Kyle said “there are a number of different manufacturers, including McMillan and Accuracy International.”

Kyle recounts “I used a .338 on my last deployment. I would have used it more if I’d had it.” He goes on to say, “The bullet shoots farther and flatter than a .50 caliber, weighs less, costs less, and will do just about as much damage. They are awesome weapons.” He was obviously a big fan of the .338 Lapua, and the only drawback he mentioned was “my model’s lack of a suppressor. When you’re shooting inside a building, the concussion is strong enough that it’s a pain ? literally. My ears would hurt after a few shots.”

This was the rifle that he made his longest confirmed kill with, which was a 2,100 yard shot. That is 1.2 miles (or 1.92 km for you metric guys)! Kyle includes the photo below in his book, and adds this caption: “A close-up of my Lapua .338, the gun I made my longest kill with. You can see my ‘dope’ card ? the placard on the side contains my come-ups (adjustments) needed for long-range targets. My 2,100 yard shot exceeded the card’s range, and I had to eyeball it.”