Snipex, a Ukrainian company specialized in manufacturing of anti-materiel rifles, has announced a new rifle called Snipex T-Rex. The new gun is chambered in 14.5x114mm. The model name is given because of the very powerful cartridge and the distinctive shape of the rear monopod that reminds the legs of Tyrannosaurus Rex.

The Snipex T-Rex is a single-shot bolt-action rifle. The lockup is accomplished via three rows of locking lugs (13 lugs in total). The barrel extension has a cutout on the side facing the ejection port. This feature should allow to easier manually feed the cartridges into the chamber, have better access to the locking recesses (for cleaning or clearing malfunctions) and should also make the rifle slightly shorter due to the ejection port being integrated with the barrel extension.

Note the cutout in the barrel extension

The Snipex T-Rex also has a recoiling barrel assembly which is designed to mitigate the felt recoil and, as the company claims, make the gun more accurate. According to the company’s press release, the rifle is capable of 1 MOA or better accuracy. Unlike its .50 caliber siblings (M100 and Rhino Hunter) that have straight pull bolts and automatic extraction/ejection initiated by the recoiling barrel, the T-Rex’s barrel recoils a very short distance (7mm or .275″) and the rotating bolt must be manually operated much like any other classic bolt-action rifle.

T-Rex has an adjustable cheekpiece

Being a single-shot gun, the T-Rex is obviously not the fastest repeater in the world, however, for a rifle of this size, it can be an advantage decreasing the overall weight and allowing to place the pistol grip and trigger right behind the breech thus providing a reasonable length of pull. With an overall length of 1,830mm (72″) and barrel length of 1,200mm (47 1/4″), the rifle weighs 22.5 kilograms (49.6 lbs).

The Snipex T-Rex rifle will be shown at Arms & Security 2019 exhibition which will be held in Kyiv, Ukraine on October 2019.

Snipex is the subsidiary of XADO Chemical Group, that’s why there is “XADO” engraved on the receiver

The 14.5x114mm cartridge was adopted by the Soviet Union during the WW2 and used in PTRD and PTRS anti-tank rifles. It was later used in a variety of other firearms (anti-materiel rifles, heavy machine guns) and still is in service in many countries. Probably the most widespread gun chambered in this caliber is the KPV/KPVT heavy machine gun. The 14.5×114 cartridge launches about 990-grain projectiles (64 gram) to about 3,300 fps (1,000 m/s). This is a common military cartridge in Ukraine and in most of the other post-Soviet countries.

Images courtesy of Snipex, www.snipex.com