(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); I use a sniper rifle 80% of the time and I believe I have some very useful information for those of you interested in sniping. Perhaps this will help balance things out with a different point-of-view.


The Sniper Rifles:

M40A3 = Very accurate, medium damage. With stopping power you can down almost anyone in a single shot and with it's accuracy it's much easier to score a hit to the center of the body. Very deadly.

M21 = Fairly accurate, low damage but also low recoil. With the low recoil you can fire follow-up shots without too much effort. A fun gun to play, just don't expect one hit kills and try to conserve ammo. Quite effective with an ACOG scope as an M14 alternative with less ammo and lower recoil.

R700 = The M40A3 is a much better weapon with stopping power, but the R700 has the ability to get one-shot-kills on the upper-chest and head without stopping power. It's less accurate than the M40A3 and has only a little more power. Not enough power to kill in one shot to most of the body without stopping power, and with stopping power added the M40A3 still has superior accuracy. This is a good sniper rifle if you want to dedicate the 2nd perk slot to something other than Stopping Power.

Dragonov = A very good gun. Basically a M21 with much more power and a little more recoil. You tend not to use as much ammo with a Dragonov as you do with the M21. The accuracy of the Dragonov isn't as good as the M40A3 but it's still very good.

Barrett = Very powerful and fairly accurate. Strangely enough you can actually use this weapon at close range. If you're moving around at close range and someone surprises you, begin firing like crazy and you'll probably kill him.

NOTE: In Hardcore mode the weapon balance changes considerably. In Hardcore mode all sniper rifles have the capacity to kill in a single shot, even without the stopping power perk. Since all rifles deal lethal damage, the traditionally weaker M21, with its good accuracy and low recoil becomes much more deadly than in regular games. Conversely, the more powerful guns tend to lose their usual power advantage over the traditionally weaker weapons.

Here is some additional input by other forum members:

Barret by Fallback In The Meadows = The Barrett .50 Cal's accuracy is seriously NOT bad if you get used to it. Its actually very good and my fav sniper rifle. If you hold the Steady button immediately as you aim down the sight, it automatically steadies 90% of the time, and with Iron Lungs, you have a steady aim for a long time. Also, since the Barrett is a one-hit kill without Stopping Power, this frees up Perk 2, which has a lot of amazing things.

R700 by Bouldertroll = I'm one of those you mentioned who loves the Remington 700. I find it as accurate as any rifle in the game, with better power than the M40 (which is unrealistic since both the M24 and M40 are in fact Remington 700's...but oh well).


Styles of Play:

True Sniping = Find a concealed position and take accurate shots at select targets, preferably from long range. Due to the killcam and the natural flow of battle, you may need to relocate every couple kills. It's probably a good idea to choose your shots as firing too many times in quick succession is a dead givaway of your location. I suggest using claymores to cover your blind spots while concentrating on your target.

Designated Marksman = Essentially a regular player who uses an accurate assault rifle or sniper rifle and prefers to fire fewer more-accurate shots from a longer range than more less-accurate shots at shorter ranges. The G3, M14 and M21 rifles are excellent DM rifles but others will do as well.

Snap-Shooting = The idea is to strafe like crazy, constantly ducking in and out of cover, and fire accurate, powerful shots as quickly as possible for the split-second that you're exposed to the enemy. An ACOG scope is definitely recommended for this style of play. There are five key elements to this style of play:

1.Movement - Don't stay exposed to enemy fire any longer than it takes to fire a shot, if you miss, don't worry, strafe back to cover and try again, don't linger and try to make the shot unless your absolutely positive you know what you're doing.

2.Cover - Cover is your friend, if you lose your cover, you're toast. If your moving through an area without cover, have a backup plan in case you come under fire such as quick-proning or sprinting.

3.Quick-scoping - Get used to scoping, aiming and firing almost instantaneously in one smooth motion. There's not enough time to zoom and aim carefully before firing. If you can practice this enough it'll almost become instinct. Eventually you may even be able to begin taking out close range targets with a sniper rifle. This is much easier with an ACOG scope than with a regular scope, but you lose your ability to sniper at longer ranges.

4.Power - Try to use a weapon that'll leave a mark if you hit your target. You need to make your shots count as you'll only have time enough for a single shot in-between ducking in and out of cover.

5.Unpredictability - Don't try to strafe into the same location too many times in succession. Mix it up, keep you opponent off balance and make him readjust his aim in order to hit you.



Pistols:

Pistols are great for moving through close range areas if your primary is a sniper rifle. The advantage of most pistols is thier incredible rate of fire. At very close ranges I recommend firing from the hip (no sights), strafing and firing as fast as you can. For medium ranges use your sights and strafe, try to get behind cover. Below is a brief summary of the pistols.

M9 = Most ammo (15 per clip). Low recoil. Low-to-medium damage. The additional ammo really helps on this one, especially if your going to be using your pistol a lot. The low damage is counter-balanced by having very low recoil and thus good accuracy for firing a lot of bullets very fast.

USP45 = Less ammo (12 per clip I believe?). Low recoil. Medium damage. Extra damage at the cost of less ammo. If you're confident in your aim, you can do considerable damage with this one.

M1911 = Even less ammo (8 per clip). Medium recoil. High damage. Most of the time you can take someone down with two shots with stopping power. Make sure to aim carefully though.

Desert Eagle = Least ammo (7 per clip). High recoil. High damage. Terrible sights. With stopping power you still have to hit someone twice to take them down, which is the same as with the M1911 with stopping power. The Deagle requires you to be more careful with your shots due to the high recoil and less ammo. Without stopping power this weapon is still quite powerful, making it a good pistol if you want to use the middle slot for something else. The Desert Eagle seems to excel at very close range but the sights make it difficult for medium ranges.


Desert Eagle by = The Iron Sights are indeed horrible, but not poor. Its the middle thing thats the center, just wait until someone comes and hit the FIRE button 3 times in quick succession, EVEN WITH THE HIGH RECOIL, it will still hit the same spot if you fire thrice quickly. I've done it loads of times. Only thing I don't like about it is its ammo, reload after every 2 kills.

Pistols and Desert Eagle = A note on pistols, I think the main concern with the desert eagle isn't the low clip capacity nor is it the poor sights. The sights don't lend themselves to quick target acquisition, but it's really not that difficult either. As for the clip size, well, if you manage to empty all seven rounds and either don't get shot in the face or kill your opponent then I think you're doing something wrong. smile.gif The primary weakness is the inability to silence the weapon. I like using the desert eagle for fun's sake (seeing as how it's all gold and shiny!) and it's really not a bad pistol. Just not the pistol I'd use if I was going for a sniper kit. Personally I almost never use anything aside from the M1911, except for the occasional golden deagle rampage for fun.


Important Items and Perks:

Claymores (Perk 1) = Basically, proximity mines. Great for snipers who need to cover thier blind spots while concentrating on a particular target area. Gives you peace of mind so you can concentrate on hitting your target. The claymores will explode when someone walks through the two red lasers that project out of the side facing away from you when you set it. Be creative and try to hide the claymore in a hard to detect or unexpected location. Place the lasers so that it'll explode at the optimum time. You don't want it to explode while the enemy is still 80% behind the wall. There's a short pause before the claymore explodes so if your opponent is smart he or she may be able to duck back behind a wall. Last but not least, don't rely too much on your claymores. Check your back from time to time to make sure your opponent doesn't flank you or detonate the claymore manually. The Bomb Squad perk is the anti-claymore.

UAV Jammer (Perk 2) = Makes you invisible to enemy radar when the enemy calls a UAV. You'll still show up on radar if you fire your gun without a silencer, so be careful. This is quite a useful perk for concealing your location. It's your decision whether it's worth it for you.

Stopping Power (Perk 2) = Increases the power of your weapon, dealing more damage per shot. Stopping Power can be useful for increasing the damage output of some of the weaker sniper rifles such as the M40A3 and M21, increasing their overall effectiveness. The trade off is the loss of other useful level 2 perks such as UAV Jammer. You should probably test your weapon with and without Stopping Power to see if it makes a significant difference and see if it's worth giving up a level 2 perk. One often overlooked benefit of Stopping Power is the benefit it applies to your pistol as well. If you use your pistol a lot, Stopping Power can make a huge difference in close quarter battles where every shot counts, especially given the pistol's limited clip size. Stopping Power also gives you increased damage for any weapons you pick up during battle.

Iron Lungs (Perk 3) = Increases the amount of time you can hold your breath with a sniper rifle (no ACOG scope), and decreases the impact of taking a breath if you let go early. This is a very important benefit that I don't hear mentioned very often. Without Iron Lungs, if you take a shot or let go at 2 seconds, the loss of accuracy will be twice as much as with Iron Lungs. This is especially important when taking multiple shots from long range. With Iron Lungs I can fire multiple shots in succession with more accuracy because of the reduced impact of breathing on my weapon sway. Definitely recommeded for True Snipers, not so for Snap-Shooters.


Important Tips:

Killcam + Hurt Pride = Revenge - When most people are killed from an unknown location, it drives them crazy. In COD4, the game essentially hands them a freebee and shows them who shot them and from where. 90% of the time, immediately after they respawn they will return to the scene of the crime and try to exact thier revenge on said attacker. If you're a sniper, this means YOU! Unless you're playing in harcore mode (ie. no killcam), I definitely recommend relocating after every kill or every minute or so. Eventually someone is going to show up and try to take you down, whether it be by nade spamming your location or bum-rushing you with guns blazing. Try to avoid this by using this to your advantage, hence the following strategy... Baiting!

Baiting = After you kill someone, relocate to another spot with a good view of your previous location. Watch for your previous victim to return to this location in an effort to exact his revenge, and when he does, take him out. Wash, rinse, repeat.

NOTE: The term "Baiting" can also be used to refer to the practice of using your teammate as bait for the enemy in order to take them by suprise; letting the enemy kill your teammate and shooting him while he's reloading/recovering. Bad teamwork! Don't do this!

Lighting and Environment = Keep your eyes open for locations that are dimly lit or hard to see. Also, try to avoid spots that are well lit and obvious. If you're wearing a ghillie suit (sniper) look for areas with foilage to conceal yourself in. COD4 is one of the view games where the ghillie suit actually makes a big difference when used correctly. As you're walking around the map, pay attention to locations that look dark or over-grown, these are probably good spots to hide. Conversely, pay attention to locations that are bright and obvious and avoid them if at all possible.

Concealing Movement = If an enemy is too far away to pick out his human-like features, what is the one givaway that he is a person and not just a bush or piece of lumber? Movement. Even if your sitting in plain view, someone may not notice you if you're standing completely still, but as soon as you move, you immediately begin to attract attention. Anyone remember the T-Rex from the movie Jurrasic Park? A T-Rex essentially can't see you unless you move because his eyes are so poor. Movement is the only way he has to discern a living thing from an inanimate object. Humans work in much the same way. Large motions draw large amounts of attention. Moral of the story: move slowly and as little as possible in order to conceal your location.

Hardcore Mode = In Hardcore mode the biggest changes to gameplay are increased damage for all weapons and the removal of the killcam. In Hardcore the weapon balance for the entire game changes considerably. Weapons that normally held a power advantage are now placed on the same level with the weaker weapons. Accuracy, recoil and rate of fire become more important overall. Some of the perks such as Stopping Power and Juggernaut lose their usefulness, freeing up the level 2 slot for other perks. The removal of the killcam changes the entire battle dynamic considerably. Snipers can hold their positions for a much longer time and no longer need to relocate after every kill or so. Concealment becomes much more useful and sniping spots can be "used" for a much longer time. Battles at close range also become much more deadly. Every bullet counts two times over.

Breathing = Breathing is critical for making accurate shots with any sniper rifle (not ACOG). After you begin holding your breath you have roughly 5 seconds (or 10 seconds with the Iron Lungs perk) to make a shot before you're forced to take a breath and momentarily lose all accuracy. The gun will sway wildly for a few seconds before coming to rest and letting you repeat the process. After you begin holding your breath, it takes about two seconds before the reticule comes to a complete rest and accuracy reaches 100%. At closer ranges it may not matter, but at longer ranges and for head shots you definitely want to wait a couple of seconds before firing. This can be hard and takes patience, especially when you have a visual on your target or when taking fire from the enemy.

NOTE: I usually don't begin holding my breath until I have a visual on my target. This is especially the case without Iron Lungs where every second holding your breath counts. The reason is, if I begin holding my breath early and a target doesn't appear until too late, my accuracy goes crazy and I totally lose the shot. This can be disastrous if you're trying to protect your teammembers or snipe a bomb planter. I believe it really comes down to your ability to predict where and when your targets will appear.

Range and Concealment = Whenever you fire your weapon without a silencer, you show up as a red dot on your opponents radar. Additionally, the sound of your weapon firing can warn your opponents of a nearby aggressor. When you fire your weapon from long range, it's much harder for your opponent to pinpoint on the radar where the shots originated from. This is especially true for sniper rifles which cannot be silenced and are naturally loud. It is generally much safer for a sniper to take a shot at long range in order to avoid being surrounded or flanked by a nearby marauder.

Sniper Rifle w/ACOG = The ACOG makes your sniper rifle much more effective at medium range, you can even pull off close range shots if you're lucky, but the trade-off is that you lose your effectiveness at longer ranges. While still possible, it is MUCH more difficult to make accurate shots from long range with an ACOG scope, especially against a moving target. Be very careful if you're counter-sniping with an ACOG. At long range, nine time out of ten a regular sniper will beat you to the punch and be able to pull off his shot much faster and more accurately than you will. This being the case, a sniper with an ACOG scope tends to lose his advantage on some of the longer range maps such as Overgrown, Bloc and Pipeline. While you can hold your own much more effectively at medium-close range with an ACOG, assault rifles and SMG's still generally perform much better at this range, so don't get over-confident. Also, it's important to remember that you can't hold your breath with an ACOG, so you're stuck dealing with weapon sway. The advantages to using the ACOG are better peripheral vision (easier to avoid getting flanked or side-swiped), a faster zoom time, and a much greater effectiveness at medium-close range. I believe you can also strafe faster while scoped, although I haven't been able to confirm this conclusively. Here are some of my observations on using Sniper Rifles with the ACOG vs. without it:


•The ACOG makes your sniper rifle much more effective at medium range. You can even pull off close range shots if you're lucky. While still possible, it is MUCH more difficult to make accurate shots from long range. Be very careful if you're sniping with an ACOG versus a regular sniper. At long range, he will be able to pull off his shot much faster and more accurately than you will. Thus, you tend to lose your advantage on some of the longer range maps such as Overgrown, Bloc and Pipeline. Also, it's important to remember that you can't hold your breath with an ACOG, so you're stuck dealing with weapon sway.

•Firing your sniper rifle from medium-close range is a dead giveaway on your radar since sniper rifles are loud and cannot be silenced. Be prepared to draw attention when doing so. From longer ranges it is much harder to pinpoint on the radar where the shot originated. It's generally safer for a sniper to take his shot from long range.

•While you can hold your own much more safely at medium-close range with an ACOG scope, assault rifles and some SMG's still generally perform much better at this range, so don't get over-confident.

•Aiming with the ACOG: I've heard that the results vary slight depending on whether you're on the PS3, X360 or PC, but at least for the PS3, your shot will land directly on the tip of the upper triangle. Place the tip of this triangle directly on your target and you should score the hit.

•The advantage to using the ACOG is better peripheral vision (easier to avoid getting flanked or side-swiped), a faster zoom time, and a much greater effectiveness at medium-close range. I believe you can also strafe faster while scoped, although I haven't been able to confirm this conclusively.

•The ACOG is well-suited for a Snap-Shooting style of play where you take rapid shots as accurately as you duck in and out of cover.


Aiming with the ACOG = I've heard that the results vary slight depending on what system playing on, but at least on the PS3, your shot will land directly on or just above the tip of the middle triangle. Place the tip of this triangle directly on your target and you should score hit without a problem.


Breathing = Basically i hold steady [hold breath] as soon as a zoom in (even if i don't have a target at present), it makes it so that as soon as that random guy runs across the map you are steadied and ready for the shot. This only really works with iron lungs. Also the one problem you must be ready for is the window of time to take the shot because when you release your breath after holding for a while it is all but impossible to take a shot. I find that reloading is the fastest way to be able to immediantly zoom and steady again, rather than just staying zoomed in and waiting for your breathe to be able to steady again.

Quick Scoping = When you zoom in on your target, you most likely won't have him in the center of your crosshairs. What you need to do is, move your mouse quickly in the target's direction and fire. You can either move your mouse in a straight line or do small curves depending where your crosshairs are. Don't think if you will hit or not, just fire. As you get more proficient, you will notice that when you zoom in, your target is much closer to the center of your screen making it easier to score kills with small movements. When the target is moving, the same principles apply. Just a quick move in his direction and firing at the same time. EDIT: Made a quick sample. This is how I practice quick shooting in an actual game.

I Wrote this A While back Hoping that i can use this to help others, took me a long time to do this.

Wow that would of took so long to write.. Nice work this should help heaps of newb's out shame mw2 around the corner..

lol ill deffo be making a sniping guide for thaty once i get the hang of it

Yer Mw2 going to pwn the gaming industry.. Lol just hope there's a bolt action sniper.. and Mp5 ain't so deadly..

Im just looking forwards to using some different guns for once.

Nice find, and facts, but you didn't write all of this, you copy and pasted it lol, still nice.

ill think you'll find that yes i did right all of this in my own words, yes i read other ppl hints and tips and put them into my words.

read plz!!