.50 Caliber Barret Sniper Rifle!

bullethole1,

They are fun. But seriously consider the 416 barrett. Probably one of the best ballistics in ammunition today. Also about 5 dollars a round but with far less recoil, better ballistics, and for sure less NOISE!! Going to run you and arm, leg, and possibly a shoulder or first born for the M82, but they do have the cool factor! ;)
 
Take a look at the Remington 700MLR in .338 Lapua Magnum. Ammo is $6 a round unless you reload. You can get it down to about $4/round. You can get the rifle, the optics you need to make it work up to its potential and the reloading equipment for about $4000....
 
Yes they are loud and so double ear protection is very wise and recommended by Barrett.
Some ranges will not allow them.
$23 for 10 rounds of high quality Federal American Eagle XM33C (though my local dealer sells it for $57 for 10)is only double that of 10mm Double Tap at $62 for 50. You need to know where to buy your ammo like Palmettostatearmory.com and others.
There are many brands of rifles out there but I would go with a trusted name like Barrett or McMillian.
Do not cheap out with scopes or you will be spending money for replacements or using the lifetime warranty a lot. I would go with SWFA.com SS scopes or Night Force over any Leupold MK4.
If you have a range that has the distance to use a 50 or live in a part of the country with open space they are as much fun as a Corvette on the open roads.
 
@50shooter:

Let me guess--that picture taken through the scope is from a 5.5-22x56 Nightforce with the MLR reticle, isn't it? :D

A general post...

No, I can't think of NEEDING a .50 rifle. But, that isn't the point.

Yes, the bolt actions kick the crap out of you. Yes, the rifle sounds like the crack of doom when it fires.

The point it, though--you are behind what is quite possibly the most powerful commonly available rifle in the world--a fire breathing beast hurling at least 650 grains of copper-jacketed lead at tremendous velocities.

And the fact that you, as a human being can CONTROL that beast is the thing that is fun about it. You can seriously say that you are playing Thor--hurling an almost literal lightning bolt at a target.

And that alone makes it worth the money. :D
 
MY single AMAC 1500 recoiles less than a 20 gauage. She is loud.

roger50.jpg



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W-fIn2QZgg
 
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@Powderman: I do believe you when you say how exciting it is to shoot a .50 BMG (the next time I come over to the states I swear I'll shoot one :D ), but to shoot long range, there are better alternatives. If you want the most powerful rifle designed by man, you should go for the 14.5x114mm PTRS or PTRD, I've seen them run for anywhere between 3-6k in the US, which leaves you with enough money to buy a high quality long range rifle. I mean, it has twice the muzzle energy of a .50 BMG :eek:

For those that recommend .416 Barrett and .408 CheyTac... I really love the idea behind it and their performance. However, fact is that it is proprietary munition. If the company decides to higher prices, or suddenly stops production for one or another reason, the ammo will be scarce.

So personally I'd go for the .338 Lapua which is in use in some 25 countries. It is guaranteed to stay around for a while. Besides, the different performance between the 416 & 408 against the 338 is mostly way beyond the capabilities of your scope, rifle and yourself.
 
They'd be NFA restricted , since 14.7mm is over the .50-caliber cutoff for non-NFA civilian arms. (For those not fluent in both SI and U.S. customary measures, .50 caliber is 12.7mm.) Can't be owned by everyone like a 50 can.
 
It's not a problem with .50 rifles, it's a problem with that rifle.

There are plenty of precision .50's that will shoot well under 1 MOA.
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Considering the military standard of either <2MOA or <4MOA in the past of when the M82A1 went into service, 1-2 MOA is fine. You have to understand the reasoning behind the M82A1 being made. It was the first (or so is claimed by Barrett) man-portable .50 BMG rifle that could be taken into the battlefield and used effectively at long ranges against hardened targets. It wasn't designed for hitting prairie dogs at 1000 yards. Also at the time it was being put into service, the standard ammo for it was the standard .50 bmg machinegun ammo, which is far from being match ammo.

I am not sure where the notion came of it being a "sniper" rifle. It is used by some snipers, yes, but then again, so is the M4. That does not make the M4 a sniper rifle. It does make it a sniper's rifle when being possessed by a sniper, but that isn't the same thing.

I liked the Marine description of the M82A1. It is a SASR, or Special Application Scoped Rifle.

The recoil of the .50 BMG is pretty significant and Barrett realized that it needed to be toned down quite a bit for the rifle to be more user-friendly. So he basically used a 3 step system. First is the recoil spring that cycles the gun over a longer period of time than smaller caliber rifles and spreads that part of the energy out longer, dampening the feel of recoil. Next, the barrel is on springs. When the gun fires, like some canon, the barrel moves back into the receiver. Last was the massive muzzle brake. Now they have smaller brakes that are as effective, but at the time, that didn't seem to be the case.

I have to admit, there is something cool about being able to put rounds on target as fast as your crosshairs are on target. I can't say I have a real need to do it, but I have dumped magazines a couple of times.

So you have a semi-auto rifle that fires a very large and powerful cartridge and has a lot of moving parts to help dampen the recoil as well as non-moving parts. You can shoot one all day long and not be beat up by it. Okay, that may be stretching the point. I have put 200 rounds through mine in a given day and while I was tender the next day, I was better off than shooing 30 rounds of slugs out of my 12 ga shotgun.

The M82A1 isn't a bad rifle. It did what it was designed to do and did it very well, but what it was designed to do isn't what a lot of people are looking for in a .50 bmg rifle.
 
Thanks Everyone for your advice and comments,I think Im going to settle for something else, Im not hurting for money but I still don't want to invest into something worth that much which is too expensive to have as a daily shooter plus the lack of things to use it for.As for a range, I have a range at my parents 813 acre farm in Atascosa County Texas. We have alot of brush but we also have alot of level coastal fields where distance problems wouldnt be an issue.I kind of figured the gun was heavy,and ammo was high as hell :barf:
 
Hey "50 shooter" what scope were you using, and at what zoom is that at 2000 yards. I see someone mentioned 22 magnification. Seems like at 2000 yards a target would look like a spec at 22x.
 
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The scope was a Nightforce but I'm not sure what the magnification was when the picture was taken. I would imagine it was maxed out to see the target that well through the scope.

In the last picture the scope on the Windrunner was a U.S. Optics, great scope with plenty of MOA to get out that far. As far as bullets being used and being discussed in this topic, match grade are the only way to go. It's a dumbing down affect when people talk about .416, .408... They always compare them to a standard 50 BMG round and not a match grade round.

50 BMG match grade rounds will keep up with anything on the market when pushed out to ranges of 2000+ yards. We never consider shooting at the long range targets at those ranges with standard ball. When the range exceeds 1000 yards, guys pull out the match stuff and let them fly.:cool:
 
I have never seen a Barrett M82 shoot better than 4MOA. You must have a really good one with a good chamber. Since I do not know what chamber reamer Barrett uses, I do know that the US Army accuracy chamber is the most accurate. Since there is NO SAAMI spec on 50 BMG, you're on your own when purchasing the rifle. Good match 50 BMG runs at least $6.50 per round. Don't even think about trying to shoot de-linked ammo thru a match chamber. You will not have fun trying to get the spent cases out of a match chamber.

416 Barrett? Find ammo that works first. I have sawed 416 cases in half length ways & measured the wall thickness. Some are OK and others that stick in the chamber are as much as 0.15" thicker than the ones that cycle OK. I have even seen some unfired, new in box have CONVEX bases.

If you can have someone to make you 416 brass by drawing new cases from brass, go for it.
 
How can a long range weapon have such bad accuracy standards??? If its meant for 1000 yards plus 4 MOA is HUGE. Thats 42 inches(3.5 FT) at 1000 or 84 inches(7FT) at 2000 yards, which is unnacaptable if your shooting at a live target. I guess if your shootings at a vehicle thats ok, so I'm guessing the M82 was built more for the anti-vehicle aspect of 50 BMG rather than anti-personal side of the 50 BMG
 
Hmm, I think 4 MOA is a bit exaggerated, most reviews give groupings between 1.5-2.5 MOA.

rather than anti-personal side of the 50 BMG
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The 50 BMG was designed as an anti-aircraft round.
 
.50 caliber

i was told by a friend to salt the bullet if hunting with one so the meat wouldnt spoil before u got to it. noise level to me compares to the sonic boom of an aircraft.
 
Wow, I didnt realize how LOUD the .50 can be. I wonder how it compares to a .270 or 30.06 when It comes to noise??
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Okay, do you remember the old Super Chicken cartoon? In about every episode, it seemed, there was an explosion where Super Chicken would note the safety of being safe at the center of the explosion and the bomb would go off and Super Chicken would be slightly off center and blown to smitherenes. Shooting the Barrett 82A1 is about like that. The quietest place is behind the scope. If you are doing the sniper buddy system and spotting from atop of your shooter, you are pretty well off or directly behind the shooter you are pretty well off. However, if you are slightly left or slight right of the rifle, you might as well be Super Chicken slightly off center from an explosion.

Behind the scope, muffs and plugs are suggested.
 
Hefted one of these at the armory a few months back. EOD keeps one or two on hand for their line of work. I was able to shoulder the rifle, with horrible posture, for about five seconds. Its a heavy sucker. I really respect those guys that lug that weapon around for miles and miles.
 
50 BMG

I built this 50 BMG ten years ago and if I were to build another, it would be far different from this one. I have given alot of thought to the next one I would build or purchase, I would recommend the AMAC/Iver Johnson. i read some of the posts concerning recoil, I have to say that it's about the same as a 308. This one has a Nightforce scope and I purchased it because of a ll the recoil hype you hear about. A lower priced scope would work fine. Reloading will save some $ and the current cost per round using a Hornandy AMAX bullet and good powder is around $3.50 not including the brass. 183.jpg

184.jpg
 
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