TrackingPoint aims to produce “Super Gun” with 3,000-yard single-shot accuracy

Linux-based smart rifle manufacturer to improve its range by 3x.

by Lee Hutchinson - July 17 2013, 5:41pm EST

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http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/07/trackingpoint-aims-to-produce-super-gun-with-3000-yard-single-shot-accuracy/

Ars has written several times before about Austin-based TrackingPoint, producers of "precision guided firearms," or PGFs. TrackingPoint's current set of products is a range of bolt-action hunting rifles which use a large computerized scope to assist their users in making shots at distances of up to about 1,000 yards (about 915 meters). The system works well enough that even novice rifle users can reliably place rounds on target at that distance, as we found out when we demoed several PGFs back in March.
TrackingPoint's initial run of PGFs have almost all been pre-sold, and the company is looking to expand in a big way: it plans to construct a technology demonstrator tentatively called the "Super Gun," which will be able to fire a large projectile and achieve a typical PGF's single-shot accuracy at distances out to more than 3,000 yards—that's about 1.7 miles, or 2.7 kilometers.
"We wanted to be able to push the limits of what the technology is capable of," explained TrackingPoint CEO Jason Schauble to Ars. "We came up with the project to challenge our engineering team, to take things to the next level. Because if I can take it [from twelve hundred yards] to three thousand yards plus, I know I can also hit anything in between."
Some of the challenges in scaling up TrackingPoint's products have to do with simple physics —the 75W pulsed laser range-finder in today's PGF needs to be scaled up, and although the 35x fixed magnification optic will likely remain the same, the CMOS sensor behind the glass through which the scope sees the world will also likely need to be increased from its current 14.1 megapixel resolution. The software challenges brought about by extending the PGF's effective range, however, overshadow most of the hardware issues.

Enlarge / The computerized tracking scope is a major (and heavy) feature of TrackingPoint's PGF weapons. To scale up to 3000 yards, the scope's laser and computer components would need to be upsized.

Steven Michael

"Once you get beyond about a mile—that's about fifteen hundred meters," he continued, "you get a lot more of a complex ballistic solution, and the downrange effects are multiplied." Schauble characterized the difficulty of computing an accurate shot as increasing geometrically rather than linearly with distance—tripling the range of a PGF is actually close to a six-fold increase in ballistic complexity. Things like the Earth's rotation and the behavior of the fired projectile as it transitions between supersonic and subsonic velocities become significant factors that must be very accurately modeled and accounted for.
Because the "Super Gun" project is intended to be a technology demonstrator rather than an actual production firearm, the engineering group at TrackingPoint is tossing in a lot of additional features to complement the long range. For example, automatic wind compensation and visibility into additional spectra—such as thermal imaging—are also on the table.
Most significantly, Schauble wants the "Super Gun" technology to be usable while in flight—for example, while mounted on a helicopter or drone. "We intend to put something up in the air that can fly, to test out the capabilities of our inertial measurement unit," he said. Schauble went on to explain that the weapon's inertial measurement unit is a key component in the PGF system, allowing it to account for the weapon's motion. "The true test of that inertial measurement unit is to put it up into a true three-dimensional space and see if it can still calculate ballistics properly, and what it would take to do so."
Schauble has a significant pedigree in the precision firearms world. In addition to his military service as an officer in the US Marine Corps (during which he was awarded a Silver Star), he was also a vice president at Remington Defense, where he worked on projects like the military XM2010 enhanced sniper rifle. Though TrackingPoint has maintained that its existing PGF products are intended for civilian hunting applications, the company has also said in the past that selling future products to military or law enforcement was part of the plan. The long rifle hunting PGFs currently on the market are only the first round of PGFs that TrackingPoint intends to make.
"We are in conversation with a number of different military units about applying our technology to their particular requirements," Schauble elaborated when I asked about military customers. Those conversations include discussions on potentially adding PGF technology to existing military tools like unmanned drones, bolt-action rifles, or even crew-served weapons like 50-caliber belt-fed weapons. "We want to be able to provide flexible solutions to the government, just like we provide a specific closed-loop solution to a hunter," he said, referring to the fact that the bolt-action hunting rifle PGFs currently being sold are single-purpose units for hunting, while the military versions would be more adaptable.
The "Super Gun" weapon, though, is envisioned purely as a demonstration of TrackingPoint technology. To that end, TrackingPoint is thinking of developing its own custom weapon and ammunition to nail those 3000-yard shots. I asked Schauble what the "Super Gun" might look like—will it be a large-bore rifle similar to existing PGFs? What type of ammunition would it fire?

Enlarge / TrackingPoint's existing PGFs are all bolt-action hunting rifles, accurate out to between 800 and 1200 yards, depending on the model.

Steven Michael

"As a general rule," said Schauble, "the larger the caliber, the flatter the trajectory. So we have to take something that's in a [caliber] greater than .40 or .50, but we don't want to go up past 20mm, because there are laws constraining what you can do past .50 caliber."
In the interest of practicality, the "Super Gun" would stick to the large-but-not-ludicrous area around .50 caliber. "We're looking to create something unique," he went on. "We'll probably work with a McMillan action—McMillan is pretty good in the long gun space—and we'll start with a bolt gun....and we're going to wind up having to come up with a unique load to satisfy our requirements."
"So this isn't going to use off-the-shelf .50 BMG or anything?" I asked.
"No," confirmed Schauble, "because while people have been able to achieve hits with that ammunition at those ranges, it definitely isn't a first-round-hit situation."
The "Super Gun" doesn't actually exist yet as a fireable product, but TrackingPoint is busily working on creating it. Many of the fundamental pieces of hardware are already on order from vendors, and the company is looking to spend the fall of this year on integration and testing, with the goal of having a workable product to demo in the front half of 2014.
I closed the interview by asking Schauble about TrackingPoint's opinion on the potential misuse of its weapons—in the TrackingPoint stories we've run in the past, there are always commenters who ask about the potential consequences of a criminal using a PGF to wreak havoc from a mile off. "Right now, firearms exist that can do all of these things that are legally bought and owned by commercial users," he answered. "Forty percent of the people in this country own over three hundred million firearms, and most people who are worried about the capabilities we're able to provide are worried writ large that anyone has a gun....for those people, I'm not ever really going to be able to say anything that will fully satisfy them."

Enlarge / The PGF rifles all include the ability to mirror the scope's picture to an iPad via Wi-Fi and also to record audio and video of shots. Both law enforcement and military have expressed keen interest in this particular aspect of the PGF design.

Lee Hutchinson

"Certain capabilities we're not going to sell commercially," he continued. "But the ones that we've initially put out we're comfortable with. Allowing someone to make ethical kill shots on an animal at range, as opposed to wounding that animal—we think that's a very positive thing, and the hunting community is embracing that. The ability to record and share their shot... people are finding that is a value-add to their hunting experience."
An aircraft-mounted PGF is one of the capabilities Schauble does not expect to sell to the general public. "Experimenting with three-dimensional space and how to best optimize my inertial measurement unit is not going to be a product that I sell commercially... For some of our government customers who have asked us to look at these things, it lets us give them answers that we can quantifiably back up."

Enlarge / Looking downrange at targets up to about a thousand yards away. Increasing that distance by 3x makes for a long, long shot.

Lee Hutchinson

"We are a smart weapons company," concluded Schauble. "We're trying to take this smart weapon technology and figure out how we come out with capabilities that are greater than what exist today."