‘Smart Rifle’ Begins Shipping to Gun Owners This Week

[The Straight Story]

A Texas startup has developed a “smart rifle”that barely needs to be aimed.

The maker of the gun, being shipped to stores this week, brags that “even a novice shooter can become an elite long-range marksman in minutes.”

The company, TrackingPoint, has said its “world’s first” long range Precision Guided Firearms (PGF) integrate precision hardware, digital optics, and tracking technology to deliver an unmatched shooting experience. The line of rifles starts at about $22,500 and each comes packaged with an iPad mini including the interactive TrackingPoint mobile app.

...

The way the gun operates sounds like a video game. The visual scope on the PGF connects via WiFi the iOS app on an iPhone or iPad by way of ShotView. The feature shows a live video of the digital Heads Up Display (HUD) and video can also be recorded and shared online. Schauble said an Android app is on the way.

TrackingPoint is in the process of developing a dedicated, online community for TrackingPoint users to share videos and information with each other.

“There’s a young, digital generation that will want to hunt and shoot, so we’re not only developing a product for people that shoot today, but also the new digital generation,” said Schauble.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2013/05/smart-rifle-begins-shipping-to-gun-owners-this-week/

[NightWatcher]

1. With that price point don't expect them to fly off the shelves

[Journeyman]

4. The calculator I purchased last week for $5 cost more than $60 back in 1970. . .

inflation since then would raise that cost to better than $300 today. And yet it sells now for less than 2% of that.

(Good thing I had a calculator to figure this.)

Enough of those machines will be sold to keep the company afloat, at least long enough for the price to drop, at which time volume will kick in and help them all make a fortune.

The only losers will be you, me, and whoever or whatever gets in front of that machine.

[Hoyt]

6. Don't kid yourself, those into lethal weapons will borrow to have the latest

and greatest. Heck, it's less than a Harlery.

[name not needed]

9. I wonder how many gun nuts will squander Junior's college fund on this shit.

[Paladin]

20. They will sell every one of these guns they can produce.

Never underestimate how much money Gun Enthusiasts are willing to fork over to have the latest, greatest toy to show off and play with.

[justanidea]

2. So how exactly does this work?

The article and video are both short on details.

My understanding is it's just a fancy scope that doesn't let the trigger pull unless it thinks you are likely to hit the target? How precise is the aiming system? If I put it on a target @ 100 yards will it fire if the scop thinks it will hit ANYWHERE on the target? Or will you be able to use the guided system to shoot sub-MOA. I'd imagine it's the former and not the latter since actual precision shooting still requires lots of skill such as breathing control, trigger pull, etc.

Sounds like interesting tech but I'd imagine the user would still need some degree of skill in order to line up the shot. I'ts not like the gun is computer controlled and on a motorized turrent.

Either way it's nothing but a fancy toy. For $22,500 you could buy a high end AR set up for long range shooting (cost of maybe $3-4k) and 30,000+ rounds of ammo to practice honing your skills with. You'd even have some left over for marksmanship classes if you were a total novice.

To be honest I'd be impressed if this thing even works half as good as the marketing folks say it does.

[Canuckistanian]

7. You want to see how accurate this thing is? Watch this video.

[Whisp]

14. pigs

me big he man. ugh ugh

[telclaven]

28. That's Amazing

My God, what kind of technological sorcery is this? I'm shocked and amazed. When do the military and SWAT snipers get them?

[newmember]

10. It allows you to mark your POI on the target first and it locks it in , then it fires

As to the accuracy of MOA , that depends on the weapon not the scope.

[premium]

3. I could probably do just as good

with a Remington 700 with a good scope.
I don't expect to see many average gun owners buying one of these, not at $22,000 a pop.

[newmember]

11. Not average but remember that price includes the scope and rifle

[russspeakeasy]

5. Stephen Hunter wrote about a gun like this in 1994.

His hero in "Black Light" is Bob Lee Swagger.
It's been a long time since I read it; it's been even longer since I handled a weapon, but I remember thinking at the time; "wow, that's interesting".

[GeorgeGist]

8. So the shooter can be stupid ...

right?

[geomon666]

12. Bravo

[derby378]

13. Sounds a wee bit fussy

On a gut level, I'm betting that not many Americans are looking to purchase a rifle that's smarter than they are.

[Hoyt]

16. Didn't bother them when flintlocks were latest technology.

[daleo]

15. Could be handy for hit men

And assassins. IT's hard to think of legitimize uses.

[Hoyt]

17. Yep, self defense at 1000 yards doesn't happen, sounds more like terrorism.

[jmowreader]

18. Cops, maybe

The rifle is huge, so probably not military snipers.

[newmember]

19. I don't think any police sniper wants to use an unproven system this new for life and death

[jmowreader]

23. What will it take to become "proven"?

Someone like the LAPD SWAT team or Delta would have to buy a couple, field them for a year, and see what they do. SWAT teams, Delta Force, and the Special Forces have long experimented with weird shit like this.

The big question is reliability because this gun's ability to put three rounds through a knothole at a thousand yards is already known.

[newmember]

31. Military , they don't have to be as precise as police

They don't deal with hostage situations as much.

They are all snipers but they deal with different roles.
Plus police snipers for the most part don't use .338 lapua mag very often

[MattBaggins]

21. FFS that's not hunting

[TekGryphon]

22. When that things hits mainstream, hunting is no longer a sport.

Hunting will become the challenge equivalent of calling your cat to you and strangling it. An activity for psychopaths who get hard-ons from watching things die, nothing more.

[olddots]

24. Oh I want one so bad

just think ---it will be the great " equalizer "

[Poll_Blind]

25. Here's a "commercial" for it. Looks like it's more for hunting people than animals.

For $22k and for what it does in the video, this doesn't strike me as something that anyone is going to be hunting animals with.

This is a people hunter. They just don't want to call it that, but I'm sure the Pentagon has been receiving lots of promotional material. Honestly, $22k kind of seems like a joke for what you're getting, too. The video to make the shots is incredibly shaky (as you would expect) so having a noob manipulating the rifle is pointless. This is only half a system. The other half is taking the human operator out of the loop for fine movement of the firearm and replacing them with a fine mechanically-operated movement system- kind of like you can buy for telescopes.

Also, notice no windage calculator? C'mon. What a joke.

Great for setting up an automated dead zone around a base in, say, Afghanistan, tho. Let's hope no "Springbok" decide to go out gathering firewood.

PB

[AndyA]

26. I guess Jackie DeShannon was wrong.

What the world needs isn't apparently love, it's bigger, better guns that you don't even have to aim to kill someone with. Ah, the convenience of it all.

[Eleanors38]

27. For the future of firearms, this is stop-gap...

The debate over guns will have to move beyond prohibition, demonization, denial, and the panic attacks of yester year, as the recent flap over "3-D" guns has shown. The future may not involve cartridges, or conventional triggering (as this weapon demonstrates), and it may not involve much noise.

Much of the data processing within the scope has been around for a few years already, and placing 3 or 5 rounds within an inch at 100 yds can be purchased off the shelf at well under $900, a fraction of what that performance would have cost 20 yrs ago. Controller/banners may be forced to concede that AR-15s will be the new "muskets" they are so fixated on.

Side note on hunting: Do you want primitive weapons to force hunters to take a "manly" challenge (with consequently more wounding & loss of animals)? Or do you want something closer to "one shot, one kill" with a modern weapon?

[Skidmore]

29. How about level playing field for man and beast?

Last edited Tue May 21, 2013, 06:53 PM - Edit history (1)

No guns. Perhaps a knife if the beast has really big teeth.

[Eleanors38]

30. Most hunting is not about combat; it is predator hunting

Prey, not the Hollywood/Hemingway portrayals. That being the case, "fair chase" must be balanced against the task of hunting, killing and recovering the animal. Clearly, you favor the more confrontational and heroic approach which maximizes the possibility of a wounded & unrecovered animal. I don't.

We all kill to live. Hunting, killing and eating an animal is one way. Having an agent process killed animals for meat under cellophane is a second. Converting nature to the abstraction of agriculture, thereby eliminating habitat for species, expanding invasive species and extirpating others is the third. Which method of killing do you engage in? The rest is style and culture.