Chris Kyle’s Guns: The American Sniper’s Rifles, the 2,100-Yard .338 Shot and His TRP 1911

Chris Kyle didn’t win his reputation with one gun. In Iraq the Navy SEAL sniper carried four different long guns depending on the job: a semi-automatic 7.62 Mk 11 on patrol, a 5.56 Mk 12 in the city, a Remington 700 bolt-action in .300 Winchester Magnum for most of his precision work, and .338 Lapua Magnum rifles when the range got long. His longest confirmed kill, at about 2,100 yards outside Sadr City in 2008, came from a McMillan TAC-338. His sidearm was a Springfield Armory TRP 1911 in .45 ACP, a pistol he said “took a frag for me in Fallujah.” Springfield later built 1,000 Chris Kyle Legend Series TRPs in his honor, and serial number 0001 sold for $22,500 for his family’s foundation.

Here’s every gun in the American Sniper story, what the record supports and what’s still argued over, and what the civilian versions cost today.

Table of Contents

Chris Kyle’s Guns at a Glance

Gun	Caliber	How he used it
Mk 11 (SR-25 pattern)	7.62 NATO	Semi-automatic sniper rifle for patrols
Mk 12 Special Purpose Rifle	5.56 NATO	Urban patrol, fitted with an M4A1 lower for a collapsible stock and full auto
Remington 700 (Mk 13 Mod 1)	.300 Win Mag	His main bolt-action, McMillan stock and custom barrel; later replaced by an Accuracy International
McMillan TAC-338 and other .338 rifles	.338 Lapua Magnum	Long range, including the 2,100-yard shot near Sadr City
Springfield Armory TRP 1911	.45 ACP	His sidearm; he bought it himself
Bolt-action .30-06	.30-06 Springfield	His first rifle, a gift from his father at age eight

Who Was Chris Kyle?

Christopher Scott Kyle was born in Odessa, Texas, on April 8, 1974. His father bought him his first rifle when he was eight, a bolt-action .30-06 Springfield, and later a shotgun, and the two of them hunted deer, pheasant and quail. After high school in Midlothian he became a professional bronc rider and ranch hand, until a bad arm injury ended his rodeo career. He walked into a recruiting office hoping to join Marine Corps special operations, and a Navy recruiter talked him into trying out for the SEALs instead. He enlisted in 1998, began basic training in February 1999, and went on to serve four tours in Iraq with SEAL Team 3.

Kyle wrote that insurgents in Ramadi nicknamed him “the Devil of Ramadi” and put a bounty on his head. He left the Navy in 2009, moved back to Texas, and ran Craft International, a tactical training company for military and police. In 2012 HarperCollins published his memoir, American Sniper, and it became a bestseller. Clint Eastwood’s 2014 film of the book, with Bradley Cooper as Kyle, earned six Oscar nominations including Best Picture and won for sound editing.

How Many Kills Did Chris Kyle Have?

The number everyone quotes is 160, and it comes from Kyle’s own book. He wrote that the Navy credited him with more kills than any other American sniper, and then added a warning about the figure: “One week, it’s 160 (the ‘official’ number as of this writing, for what that’s worth), then it’s way higher, then it’s somewhere in between. If you want a number, ask the Navy.” The publisher’s jacket copy said the Pentagon had confirmed more than 150. The Navy itself has never published a final count.

The one number in an official document is 91. His Silver Star citation covers April 24 to August 27, 2006, when he was lead sniper for the SEAL task unit in Ramadi, and it says that “during 32 sniper overwatch missions, he personally accounted for 91 confirmed enemy fighters killed and dozens more probably killed or wounded.” The same citation credits him with eliminating five enemy snipers and preventing casualties to American and Iraqi troops on more than 30 occasions. That’s one deployment out of four, which is why the career total is so much higher.

Before Kyle, the American record was the 109 confirmed kills of Army Sergeant Adelbert Waldron in Vietnam. The most famous American sniper of that war, Marine Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock, was credited with 93. We rank Kyle, Hathcock and the other great names in the most famous military snipers in the world.

The Mk 11: His Patrol Rifle

Kyle’s memoir lists the rifles he actually took into the field, and the first is the Mk 11, a semi-automatic sniper rifle in 7.62 NATO built by Knight’s Armament on Eugene Stoner’s SR-25 design. It looks like an oversized AR-15, and that’s close to what it is: an AR-10-pattern rifle with a free-floated match barrel. He used it on patrols, where a bolt-action is slow if a sniper has to shoot more than once in a hurry.

The closest civilian equivalent is a quality AR-10 in .308 Winchester, the commercial twin of 7.62 NATO. Our best AR-10 rifles and best semi-auto .308 rifles guides go through the options:

The Mk 12: The 5.56 He Made Full Auto

For urban patrols Kyle carried a Mk 12 Special Purpose Rifle, a 5.56 NATO marksman’s rifle built on the AR-15 pattern with a heavy 18-inch match barrel. He didn’t leave it stock. He fitted it with the lower receiver from an M4A1 carbine, which gave him a collapsible stock that was easier to handle in buildings and vehicles, and the M4A1’s full-auto fire. In a city fight, a lighter rifle that can also lay down covering fire beat a heavy bolt gun.

Civilian Mk 12 clones are a small but loyal niche, and Daniel Defense has built one. Semi-auto only, of course. If you want the same idea in a more common package, look at our best AR-15 rifles:

The Remington 700 in .300 Win Mag

The gun that did most of Kyle’s precision work was a bolt-action Remington Model 700 in .300 Winchester Magnum, with a McMillan stock and a custom barrel. The Navy later type-classified that setup as the Mk 13 Mod 1. The Mk 13 was a Remington 700 long action mated to a McMillan A2 stock, and it was the most widely used sniper rifle in the Navy until the Mod 5 came along. Kyle’s own rifle was later replaced by a .300 Win Mag Accuracy International.

The .300 Win Mag pushes a 190-grain match bullet much flatter than a .308 does, and it stays supersonic well past 1,000 yards. That’s why it became the standard long-range cartridge for American special operations snipers for two decades. You can buy a Model 700 in .300 Win Mag off the shelf today, and we test Remington’s action in our Remington 700 review. For more choices see our best .300 Win Mag rifles and best .300 Win Mag bolt-action rifles:

The .338 Lapua and the 2,100-Yard Shot

For the longest shots Kyle used rifles chambered in .338 Lapua Magnum, a cartridge designed specifically for military snipers who needed more range than the .300 Win Mag could give. In 2008, outside Sadr City in Baghdad, he spotted an insurgent about to fire a rocket-propelled grenade at an Army convoy. He fired once from a McMillan TAC-338 at about 2,100 yards, or 1,920 meters, and killed him.

Kyle was honest about it. In American Sniper he called it “a straight-up luck shot.” At that distance a .338 Lapua bullet is in the air for well over two seconds, and a small misjudgment of wind or range becomes several feet at the target. It’s still one of the longest confirmed kills by an American, though not the longest in the world. Canadian and British snipers have made kills past 2,400 meters, and we list them all in the longest sniper kills in history.

McMillan still builds the TAC-338, but it’s a hand-built rifle with a long wait. The more affordable way into the cartridge is a factory rifle like the Savage 110 in .338 Lapua. Our best .338 rifles and best PRS rifles guides cover the field, and you’ll want serious glass from our best rifle scopes list:

His Sidearm: The Springfield TRP 1911

SEALs were issued SIG Sauer pistols, but Kyle bought his own. In his memoir he wrote that he carried a Springfield Armory TRP Operator, a .45 ACP 1911 with an accessory rail, and that it “took a frag for me in Fallujah.” The TRP, short for Tactical Response Pistol, is still in Springfield’s catalog.

In 2016 Springfield honored him with the Chris Kyle 1911 Legend Series TRP: exactly 1,000 pistols, serial numbers CK0001 through CK1000, with five-inch stainless match barrels, tritium sights and black and gray G10 grips engraved with an American flag. The list price was $2,495. Springfield’s CEO presented the first one to Taya Kyle at the SHOT Show, and she announced right away that she’d auction it. Serial number 0001 sold for $22,500 at the NRA Annual Meetings in Louisville on May 21, 2016, with every dollar going to the Chris Kyle FROG Foundation, which supports military and first responder families.

The standard TRP is far easier to find than a Legend Series gun. Read about the maker in our Springfield Armory profile and best Springfield Armory pistols, and compare it with the rest of the field in the best 1911 pistols under $2,000:

What the Record Doesn’t Support

Kyle’s war record is real, but not every story in and around American Sniper holds up, and any honest account of him has to say so.

The medals

The book said Kyle won two Silver Stars and five Bronze Stars with valor. The discharge form he was handed in 2009 said two Silver Stars and six Bronze Stars. In July 2016 the Navy reviewed his records and corrected the form to one Silver Star and four Bronze Stars with valor. The Navy said Kyle “would have played no role in the production of his personnel files” beyond signing the form, so the error was the Navy’s paperwork, but the book’s numbers were still too high.

Jesse Ventura

A chapter of the book described Kyle punching a man he called “Scruff Face” in a Coronado bar in 2006, and he later said the man was former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura. Ventura said it never happened and sued. In July 2014 a federal jury found for Ventura and awarded $500,000 for defamation plus about $1.35 million for unjust enrichment. In 2016 the Eighth Circuit threw out the unjust enrichment award and sent the defamation claim back for a new trial. The case was settled out of court in December 2017 for an undisclosed amount.

New Orleans and Dallas

Kyle told friends and writers that he’d shot armed looters from the top of the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina, and that he’d killed two men who tried to rob him at gunpoint at a Dallas-area gas station in January 2009. Reporters who checked found nothing to back up either story. They weren’t in his book, and nothing has ever confirmed them.

How Chris Kyle Died

On February 2, 2013, Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield took a 25-year-old Marine veteran named Eddie Ray Routh to the range at Rough Creek Lodge in Erath County, Texas. Routh’s mother had asked Kyle to help her son, who’d been in and out of mental hospitals. On the drive, Kyle texted Littlefield, “This dude is straight-up nuts.” Littlefield replied, “Watch my six.”

At the range, Routh opened fire on both men. Kyle was shot six times, including a fatal wound to the back. Kyle was killed with a .45 pistol and Littlefield with a 9mm SIG Sauer, and both guns belonged to Kyle. Both victims were wearing holstered .45 1911s that were never drawn, with the safeties still on. Routh fled in Kyle’s Ford F-350 and was caught after a freeway chase. On February 24, 2015, a jury convicted him of capital murder after less than three hours, and he was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Thousands came to his memorial at Cowboys Stadium, and people lined Interstate 35 with flags for the 200-mile funeral procession to Austin. He’s buried at the Texas State Cemetery. A bronze statue stands in his hometown of Odessa, and the Texas “Chris Kyle Bill” lets veterans count their military training toward state occupational licenses. If you shoot in Texas, our Texas gun laws guide covers carry and transport.

Can You Buy Chris Kyle’s Guns Today?

You can buy civilian versions of almost everything he carried. The military guns themselves aren’t for sale: the Mk 11, Mk 12 and Mk 13 were Navy property, and the Mk 12 he converted was a machine gun. A Remington 700 in .300 Win Mag, an AR-10 in .308, a Mk 12-style 5.56 and a Springfield TRP are all on dealer shelves right now, and the prices above update live from more than 200 retailers.

The Legend Series TRP is a collector’s item. With only 1,000 made, the few that come up for sale trade above the original $2,495 list price. For the wider field, our best sniper rifles, best military sniper rifles and best .308 rifles guides start where Kyle’s rifles leave off.

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