The L96 does as much damage as the M24 and the M95, and it is as accurate as the M24, making it the equal most damaging and most accurate rifle in the game. For all intents and purposes it is exactly the same as the M24 (check their stats on the wiki if you don't believe me), and the M95 is in second place behind them. The M95 has been improved, it's true, but it's still plagued by a stupid crosshair, and who really cares about shooting helicopter pilots when only noob pilots stay still long enough to get an M95 round (I pilot helis a lot, and I've taken a lot of fire from M95 users, and never been killed by one while flying). Basically unless you want to shoot through objects (the M95 also penetrates humvee glass, and thin metal, like the walkway on the construction site cranes) the L96 or the M24 is the best sniper rifle. In fact the only thing that makes the L96 better than the M24 is you can use it as any team. Sure, it is marginally faster to reload, but it's a fractional thing and if you're a halfway decent sniper you know that speed has nothing to do with the art.
The L96 is not silenced, I don't know how that gets spread around, it has the most badass sound, and I've heard it fire from the City Entrance flag on Sharqi when the guy using it was at the Surveillance Post flag. The thing is that the 1.2 patch seems to have bugged the sounds a bit, I've been killed a bunch of times by PKM firing that I havent heard, even when I can see the guy firing and he's very close by.
The L96 is not silenced, I don't know how that gets spread around, it has the most badass sound, and I've heard it fire from the City Entrance flag on Sharqi when the guy using it was at the Surveillance Post flag. The thing is that the 1.2 patch seems to have bugged the sounds a bit, I've been killed a bunch of times by PKM firing that I havent heard, even when I can see the guy firing and he's very close by.