Shooting the $17,000 Linux-powered rifle

[nsane.forums]

ARM CPUs, lasers, and Wi-Fi make firing this weapon an experience like no other.


1000 yards is a long, long way away.

My photographer, Steve, squints through a computerized scope squatting atop a big hunting rifle. We're outdoors at a range just north of Austin, Texas, and the wind is blowing like crazy—enough so that we're having to dial in more and more wind adjustment on the rifle's computer. The spotter and I monitor Steve's sight through an iPad linked to the rifle via Wi-Fi, and we can see exactly what he's seeing through the scope. Steve lines up on his target downrange—a gently swinging metal plate with a fluorescent orange circle painted at its center—and depresses a button to illuminate it with the rifle's laser.

"Good tag?" he asks, softly.

"Good tag," replies the spotter, watching on the iPad. He leaves the device in my hands and looks through a conventional high-powered spotting scope at the target Steve has selected. The wind stops momentarily. "Send it," he calls out.

Steve pulls the trigger, but nothing immediately happens. On the iPad's screen, his reticle shifts from blue to red and drifts toward the marked target. Even though I'm expecting it, the rifle's report is startling when it fires.

A second later, the spotter calls out, "That's a hit!"

Steve has just delivered a .338 Lapua Magnum round directly onto a target about the size of a big dinner plate at a range of 1,008 yards—that's ten football fields, or a tick over 0.91 kilometers. It's his very first try. He has never fired a rifle before today.

A shot with the XS1 at 1,008 yards (922 meters). The shot-drop reorientation at this range is clearly visible. It also takes several seconds after the trigger is pulled (reticle turns red) for the rifle's computer to judge the alignment as favorable enough to fire. The spotter can be heard noting that the round impacts "center mass," or directly in the middle of the target. (The time & date displayed at the bottom of the scope are incorrect.)

Through the shooting glass

Of course, Steve isn't some kind of super mutant marksman—he had a bit of help. We were plinking targets with $17,000+ Linux-powered hunting rifles, made by a small Austin company called TrackingPoint. Earlier this year, Ars reported on TrackingPoint's "Precision Guided Firearm" at CES, where the 59-employee company was giving the press a sneak-peak at their product before its official introduction at the Shot Show convention a week later.

The Precision Guided Firearm is a "whole widget" type of thing—it's not just a fancy scope on top of a fancy gun, but rather a tightly integrated system coupling a rifle, an ARM-powered scope running a modified version of Angström Linux (with some custom BitBake recipes and kernel modules to support the rifle's proprietary hardware), and a linked trigger mechanism whose weighting is controlled by the scope.

TrackingPoint actually makes three different Precision Guided Firearms, two of which fire .300 Winchester Magnum rounds and one of which fires a larger .338 Lapua Magnum cartridge. The weapons themselves are crafted by Surgeon Rifles, and TrackingPoint adds the scope and trigger mechanism to the rifle and then sells it as a package. Since launch, TrackingPoint's sales have been very brisk: the company has nearly sold out of their entire allotment of PGFs for all of 2013.

3 paged article continued at source link below...

View: Original Article

[insanedown58]

F*ck Yeah, OPEN SOURCE B*TCHES! :moon:

[CODYQX4]

DO WANT...

[voidoid]

Pity the poor animals who are going to be the target of these weapons. Doubtless too, as the weapon is being sold in the US, that it will also be used to slaughter humans.

[EnaTr]

Oh,

[DKT27]

Pity the poor animals who are going to be the target of these weapons. Doubtless too, as the weapon is being sold in the US, that it will also be used to slaughter humans.

Sad but true. Why can't people use guns just for target practice only on fake objects? :(

[tipo]

because way way way back in time we were animals..