The 50 BMG Demystified
69charger
Posts: 1,045
http://rule-303.blogspot.com/2007/02/50-bmg-demystified.html
Every so often you hear about some huge uproar about the 50 BMG cartridge and the target rifles that use it. Various people have gotten it into their heads that the 50 BMG is a weapon only useful for sniping human beings or for engaging in acts of terrorism. It has been completely banned in California and many people would like to ban it at the federal level as well.
Like most ideas for new gun legislation, this essentially stems from people having no idea what they are talking about.
The 50 BMG was introduced in 1917 as a cartridge for anti-aircraft machine guns. The name stands for '.50 caliber Browning Machine Gun.' The 50 BMG was used as an effective anti-aircraft round all the way through the second World War.
For a time after the war some military units favored bolt-action rifles chambered in 50 BMG as anti-materiel weapons. The idea was that a marksman could zero in on a row of parked aircraft or light APCs and put a hole in the right place through each in order to diasble them quickly. This was successful for a while but as new vehicles were developed with better armor, the ability of the 50 BMG to do the job faded and the only role it has in the modern military is for long-range sniping.
The civilian rifles on the market today are bolt actions and often single-shots. In highly skilled hands accurate shots out to 2,000 yards are possible, making the 50 BMG a favorite of advanced marksmen who are seeking a tool equal to their abilities. Semi-automatics being generally less accurate than bolt actions, building a 50 BMG semi-automatic rifle would defeat the purpose of the cartridge. Hence every civilian 50 BMG rifle that I am aware of is a bolt action.
In the hands of a random person with criminal intentions, the 50 BMG is probably the very last weapon in the world that such a person would choose. These rifles weigh 40-50 pounds and are 4 or 5 feet long. They are literally impossible to conceal on one's person and extremely difficult to carry. The rate of fire is slow and the recoil is too great for non-practiced shooters to bear. Nobody without a great deal of practice and training would be able to hit a human-sized target at even 100 yards with one of these rifles, let alone 2,000 yards. After all of the trouble and practice that it takes to learn how to shoot well enough to use this rifle, the 50 BMG can not kill someone any deader than any other bullet. There is simply no reason for any criminal to seek out this $3,000+ rifle rather than one of the cheap, stolen handguns that most crimes are committed with.
Say, how many crimes have been committed with the 50 BMG? Zero. Not a single crime anywhere in America, ever.
The most common example of a terrorism scenario involving the 50 BMG is the idea of a terrorist using one to shoot down a commercial airliner in flight. Sounds plausible at first. It *was* developed as an anti-aircraft round. But remember that it was used for that purpose in an actual machine gun which was firing hundreds and hundreds of bullets at a low-flying bomber. Even then, anti-aircraft gunners missed far, far, far more often than they hit what they were gunning for.
Anyone who has ever done any skeet shooting will know how difficult it can be to hit a clay disc at less than 50 yards that is moving at no more than 20 or 30 mile an hour. This is using a shotgun which spreads out it's projectiles into a wide cloud in order to increase the odds of part of that cloud hitting the moving object.
If skeet shooting is as challenging as it is, then how plausible is it to suggest that someone could hit a commercial airliner cruising at 10,000 feet and moving at hundreds of miles an hour with a single projectile only half an inch in diameter? The very idea is completely absurd. The greatest wing shooters in the world would laugh at the suggestion.
Worried about someone shooting airliners while they're on the ground? Well, that would be a bad thing but hardly a major act of terrorism. There would be a .5" hole in the side of the plane, police would go arrest the guy for shooting it and some flights would be delayed. Hardly the stuff of 9/11. In the Air Force, I have heard of them temporarily repairing .50 caliber bullet holes in the sides of their planes using literally a piece of duct tape.
Can you use 50 BMG for hunting? I guess so but I can't think of any situation where I would. The civilian purpose of a rifle in 50 BMG is that it represents a final frontier for the competetive marksman. In order to compete in matches where you are shooting at over 1,000 yards you simply cannot use the same tools that you would use for a 600 yard match. A smaller caliber bullet would be too prone to getting blown off course by wind. In order to shoot flat and straight at the extreme range of what the human eye and hand are capable of, you need an enormous dose of velocity and enough bullet mass to keep the projectile on target.
Asking who 'needs' a 50 BMG is sort of like asking who 'needs' a $3,000 bicycle. If I were to ride a $3,000 bicycle I would experience no advantage over riding a $500 bicycle because I have no special skill as a cyclist. It would seem like a waste of money to me and perhaps I would question the need for such things to exist. But those few who are at the top of their sport have great use for such a bicycle, as infathomable as it may be to the rest of us who are not interested in competetive cycling. You would not expect Lance Armstrong to ride a $500 bicycle from Walmart in the Tour de France and I would not expect the best marksmen in the world to be shooting 30-'06 in 2,000 yard matches. For those at the top of their game, a tool equal to their abilities is a necessity in order to advance. The 50 BMG represents that tool in the world of competetive shooting.
posted by Jack Landers at Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Every so often you hear about some huge uproar about the 50 BMG cartridge and the target rifles that use it. Various people have gotten it into their heads that the 50 BMG is a weapon only useful for sniping human beings or for engaging in acts of terrorism. It has been completely banned in California and many people would like to ban it at the federal level as well.
Like most ideas for new gun legislation, this essentially stems from people having no idea what they are talking about.
The 50 BMG was introduced in 1917 as a cartridge for anti-aircraft machine guns. The name stands for '.50 caliber Browning Machine Gun.' The 50 BMG was used as an effective anti-aircraft round all the way through the second World War.
For a time after the war some military units favored bolt-action rifles chambered in 50 BMG as anti-materiel weapons. The idea was that a marksman could zero in on a row of parked aircraft or light APCs and put a hole in the right place through each in order to diasble them quickly. This was successful for a while but as new vehicles were developed with better armor, the ability of the 50 BMG to do the job faded and the only role it has in the modern military is for long-range sniping.
The civilian rifles on the market today are bolt actions and often single-shots. In highly skilled hands accurate shots out to 2,000 yards are possible, making the 50 BMG a favorite of advanced marksmen who are seeking a tool equal to their abilities. Semi-automatics being generally less accurate than bolt actions, building a 50 BMG semi-automatic rifle would defeat the purpose of the cartridge. Hence every civilian 50 BMG rifle that I am aware of is a bolt action.
In the hands of a random person with criminal intentions, the 50 BMG is probably the very last weapon in the world that such a person would choose. These rifles weigh 40-50 pounds and are 4 or 5 feet long. They are literally impossible to conceal on one's person and extremely difficult to carry. The rate of fire is slow and the recoil is too great for non-practiced shooters to bear. Nobody without a great deal of practice and training would be able to hit a human-sized target at even 100 yards with one of these rifles, let alone 2,000 yards. After all of the trouble and practice that it takes to learn how to shoot well enough to use this rifle, the 50 BMG can not kill someone any deader than any other bullet. There is simply no reason for any criminal to seek out this $3,000+ rifle rather than one of the cheap, stolen handguns that most crimes are committed with.
Say, how many crimes have been committed with the 50 BMG? Zero. Not a single crime anywhere in America, ever.
The most common example of a terrorism scenario involving the 50 BMG is the idea of a terrorist using one to shoot down a commercial airliner in flight. Sounds plausible at first. It *was* developed as an anti-aircraft round. But remember that it was used for that purpose in an actual machine gun which was firing hundreds and hundreds of bullets at a low-flying bomber. Even then, anti-aircraft gunners missed far, far, far more often than they hit what they were gunning for.
Anyone who has ever done any skeet shooting will know how difficult it can be to hit a clay disc at less than 50 yards that is moving at no more than 20 or 30 mile an hour. This is using a shotgun which spreads out it's projectiles into a wide cloud in order to increase the odds of part of that cloud hitting the moving object.
If skeet shooting is as challenging as it is, then how plausible is it to suggest that someone could hit a commercial airliner cruising at 10,000 feet and moving at hundreds of miles an hour with a single projectile only half an inch in diameter? The very idea is completely absurd. The greatest wing shooters in the world would laugh at the suggestion.
Worried about someone shooting airliners while they're on the ground? Well, that would be a bad thing but hardly a major act of terrorism. There would be a .5" hole in the side of the plane, police would go arrest the guy for shooting it and some flights would be delayed. Hardly the stuff of 9/11. In the Air Force, I have heard of them temporarily repairing .50 caliber bullet holes in the sides of their planes using literally a piece of duct tape.
Can you use 50 BMG for hunting? I guess so but I can't think of any situation where I would. The civilian purpose of a rifle in 50 BMG is that it represents a final frontier for the competetive marksman. In order to compete in matches where you are shooting at over 1,000 yards you simply cannot use the same tools that you would use for a 600 yard match. A smaller caliber bullet would be too prone to getting blown off course by wind. In order to shoot flat and straight at the extreme range of what the human eye and hand are capable of, you need an enormous dose of velocity and enough bullet mass to keep the projectile on target.
Asking who 'needs' a 50 BMG is sort of like asking who 'needs' a $3,000 bicycle. If I were to ride a $3,000 bicycle I would experience no advantage over riding a $500 bicycle because I have no special skill as a cyclist. It would seem like a waste of money to me and perhaps I would question the need for such things to exist. But those few who are at the top of their sport have great use for such a bicycle, as infathomable as it may be to the rest of us who are not interested in competetive cycling. You would not expect Lance Armstrong to ride a $500 bicycle from Walmart in the Tour de France and I would not expect the best marksmen in the world to be shooting 30-'06 in 2,000 yard matches. For those at the top of their game, a tool equal to their abilities is a necessity in order to advance. The 50 BMG represents that tool in the world of competetive shooting.
posted by Jack Landers at Wednesday, February 07, 2007
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http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5751042
$976.00
I would have guessed $250, tops. Good research.
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Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
I wonder about anyone who pays $1000 for a bike. Unless, of course...I dunno, it's for racing, or something. I have a $700 bike, but I bought it for $200.
No, it wasn't stolen.
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I got my bike for 20 bucks outta the paper. It rolls, so that's cool.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
The best one I ever had cost me $80. I put somewhere upwards of 4000 miles on it over the 2 years I had it.
Then it was stolen. Arrrgh.
all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
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I don't have a problem with sport shooting.
a friend of mine in college had a bike that he paid $1500 for. he let another friend ride it and he dumped it. nothing seriously broken, but the paint was scratched (he had said he paid a pretty penny for the paint on it, too).
~Michael Bolton
There are some artisans of the tubular titanium welding sort that custom build some amazingly lightweight and durable bicycles for those willing to pay.
all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.