The Walther WA 2000, is arguably the finest made precision rifle to be ever crafted in Germany. It was designed following the Munich Olympics Attack of 1972, in response to police marksmen being forced to take precision shots with an iron sighted G3 rifle.
It was made from 1982 till 1988, only 176 were ever made. It saw little adoption due to the high price tag ($9,000 in 1988). Today they go from $40,000 to $75,000.
This heavy rifle weighed 7.91 kg (17.4 lbs) loaded & scoped. This is because it was never intended to be carried across a battlefield. It was specifically design for counter terrorist snipers to defend a zone from a fixed overwatch position.
Alright now the story about the Canadian gun.
Terrence Arthur Dean from Kamloops, Canada, was charged, and found guilty of trafficking heroin, cocaine, meth and marijuana and unlawful possession of several firearms back in 2013. When they searched his home, police seized a Walther WA 2000. Now that he’s been sentenced to 5 years in prison, the question of what to do with it has been answered.
Rather than be destroyed, the crown and defense lawyers agreed with the judge to have the rifle donated to the Kamloops Target Sports Association.
Here’s the actual seized gun:
Ian’s Video: [23:50] https://youtu.be/_av1zBdnxXY?si=
There’s a Garand Thumb video talking with one of the main people behind the latest SOCOM sniper rifle and he touches on the considerations for bolt action versus semiautomatic. Basically, a sniper isn’t taking shots quickly enough that the semiautomatic action is making a difference, and a bolt action platform is more accurate due to tighter tolerances and the bolt not necessarily moving immediately after the shot is fired. Also, a bolt action will often let a shooter load longer bullets than fit in an AR-15 (traditionally 5.56 though 6.5 Grendel and now .224 Valkyrie and 6 ARC) or even AR-10 (.308 is traditional but 6.5 Creedmoor seems to have better legs), which translates to projectiles with really clean bullet coefficients which translates to longer range hits, more energy on target, and less variability due to wind.