The Most Famous Military Snipers in the World

USA Gun Shop is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

There’s something about the sniper’s art that captures the imagination like nothing else in warfare. One person, one rifle, one shot. And in the right hands, that’s enough to change the course of a battle. Sometimes a whole war.

I’ve read just about every first-hand account, biography, and after-action report I could get my hands on when it comes to military snipers. The thing that blows my mind about the best of them isn’t the distance of their shots or even their kill counts. It’s the patience. The absolute ice-cold discipline required to lie still for hours, sometimes days, waiting for the right moment.

And here’s what really gets me: a lot of these guys didn’t even have great equipment. Modern military sniper rifles are precision-engineered marvels with match-grade barrels, adjustable stocks, and optics that cost more than your car. The snipers on this list? Many of them were working with bolt-action rifles from the early 1900s. Iron sights. No rangefinders. No ballistic calculators. Just skill, guts, and an understanding of wind and bullet drop that bordered on supernatural.

Ukrainian sniper Vyacheslav Kovalskiy set the current record for the longest confirmed kill with a shot of 2.3 miles that took out a Russian officer in December 2023. That’s insane. But the truly legendary snipers on this list weren’t known for one spectacular shot. They were known for doing it over and over again, day after day, in the worst conditions imaginable.

Here are eight of the deadliest snipers to ever pick up a rifle.

1. Simo Hayha, “The White Death” (Finland)

• Conflict: Winter War (1939-1940)
• Rifle: M/28-30 (Finnish Mosin-Nagant variant)
• Confirmed Kills: 505 (plus ~200 with a submachine gun)

If you only know one sniper on this list, it’s probably this guy. And for good reason. Simo Hayha racked up over 500 confirmed sniper kills in less than 100 days during the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union. That’s roughly five kills per day. Let that sink in.

He did all of this without a telescopic sight. Just iron sights on his Finnish-made M/28-30, a Mosin-Nagant variant. Why no scope? Because the glint of glass could give away his position, and because raising his head high enough to use a scope made him a bigger target. So he kept his profile low and relied on his eyes alone. In temperatures that hit minus 40.

The Soviets were so terrified of him they called him “The White Death.” They sent counter-sniper teams after him. They called in artillery strikes on his suspected positions. Nothing worked. Hayha would dress in all white, pack snow in his mouth to hide his breath vapor, and disappear into the Finnish landscape like a ghost.

A Soviet soldier finally caught him with an explosive bullet to the jaw in March 1940. He survived, but lost half his face. He woke up from a coma the day the war ended. Hayha went on to live until 2002, passing away at 96. When asked how he became such a good shot, his answer was simple: “Practice.” That’s the most Finnish thing I’ve ever heard.

2. Vasily Zaytsev (Soviet Union)

• Conflict: World War II, Battle of Stalingrad
• Rifle: Mosin-Nagant 91/30 with PU scope
• Confirmed Kills: 225

You probably know Zaytsev from “Enemy at the Gates,” the 2001 Jude Law film. Decent movie. But the real Zaytsev was even more impressive than Hollywood made him look, which is saying something.

Stalingrad was urban warfare at its most brutal. We’re talking house-to-house, rubble-pile-to-rubble-pile fighting in a bombed-out city during a Russian winter. Zaytsev thrived in it. He’d set up in the wreckage of destroyed buildings, sometimes waiting for days at a stretch, picking off German officers and soldiers with his scoped Mosin-Nagant.

What made Zaytsev special wasn’t just his shooting. He was a teacher. He trained dozens of other Soviet snipers using a method he developed himself, and his students went on to rack up over 6,000 confirmed kills combined. That’s a legacy most military trainers can only dream about.

The famous duel between Zaytsev and a German super-sniper (Major Erwin Konig, according to Soviet accounts) probably didn’t happen the way it’s portrayed in the movie. Some historians doubt Konig even existed. But it doesn’t matter. Zaytsev’s 225 confirmed kills at Stalingrad are real, and they helped break the back of the German 6th Army during the most important battle of WWII.

3. Chris Kyle, “The Legend” (United States)

• Conflict: Iraq War (4 tours)
• Rifle: McMillan TAC-338, also used a .300 Win Mag
• Confirmed Kills: 160 (claimed 255)

Chris Kyle needs no introduction. His autobiography “American Sniper” became a massive bestseller, and the Clint Eastwood film starring Bradley Cooper brought his story to millions. But behind the Hollywood version was a Texas kid who became the deadliest sniper in American military history.

Kyle served four tours in Iraq as a Navy SEAL sniper, with 160 confirmed kills out of a claimed 255. His longest confirmed kill was a 2,100-yard shot with a .338 Lapua. In Fallujah and Ramadi, he became so effective that Iraqi insurgents put a bounty on his head, reportedly $80,000. They called him “Al-Shaitan” (The Devil).

What set Kyle apart was his willingness to put himself in the most dangerous positions to protect Marines on the ground. He wasn’t hiding in a nest a mile away. He was on rooftops in contested urban environments, calling out threats and taking shots at close range as much as long range. That takes a different kind of courage.

Kyle’s story has a tragic ending. After returning home, he dedicated himself to helping veterans with PTSD. He was killed at a Texas shooting range in 2013 by a troubled veteran he was trying to help. He was 38.

4. Lyudmila Pavlichenko, “Lady Death” (Soviet Union)

• Conflict: World War II, Eastern Front
• Rifle: Mosin-Nagant 91/30 with PE scope
• Confirmed Kills: 309 (including 36 enemy snipers)

309 confirmed kills. 36 of those were enemy snipers. Pavlichenko wasn’t just the deadliest female sniper in history. She was one of the deadliest snipers, period. And she did it on the Eastern Front, which was about as close to hell on earth as modern warfare has produced.

When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Pavlichenko was a 24-year-old history student at Kiev University. She volunteered for the infantry (not a desk job, the actual infantry) and was assigned to the 25th Rifle Division. By the time she was pulled from combat due to injuries in 1942, she’d already become a legend.

Here’s the thing about sniper-on-sniper kills: they’re the hardest kind. You’re hunting someone who has the exact same training and patience as you. Pavlichenko took out 36 of them. Some of those duels lasted days. She described one three-day standoff with a German sniper that ended when she found his position and put a round through his scope. Cold.

After her combat career, the Soviets sent her on a goodwill tour to the United States. She became friends with Eleanor Roosevelt and spoke at rallies across the country, challenging American men to step up and fight. “I am 25 years old and I have killed 309 fascist invaders,” she reportedly told one crowd. “Don’t you think, gentlemen, that you have been hiding behind my back for too long?” Absolute legend.

5. Carlos Hathcock, “White Feather” (United States)

• Conflict: Vietnam War
• Rifle: Winchester Model 70, also used a Browning M2 .50 cal
• Confirmed Kills: 93

Carlos Hathcock’s kill count of 93 might look modest compared to the WWII-era snipers on this list. Don’t let that fool you. Many Marines and military historians consider Hathcock the greatest sniper who ever lived. His methods, his discipline, and his sheer audacity put him in a class by himself.

The white feather in his bush hat is what made him famous. He wore it openly, basically daring the NVA to come find him. And they tried. The North Vietnamese put a bounty of $30,000 on his head and sent their own snipers and platoon-sized hunter-killer teams to take him out. None of them succeeded.

His most legendary shot came when he killed an enemy sniper by sending a round straight through the other man’s rifle scope, hitting him in the eye. Think about the precision required for that. The enemy sniper was aiming right at Hathcock, meaning that scope was pointed directly at him. A fraction of a second’s difference and it’s Hathcock who dies.

Hathcock also holds a distinction that’s often overlooked. He made a confirmed kill at 2,500 yards using a Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun fitted with a telescopic sight. That record stood for 35 years. A machine gun. At over a mile. The man was simply on another level.

His Winchester Model 70 (the pre-64 version) became legendary in its own right. It’s still considered one of the finest bolt-action rifles ever made, and a lot of that reputation traces directly back to Hathcock’s use of it in Vietnam.

6. Adelbert Waldron (United States)

• Conflict: Vietnam War
• Rifle: M21 Sniper Weapon System (semi-auto M14 variant)
• Confirmed Kills: 109

Waldron doesn’t get the name recognition of Hathcock, but he actually held the record for most confirmed kills by a U.S. Army sniper during Vietnam. 109 confirmed. And he did it in a very different environment than the jungle stalking most people picture when they think of Vietnam snipers.

Waldron operated primarily from Navy patrol boats along the Mekong Delta. He’d set up on the boats, scanning the riverbanks for enemy combatants while cruising through some of the most dangerous waterways in the country. One famous story has him spotting an enemy sniper in a coconut tree at dusk, making a snap shot from a moving boat, and dropping the guy with a single round. From a moving platform. At distance. In failing light. That’s not normal.

His weapon of choice was the M21, which was basically a tricked-out M14 with a Redfield scope. It’s a semi-automatic platform, which gave him faster follow-up shots than Hathcock’s bolt-action Winchester. Different tools for different jobs. Waldron earned two Distinguished Service Crosses, putting him among the most decorated soldiers of the Vietnam War.

7. Francis Pegahmagabow (Canada)

• Conflict: World War I
• Rifle: Ross Rifle Mk III
• Confirmed Kills: 378

378 confirmed kills in World War I. That number is staggering when you consider what WWI combat looked like. Trenches. Mud. Constant artillery. Gas attacks. And Pegahmagabow was out there between the lines, in no man’s land, hunting Germans with a Ross Rifle.

Pegahmagabow was Ojibwe, from the Wasauksing First Nation in Ontario. He enlisted in 1914 and served on the Western Front for essentially the entire war, fighting at Ypres, the Somme, Passchendaele, and the final Hundred Days Offensive. He was wounded twice and gassed once. He kept fighting.

Beyond his sniper kills, he also captured 300 enemy soldiers. That’s a whole separate category of bravery. The man was decorated three times with the Military Medal, making him the most decorated Indigenous soldier in Canadian history. And the Ross Rifle he used? It was notoriously unreliable in trench conditions, prone to jamming when dirty. Most Canadian soldiers hated the thing and swapped it for Lee-Enfields whenever they could. Pegahmagabow made it work anyway.

After the war, he went home and became chief of his band, spending decades fighting for Indigenous rights. A warrior in every sense of the word. He deserves way more recognition than he gets.

8. “Juba,” The Baghdad Sniper (Iraq)

• Conflict: Iraq War / Iraqi insurgency
• Rifle: Various (likely Tabuk or Dragunov SVD)
• Claimed Kills: Allegedly 100+

“Juba” is a different kind of entry on this list because we don’t even know if he was one person. The name was given by American troops to an Iraqi sniper (or snipers) operating in Baghdad who became infamous through propaganda videos released by insurgent groups. The videos showed American and coalition soldiers being shot, often in gaps in their body armor.

Was Juba a single legendary marksman? Or was “Juba” a name applied to multiple insurgent snipers to create a boogeyman? U.S. military intelligence leaned toward the latter explanation. The propaganda value was enormous either way. The name alone created fear, and the videos were used as recruiting tools.

If you’ve seen “American Sniper,” you’ll recognize the character of Mustafa, the Olympic-shooter-turned-insurgent-sniper who serves as Chris Kyle’s nemesis. That character is loosely inspired by the Juba legend, although Kyle and whoever Juba was never actually had the dramatic rooftop showdown the film depicts. Real war is messy and doesn’t wrap up with a neat Hollywood ending.

Juba’s inclusion here is controversial. We’re talking about someone who killed American soldiers, and there’s no verified kill count, no confirmed identity, and the whole thing might be propaganda. But the psychological impact was real. U.S. forces changed their patrol tactics and body armor configurations because of the Baghdad sniper threat. That’s influence, whatever you think of the person behind it.

What Makes a Great Sniper?

Looking at this list, a few things stand out. First, raw marksmanship is just the starting point. Every sniper here could shoot. That’s table stakes. What separated them was everything else: the ability to remain motionless for hours, the patience to wait for the perfect shot instead of taking a good one, the mental toughness to operate alone in hostile territory day after day.

Second, the equipment gap between then and now is insane. Hayha used iron sights. Pegahmagabow used a notoriously finicky Ross Rifle. Hathcock adapted a machine gun for precision work because that’s what he had. Today’s military snipers have access to rifles, optics, and ballistic computers that would have seemed like science fiction to these guys. Makes you wonder what Hayha could have done with a modern precision rifle and a Nightforce scope.

Third, every great sniper had an outsized psychological impact. Hayha terrified the entire Soviet invasion force. Zaytsev boosted Stalingrad’s defenders when morale was at rock bottom. Hathcock’s white feather was an act of psychological warfare all by itself. A single skilled sniper can pin down entire units, demoralize enemy forces, and change the calculus of a battle in ways that no other single soldier can.

These eight shooters represent different eras, different conflicts, and different countries. But they all share that same rare combination of skill, nerve, and will that puts them in a class most soldiers never reach. Not even close.