In 1958, Evgeniy Dragunov began work on designing a purpose-built sniper rifle. His task was to build a lightweight, reliable, and accurate semiauto rifle, and the result was the SVD. (Photo courtesy of Mikhail Dragunov)

After the cease-fire in Korea, the U.S. military closed its sniper schools only to end up back at square one in Vietnam. Initially, M1903A4s and M1Ds were all that were available as hostilities ensued. The Marines hastily fielded Winchester Model 70 target rifles taken from rifle teams before eventually developing and adopting the Remington Model 700-based M40 in 1966.

The U.S. Army utilized the National Match version of the M14 rifle as the basis for its next sniper rifle, the M21. Fitted with a 3-9X 40mm Leatherwood ART scope, the M21 became the first decent sniper rifle fielded by the U.S. Army. In the hands of snipers like Sergeant Adelbert F. Waldron III, the M21 countered the sniper threats of the Vietcong and North Vietnamese Army. Waldron had 109 confirmed kills to his credit, including a 900-meter kill of a VC sniper from a moving Riverine Boat on the Mekong River. Fitted with the then-state-of-the-art AN/PVS-2 night vision sight and Sionics sound suppressor, the M21 instilled fear in the VC and NVA.

As good as the M21 was, its optic/mount was its Achilles heel. Neither the Leatherwood ART nor its successor, the ART II, was sufficiently rugged or weatherproof for hard military use. In addition, the standard military stock was designed with iron sights in mind, and it offered little in the way of cheekweld when the rifle was equipped with an optic. More importantly, the National Match-type bedding required frequent--about once every 2,500 rounds--maintenance to keep the rifles shooting at their best. This required the attention of a knowledgeable armorer.

By the 1980s, the U.S. Army had grown weary of the M21's issues and went on to replace it with the simpler bolt-action Model 700-based M24 sniper rifle. Just as the M1D had remained in service long after the adoption of the M21--some National Guard units had M1Ds up until Desert Storm--so too the M21 soldiered on long after the adoption of the M24.

Other Nations' Semiauto Sniper Rifles
Russia and the United States are not the only countries to have fielded semiautomatic sniper rifles in quantity either. The French made large use of 7.5mm MAS Mle. 1949 rifles fitted with Model 1953 APX L 806 3.85X telescopic sights in both Indo-China and Algeria. The postwar German army also fielded semiautomatic sniper rifles based upon the standard Heckler & Koch G3 combat rifle. The most basic of these was the G3A3ZF, which was simply a standard rifle issued with a compact 4X optical sight. A step up in performance was provided by the G3SG/1. This Scharfschutzengewehr, or Sharpshooting rifle, was built using rifles hand selected for their accuracy and then suitably modified. Heckler & Koch also developed the G3-based MSG-90 for military use and PSG-1 for LE use. The PSG-1 features a fully adjustable stock, adjustable match trigger, heavy free-floating match barrel, silent-bolt-closure device, and Hensoldt scope. This model is required to group 50 rounds inside a 3.14-inch circle at 300 meters. Like the French, the Germans eventually moved to bolt-action sniper rifles, with their semiautos relegated to the role of a designated marksman rifle (DMR).

The SVD's (left) influence can be seen in the Iraqi Al Kadesih (center) and Romanian PSL (right). All three have been fielded against U.S. forces in Iraq.