If only he would have used a bolt action 308 with a magnified scope and a hunting stock, he could've taken out his victims from a mile away. Then we never would have found ANY evidence that suggested a car hide, the shots being medium to low ranged, etc.
actually, they originally had one. the story came out last month;
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001842255_sniper23m.html
D.C. snipers originally had a Remmy 700 in .308
D.C.-area snipers may have planned attacks near Tacoma
By Mike Carter
Seattle Times staff reporter
Virginia prosecutors have concluded that D.C.-area snipers John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo had set up a snipers' nest in a Tacoma-area field and were "preparing or training" to kill randomly with a rifle more than a month before the Beltway shootings began.
The pair were interrupted and forced to abandon the rifle, police and prosecutors said, when a truck cut through the field where they were set up behind an apartment complex early on the morning of Aug. 17, 2002.
"I think it's fair to say that we believe they were set up to shoot someone. We can't say who or why," said Deputy Prince William County Prosecutor Attorney James Willett. "Based on their subsequent actions — the random shootings of 10 people (in the D.C. area) — it is a reasonable assumption that they were preparing and training there (in Tacoma) for what eventually happened here."
Investigators have traced the rifle in the field to a Tacoma man, Earl Lee Dancy Jr., who has admitted he illegally purchased it for Muhammad and then reported it stolen at Muhammad's request after it was found.
Dancy is under investigation by federal agents for making that illegal "straw purchase" for Muhammad, who could not legally possess a gun because he was the subject of a domestic-violence protective order. Dancy and Muhammad were friends and Muhammad and Malvo had stayed with him off and on.
A federal law-enforcement source has confirmed that the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle is contemplating charging Dancy with making false statements on a federal firearms form. The crime is a felony that carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison.
Dancy, contacted yesterday at his home in Tacoma, said he was under a "gag order" and could not talk about the case.
In his testimony during Muhammad's trial in Virginia last November, Dancy said Muhammad came to him in November 2001, said he needed a rifle, and gave him $800 in cash. Dancy bought the gun at Bull's Eye Shooter Supply in Tacoma. Over the next several months, Dancy testified, he, Muhammad and Malvo went several times to an outdoor Tacoma shooting range to fire it.
"Did the defendant ever make any remarks to you about Mr. Malvo at the shooting range?" Prosecutor Paul Ebert asked.
"Yeah. He showed me a target and we looked at the grouping and he said, 'That's a sniper,' " obviously impressed with Malvo's skill.
The rifle was a Remington Model 700, a model commonly used by police sharpshooters and similar to the weapon used by U.S. Marine Corps snipers. When found in the Tacoma field, the gun was loaded with a bullet in the chamber and equipped with a telescopic sight and bipod, used to steady the weapon for more accurate shooting.
Pierce County Sheriff's Sgt. Ed Troyer said there was an apartment building nearby, and the field commanded a view of Highway 512 southeast of Tacoma.
Troyer has gone back through police reports and found no incidents of illegal shooting or shots being fired in that area.
According to a sheriff's report made by the two Pierce County men who found the gun, they were leaving the apartment building, took a shortcut in their truck through a field next door, "and noticed something sticking out of a green duffle bag."
"When they stopped and looked closer they saw that it was a rifle with a scope and a tripod on it," the deputy wrote, misidentifying the bipod attached to the gun's stock.
"When they (got) out of the truck, they could hear someone running through the bushes, but couldn't see them," the report said. "They said the rifle was loaded with one .308 round and was up on its tripod pointed at the apartment building that they just came from."
The discovery of the rifle may partially answer one question for investigators, according to the Virginia prosecutors: why Malvo shoplifted a Bushmaster assault rifle — the weapon used in the Beltway shootings — from Bull's Eye. According to statements from Bull's Eye employees, the Bushmaster was first noticed missing sometime in August or September 2002 probably after the Remington was abandoned in the field.
The two guns are significantly different from each other.
The Remington, the weapon found in the field, is a 44-inch-long rifle that can be fired only after the shooter manually operates its bolt action, which ejects a spent casing and reloads the next round for firing. Its magazine carries five bullets. The rifle fires powerful .308-caliber bullets and can shoot accurately at distances of 500 yards or more.
The Bushmaster is roughly 35 inches in length and fires a .223-caliber bullet. It is an assault-style weapon that can fire as fast as the shooter can pull the trigger and can be fed with a 30-round magazine. While accurate at up to 250 yards or so, it is not commonly considered a sniper rifle.
The Bushmaster that Muhammad and Malvo used was equipped with both telescopic and laser sights.
The first of the shootings tied to the Bushmaster occurred Oct. 2, when a round was fired through the window of a Michael's craft store in Aspen Hill, Md. That same day, James Martin, 55, was shot dead outside a supermarket in Wheaton, Md.
Muhammad was convicted and sentenced late last year to die for the death of Dean Meyers, who was shot down while filling his car at a gas station near Manassas, Va. Malvo was convicted and given a life sentence in Virginia for the Oct. 14, 2002, slaying of FBI analyst Linda Franklin.
Prince William County Commonwealth's Attorney Paul Ebert said he is preparing a Virginia homicide case against Malvo.
Besides the two convictions, Muhammad and Malvo are suspects in 12 other slayings in Washington, Maryland, Virginia, Louisiana, Georgia and Alabama. The first killing for which they are suspects is the Feb. 16, 2002, slaying of Keenya Cook in Tacoma.
Cook was killed with a .45-caliber handgun owned by Dancy, who has testified that Muhammad and Malvo routinely borrowed and fired several weapons belonging to him.
Malvo, 18, has told police and psychiatrists that the 43-year-old Muhammad had sent him to commit that shooting as a test. Cook was the niece of Isa Nichols who police and prosecutors say was a target of Muhammad's rage because she had sided with his ex-wife, Mildred, in their divorce.
While it has been speculated that Nichols was the intended target of that shooting, Deputy Prince William County Prosecutor Rick Conway, also on the team that convicted Muhammad, says that's not clear. "I believe statements have been made by Malvo to the effect that Muhammad wanted to kill one member of the Nichols family every year so Isa Nichols would suffer," Conway said.
__________________
:: 
