These days it would seem that all modern sniper repeaters come from the same place. The concept is well-known: bolt-action mechanism, a heavy free-floating barrel, a fully-adjustable synthetic stock and Picatinny rails installed onto an aluminum alloy receiver, with everything compatible with widely available Remington 700 accessories. When listed down, it seems no fun at all.
There is a small company from a resort town AngoloTerme in northern Italy that seems to follow the concept to the end. Unlike most of the exhibitors on the IWA Outdoors Classics who use the central position of the booth for their latest or basic model, the guys from “G.A.C. Rifles” had set up a small booth overloaded with all sorts of rifles and calibers.
In June this company celebrated its 20th birthday. Their primary business is weapon making, but as the head characters are people with rich biographies, they also offer services like weapons training for individuals and teams, maintenance, spare parts, silencers, electronic aiming devices, ballistic tables, but also designing custom sniper rifles. The company boasts a technologically advanced machining workshop, highly-skilled workforce and rigorous quality control. All these aspects combined guarantee top weapon performance. In the company they insist on something they call “G.A.C. difference”, highlighting the exclusivity of the brand and their products.
Strict quality control automatically implies higher price and the number of discarded parts. For their tactical rifles G.A.C. uses Krieger and Bartlein stainless steel barrels. These two manufacturers are among the leading in the world, and yet G.A.C. discards up to 30% of the delivered barrels, as they do not fulfil the standards. That is the reason why all elite Italian army, police and Carabineri units equip themselves with G.A.C. sniper rifles. The company’s booth on this year’s IWA was adorned with emblems of units like GIS, COFS, Comsubin, Col Mischin, and StormoIncursori. Experts know that there is hardly better recommendation that that, as we know that those formations have virtually unlimited possibilities for procuring the best equipment available.
Besides a few competition and hunting rifles, G.A.C. offers six tactical models in up to 46 different calibers. Models Big One, M-40 A3 and Hurricane have the classic platform with aluminum bedding and McMillan fiberglass stocks, while Trident, Thunder and Wolverine are based around aluminum alloy XL Revolution frame. The trigger is Shilen Tactical, set at 700 g force. The rifles use five or seven-round box magazines identical to those used with Accuracy International sniper rifles. The receiver is made of 416 Stainless steel with a Picatinny rail mounted on the upper side, with angle of 20 or even 30 MOA, which enhances the capability of scope mechanism to follow the ballistic curve on long ranges.
The bolt and the handle are milled from a single piece of 4320 CM tool steel, and may be spirally grooved at request, which increases reliability of the system in mud and snow. Special ceramic-based coating acts as the corrosion protection with additional advantage that it doesn’t require lubrication to operate smoothly. That’s why the rustlocker finish is so popular among snipers operating in dusty desert environments, as it prevents sand sticking to oiled surfaces.
All tactical sniper systems have threaded muzzle for mounting a muzzle brake or silencer. When it comes to silencers, the people in G.A.C. have always considered endurance and easy maintenance more important than the level of noise reduction. Most importantly, according to them it mustn’t interfere with the rifle precision. Aside from the muzzle brake and the silencer, there is an array of other options and accessories, like stock adjustment, bipods, camo patterns, etc. The capabilities are endless, and the greatest percentage of these rifles end up in USA market, where civilians have to wait up to a year to get their custom orders fulfilled.
It’s pointless to discuss grouping for every single G.A.C. model and ammo type. We’d expect maximum precision and nothing else. It is one of the elements of their principle “G.A.C. difference”. They really make a difference!
Images courtesy of: http://www.gac-rifles.com/
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