Primary Tool for countering any threat is understanding the threat itself. Anyone concerned with defeating a sniper ought first understand the sniper's techniques and rationale. Probably the finest single resource is John Plaster's comprehensive book The Ultimate Sniper. There are other books, namely the USMC and US Army sniper program Field Manuals, plus Mike Lau's book on police sniping, but Plaster has the most comprehensive and an almost textbook like approach to relating complex concepts and making them easy to understand. This book is very complete and worth the $45 or so it costs. Try Amazon or Ebay for best price, be sure to get the revised and updated edition.
Know how to shoot? Kinda essential for countering any sniper. Not all rifles are suitable. To counter a precision shooter you'll need similar capabilities. Varmint rifles are about ideal. To my mind, a .223rem or smaller round is not a preferred cartridge. A custom chambered rifle or rare factory rifle like Tikka T3 with 1:8 twist can stabilize the 80/85gr bullets that make the .223rem viable. Same is necessary with a .22-250, the 1:14 or 1:12 twist rates are too slow to stabilize bullets over 55 or 60 grains of weight. With a 1:6.5 twist barrel the super-long 90gr bullets are very viable and make awesome longrange target rifles. Still, the .243win is about the entry threshold with 90 or 100/107gr match bullets.
A word on ammunition. It is the key. If you handload it is easy to make your own of match quality. Sierra, Nosler, Hornady, Berger, Lapua all make superb match bullets with very high ballistic coefficients so the bullets are of highest aerodynamic efficiency and lowest rate of trajectory drop. Probably your rifle will shoot its best with match ammunition. If not, use what does perform. Test firing your rifle at the 100yd or 200yd range will show which ammunition or load groups best. You're looking for the ability to place 5 shots in a tight group of under 1" at 100yds or under 2" at 200yds.
To test your rifle, you need to shoot from a stable position with sandbag rests fore and aft. The rifle needs to be triggered w/o disturbing point of aim. Light recoiling rifles will perform best. Align reticle crosshair for best accuracy on bottom corners of a squared aiming point. Aim at same L corner every time and fire 5 shots with reticle perfectly at rest. Ammunition that yields smallest groups at both 100 and 200yds will be your keeper...
Obviously most people will need a scope. Even an experienced highpower ironsights shooter will benefit from a decent scope. Not so much to scan and identify targets with, but to eliminate sight alignment delay and enable fastest target acquisition and shot delivery. 6x scope with duplex or tactical reticle will work best. Scope needs to have finger-click adjustable turrets for windage & elevation. Quality hunting scope like older Leupold Vari-X III with screwdriver click turrets, (the kind you use a nickle or quater in the slot to turn), can be conveted to finger dial with a Stoney Point turret adapater. If choosing a scope specifically for counter-sniper work, look for finger dial/click turrets of 1/4moa and a total range of 60 inches of movement windage & elevation. More fine scopes available now than ever before, but expect to pay $250 or more for one that will perform adequately. The 4.5-14x Nikon Buckmasters hunting scope has about all the features you can need, including side-focus parallax adjustment and mil-dot reticle for rangefinding. Very clear and rugged scope.
Rifle choices can include about any quality hunting rifle up to .308 win or .30-06. The AR-10 or M1a semi-auto rifles in .243, .260rem or .308 is a superb choice; as also is a fast twist .223 AR-15 with 20-24" match quality barrel. The Armalite flat-top rifles are preferred over M1a or carryhandle ARs because of their integral picatinny rail receivers. Bolt rifles are more traditional. A varmint barreled gun or deer gun in any .308 or .30-06 based cartridge will be excellent. You also want a good sling and maybe a bipod and to know how to fire accurately from both.
Laser rangefinders are pretty affordable and easy/fast to use. My Nikon 800 is good to 800meters and very compact. Compact binoculars will fit in your pocket and enable fast exploration of your surroundings. For deep foliage or pre-dawn an dusk you'll need 50mm objective lenses on your binos; 56mm are better. Zeiss, Pentax, Olympus,Fujinon, Kowa are brands I've worked with. There are other good names. My Fuji m22 binos and 65mm spotting scope are great values and simply superb. I've got 2 Zeiss binoculars and their quality is notably better, but the Fujinon work and are a close 2nd. Leitz, Nikon, Swarovski are undoubtedly fine; many people love them...
You need optics for investigation from a distance and the better they are, the more you will detect. In and earlier article I discussed denying the ground to snipers and preparing range-cards and keeping knowledgeable on your surroundings.
If you are new to longrange shooting, Plaster's book is about the finest overview you can buy. Might want to look for some of David Tubb's books and DVD's. Tubb has one called The One Mile Shot and it shows him getting on range with his 6.5/284 rifle with 6.5-20x scope and making repeated hits on target in good crosswind at 1mile...
To defeat a sniper, learn his/her craft and prepare accordingly.
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