FN Special Police Rifle

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FN Special Police Rifle (SPR)
FN A4 SPR Rifle
Type	Sniper rifle
Place of origin	United States
Service history
Used by	Federal Bureau of Investigation (2004—present)
Specifications
Weight	4.47 kg (9.8 lb) empty without scope
Length	1160 mm (45.7 in)
Barrel length	660 mm (26 in)

Cartridge	7.62×51 mm (.308 Winchester) .300 Winchester Magnum
Caliber	7.62 mm (.308 in)
Action	Bolt-action
Feed system	4-round detachable box magazine
Sights	Telescopic sight

The FN Special Police Rifle (FN SPR) is an bolt-action sniper rifle marketed by FNH USA, a subsidiary of the Belgian company Fabrique Nationale de Herstal.

The rifle was manufactured in the U.S. Repeating Arms Company (owned by FN de Herstal) to FN specifications using Winchester Model 70 actions. All current models of the SPR come in one of a variety of McMillan synthetic stocks. The earliest rifles were shipped in the H-S Precision aluminum chassis fiberglas version of the Winchester Marksman stock. While these "First Generation" rifles were simply dropped into the aluminum bedding blocks of the H-S Precision stock, the later guns are all glass bedded by hand.

FN Special Police Rifles of all iterations are noted for being both very accurate (.5 MOA or somewhat less is not uncommon) and very low maintnence, featuring Parkerized metal finish, synthetic stocks, and a chrome lined bore in the barrel. A chrome lined bore offers a more durable, more corrosion resistant, and easier to clean barrel for the end user to maintain and is rarely found on precision bolt action sniper rifles. The barrels of the "First Generation" rifles were said to be made from the hammer-forged blanks used for M240 General Purpose Machine Gun production at the FN Manufacturing Inc. plant in Columbia, South Carolina. Later barrels are said to be from hammer-forged blanks intended exclusivly for FN Specical Purpose Rifle production.

[edit] Service

As the name would suggest, it is intended for use by law enforcement agencies, and was one of two rifles (along with one from H-S Precision [1]) approved in 2004 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for use of by their SWAT teams [2]. This FBI variant has the model name FNH SPR-USG (USG – US Government).[3] This model is also referred to as the A3G by FN.