# Question relating to firearms and their ease of use!



## Dave Watson (Oct 10, 2013)

Anyone with experience of guns help a brother out with this one?

Simply put; An MP5 machine gun or a sniper rifle. Which of these would be the easiest firearm to effectively use if put in the hands of someone who'd never held a gun before?

I'd guess the MP5 as it's designed for short range, and wouldn't require as much finesse as a sniper rifle, but then I know the square root of zilch when it comes to guns. 

Much obliged!


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## Sam (Oct 10, 2013)

MP5 all day long. 

A sniper rifle is heavy, usually semi-automatic or bolt-action, and kicks like a mule. It's not the sort of gun you'd want to find yourself trying to use with no experience. The MP5 is relatively light (around 3kg), normally holds 9mm Parabellum rounds which don't have heavy recoil, and uses up to a 40-round detachable box magazine. So you can just spray and pray and there's a good chance you'll hit the target eventually. 

PS: An MP5 is a _sub_-machine gun.


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## Alabastrine (Oct 10, 2013)

Can I ask why you have it narrowed down to just the two choices? There are other, better, and more suitable guns for a first timer in a bad situation. However, if those are the two you are sticking with then I agree with Sam. The MP5 would make much more sense. With a sniper rifle your character would need to know a bit about wind direction, distance, etc.


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## mg357 (Oct 10, 2013)

Of the two guns mentioned an MP5 Submachine gun would be best.


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## movieman (Oct 10, 2013)

It's kind of an odd choice, because you usually wouldn't use an MP5 at more than a few tens of metres, and you usually wouldn't use a sniper rifle at less than hundreds of metres, unless you're a police sniper in a hostage situation, where you have to guarantee you can kill the guy before they can pull the trigger.

At five hundred metres, they're a lot more likely to hit with the rifle than the MP5. At five metres, they're a lot more likely to hit with the MP5.


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## The Tourist (Oct 10, 2013)

The answer is neither.  Both are specialty firearms, and both require serious training.

Before I went varmint shooting in South Dakota I had a police sniper teach me long range shooting, wind doping and parabolic bullet drop.  I hand made (reloaded) each individual cartridge as if it was to be used for benchrest shooting.  It took me months to get shots reliably into the drinking spout of a pop can at only 200 yards.

The first time I fired an H&K MP5-K I had to set the trigger on 3-shot burst to reliably hit a fruitcake tin at 25 yards.  By the end of the day I could hit pop cans.

I'm not a rookie.  I shot metallic silhouette.  That's hitting a ram target at 200 yards with a .44 Rem Mag revolver.  For combat, I shot Tussey Custom 1911 "single stackers."

No, the weapon for a newb is a SKS or a Mossberg 590.  Simple to use, clean and clear stoppages.  Changing ammunition types changes performance.  You can fire ball or soft-points in the SKS, and slugs in the Mossberg for distance.


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## Shylock (Dec 2, 2013)

^What he said. 

 Though to respectfully elaborate, it partially depends on the precise situation; I'm assuming that in your story someone is simply grabbing a weapon for 'immediate use.' And in that case there's _no way_ someone could hit jack with an M40 or M14 with decent optics at any range. (Excepting point blank of course.)
 You simply need someone to walk you through the steps, and to several thousand rounds downrange before you can attain competance and sub-MOA accuracy. 
 However, on the other hand it's perfectly reasonable to claim that complete rookies can get training 'on the job,' and in less than a year become absolutely deadly. Just look at the Russian sniper Tania Chernov, a Russian college student that joined the Belarus resistance against the Germans and became one of World War Two's deadliest snipers. (A tad exaggerative but you get the point.) But again, that still requires training and instruction.

 Though I don't have experience with the MP5 in particular, any idiot with a trigger finger can spray and pray. Obviously it takes training - as with any weapon - to become deadly, but if you're talking about being of any utility at all, then a total rookie will do far more damage with an MP5 than any sniper rifle.

 If you want to get an idea of the training involved with long range sniper rifles, try part of this documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6xHoJAtWso

 And with firearms, never ever forget: http://pegitboard.com/pics/t/24232.jpg

Good luck!


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## Busterfriend (Dec 19, 2013)

Dave Watson said:


> Anyone with experience of guns help a brother out with this one?
> 
> Simply put; An MP5 machine gun or a sniper rifle. Which of these would be the easiest firearm to effectively use if put in the hands of someone who'd never held a gun before?
> 
> ...



Lot more to using a high caliber, super long range, precision weapon than a short range automatic like an MP5, which I'm guessing you could just spray the hell out of whatever you're trying to kill until it dies at the very least. 

That's not including safety and all the other extra stuff. Novice in a desperate situation would spray and pray probably, would probably lose control of it at times too due to the recoil.


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## The Tourist (Dec 19, 2013)

Assuming this is for a story, and not because your no-brother-good-inlaw was a loud putz at Thanksgiving, I would surmise that your strong female lead is a newb with firearms and outnumbered.  But what if she's not?

For the sake of a debate, let's suppose that your lead is a chisel-featured Sicilian Adonis with revenge on his mind.  Now, while that almost *ahem* never happens in real life, would the weapon of choice be a firearm?

If "silent accuracy" is needed, why not a crossbow?  If the villain defiled the lead's sister, why not a baseball bat, sledgehammer or razorblade knife?  Or run a tub of bath water and wait for the interloper's breathing to cease...

While I applaud your decision to do research, the first question in a story is always motivation.  If you just want to dust some thug, just about anything that goes "bang" will work.  Right now I'm rotating three CCW EDC handguns.

But to avenge my wife, I'd use an ice-pick.


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## raindog308 (Dec 30, 2013)

Not all sniper rifles "kick like a mule" though most do.  Traditional military/law enforcement sniper rifles are .308 caliber and up.  However, people use .223 (5.56mm) for sniping/varmint, which is a light recoil weapon.  I don't find .308 to be much of a kicker either.

50-cal as used by various military units...oh yes...

There is no official definition of "sniper rifle" though the types of weapons used by the military and law enforcement are a good working definition.

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The Tourist said:


> But to avenge my wife, I'd use an ice-pick.



To avenge my wife, I'd used her meatloaf.


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