Thanks for your feedback safoolfool.
For myself, it's a kind of risky endeavor to assume what's going on in the game engine. For example, I had no idea that one had to practice shooting to become adept at using each type of weapon. It makes total sense, of course, but how many games
actually model it? And it's not advertised in the manual, or even in any type of tutorial or in-game dialogue, or anything. Yet, it's there. And it does make a difference. And 7.62 has a host of these types of "hidden mechanics" at work.
So, thanks for the extra clarity. Now I won't be sniping with it as much. There's no point in it, and that extra time I gain will help in a multitude of ways.