How powerful is .50 bmg, really?

FALacy, weather the video is real or fake the point has been made. The 50 BMG can turn a human into mush without much trouble at all. Watch some Military Channel and you will see what the big bad .50 can do to soft targets.

There are a ton of projectiles available to military Snipers outside of the 750g FMJ's and A-Max.
 
Actually, the 50BMG was developed for the B-17 Bomber, P-47, and P-51 Fighters to penetrate the armor, at 800 meters, of the German FW-190 Fighter. A 750gr bullet, launched at almost 3000fps, is devastating on soft targets.
 
So what I'd like to know is if the effect it really as devastating as depicted in the latest Rambo movie or if that is only Hollywood fiction?
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I guess you pretty much answered your original question with that question. Just like cars don't generally explode in mid-air when they drive off a cliff, and trucks won't explode when they crash into a car, and grenades don't create a fireball 50' in diameter, people will not vaporize when hit by a 50 BMG. That is "Hollywood hookum", as Pappy Boyington described it. While a hit from the 50 BMG would be devastating, FMJ bullets are designed to penetrate hard targets and do not transfer energy to soft tissue very efficiently. That said, if a 50 BMG round hits someone, better hope it does not hit a bone.
Actually, the 50BMG was developed for the B-17 Bomber, P-47, and P-51 Fighters to penetrate the armor, at 800 meters, of the German FW-190 Fighter.
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I am not sure where that came from. The M2 entered service in 1921, the B17 entered service in 1938, the P51 entered service in 1941. Yes, the M2 was used to arm these aircraft, but it was already in service long before they were even thought of.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.50_BMG
 
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FALacy, weather the video is real or fake the point has been made.
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I don't think the point is moot that it is a rock chuck and not a human. Most calibers would be capable of the same carnage on such a small animal.5.56 will essentially grenade a squirrel, and it obviously doesn't have that effect on humans.

I guess there are just too many factors that come into play here. Is .50BMG capable of destroying a target as described? Yes, I guess it is under the right set of conditions. But under another set of conditions it may perform marginally, as stated above with the gut shot goat.
 
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I really don't see anyone lining up to be the test subject to see how much carnage the various loading for the .50 BMG will create or how big a hole it will make...

I think we can all agree that it will kill anything walking on 2 or 4 legs. It may give you a little more lee-way for a poor shot to be a kill shot than some of the smaller arms used by the Military because of the hydrostatic shock created, but I for one don't count on Hydrostatic Shock alone to put something down when I'm out hunting.
 
The 50 Cal is not an anti-personal round, but it can be effective as such.

The best example I've seen was in SE Asia. Our A CO. was in danger of getting over run. On the high point inside the perimeter was a 50 cal gun crew. It was very successful in solving the problem but not by hitting people.

The rounds were hitting and busting up rocks, we found more damage done by chunks of rocks then the rounds themselves.

Its a good system, but not the end-all of weapon systems. It wouldn't replace the Med. MG, which would be better for personal. As a sniper system, its great on vehicles and harden targets, but can't compete with other systems in accuracy dept., against soft targets.

Personally I've gotten more use out of the 50 cal out of a 50 cal de-armor in EOD work then shooting.
 
You want to know how Powerfull 50 BMG is:


50 BMG once taught a class called "Ass Kicking 101". There were no survivors.

50 BMG does not hunt because the word hunting implies the possibility of failure. 50 BMG goes killing.

When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night he checks his closet for 50 BMG.

50 BMG can slam revolving doors.

Q: What’s 30 times 50 BMG?
A: Oblivion.

50 BMG doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.

There is no theory of evolution, just a list of creatures 50 BMG allows to live

50 BMG Isn't funny, stop laughing.


Thank God it Friday
 
Tracer rounds would torch the Zeros more often than not.
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This has more to do with the fact that WWII Japanese combat aircraft lacked self-sealing fuel tanks; any of them would go up in flames if you hit them in the right spot with an incendiary round, regardless of caliber. Their aircraft also lacked armor; this was partially because Japanese engine and fuel technology was not up to par with the Americans and the Germans, making weight reduction their best option for increasing performance, and partially because of a cultural samurai-inspired attitude that it is honorable to die in combat and dishonorable to return from battle having been defeated.
Actually, the 50BMG was developed for the B-17 Bomber, P-47, and P-51 Fighters to penetrate the armor, at 800 meters, of the German FW-190 Fighter.
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As Scorch suggests, this is complete fiction. These aircraft entered service long after the round and the M-2 machine gun were developed; the P-47 and P-51 were designed after the war was well underway, although the P-47 was developed from the prewar P-43 Lancer, which was itself an upgraded Seversky P-35.

In fact, IIRC it took over a decade for the US to build a combat aircraft equipped with an M-2! This makes sense when you consider that most 1920s fighters were lightweight tube-and-fabric airplanes with only a few hundred horsepower; adding such a heavy weapons system would severely compromise their performance and range. Furthermore, they would be shooting at other tube-and-fabric airplanes, making rate of fire more important that sheer power; since these aircraft consist mostly of empty space, the key was to hit the engine, pilot, or fuel tanks. A .30cal or smaller round was adequate for this task because cockpit armor was too heavy for the aircraft of the period and the fuel tanks would not be self-sealing since the technology had not been developed yet.

Although the .50BMG/M-2 combo was great during WWII, it's telling that it was rapidly phased out following the war. Aircraft got a lot bigger, faster, and tougher, and 20mm or larger cannons became commonplace. The mainstay of USAF air power during the Korean War, the F-86 Sabre, had six .50BMG guns and was widely considered under-gunned by its pilots. The Soviet MiG-15 and the US Navy F2H Banshee and F9F Panther had cannons by this time.
 
I'm not going to go into the reasons I wanted to use one like I did, just the technical aspects of a fire position.

I wanted a mobile fire position that had a certain kind of stealth. I used a long bed Chevy 1 ton van I had for my business. The idea here was to open the back doors just a couple of inches with the van parked and positioned so I had the correct field of view to the "target". It was my thinking at the time that I could have the barrel inside a few inches and it would muffle the blast report to a dull thud, good theory but I wouldn't advise it. It was something I did only one time (one shot), after that the barrel sticks out a few inches so as to hugely reduce the inside pressure inside the van. I got the impression that any dents would have popped out from the inside.

Let's just say that idea was flawed, a .50 develops a lot of pressure in a closed space and leave it at that. :eek:
 
Some of the "shotgun" ammunition in Hubel458's always interesting thread "12 Guage Shotguns from He**" is "more gun" than the .50 BMG and the blunt meplat on those "bullets/slugs" would really do some damage to "soft" targets well beyond the .50 BMG.
 
Yeah, but would they do it at 1000+ yards? :rolleyes:

Sort of like "if pigs had wings they could fly".

I guess there's a reason more development goes into accurate bullets than super duper hollow points designed to do terminal damage. The 50 BMG seems to have a certain guaranteed damage level covered as long as you can make the hit.

How come nobody is necking a 50 BMG down to .38 caliber? Ultimate wildcat or what? Flat shooting to 1000 yards.
 
My 2 cents
> Does the 50bmg have the power to turn a man into "red mist"
----- Most likely not
> Does it have the power to remove large chunks or nearly tear a man sized target in half
----- Definetly Yes
> Does a bullet exist that has the right terminal performance to actually do the above
----- Possibly (a light for caliber, high veloctiy, fast expanding bullet would be ideal)
> Best chance of seeing it happen
----- A shot that immediately impacts a large bone and continues on a path that travels through a significant amount of additional bone/tissue. As opposed to a "in the front, out the back" type of shot that hits no bones or only a rib.
 
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"How come nobody is necking a 50 BMG down to .38 caliber? Ultimate wildcat or what? Flat shooting to 1000 yards."

Such monstrosities have been done in the past.

Years ago I read about a project where a man took a .50 and necked it down to .30 caliber.

Bullets were something along the lines of lathe turned brass of about 300 grains.

The barrel better than 6 feet in length.

I forget the specific ballistics, but they were impressive. And the barrel supposedly lasted 30 shots.
 
Supposedly during WW II the Germans had a very healthy, and almost mystical, fear of the M2 and its capabilities.
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Allied artillery holds that crown.


As far as the .50 BMG capabilities. It all depends on the type of ammo being used.

Being a large enough round it comes in all kinds of flavors. From regular Ball, to armor piercing and HE and Incendiary.

For instance, a regular Ball .50BMG will not explode you, but take the same cartridge and fire a HE bullet and it will most definately explode it's target. Read the wiki entry and go to the "Military Cartridge" types and it will list all kinds of .50 BMG flavors.
 
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Years ago I read about a project where a man took a .50 and necked it down to .30 caliber.

This is where the SLAP rounds come into play. http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/slap.htm

We had a few cans of these during the initial Iraq invasion in 2003, but using API just made a lot more sense for the targets we came across, and it fed better anyway so the SLAP stayed in the can, unless we wanted something sharp to poke guys when they weren't looking.
 
I don't think that I have had more pleasure shooting another MG!;)It will always be the pinnacle of inventions............. God bless John Moses Browning.:)
 
For me the .50BMG was big enough to the point where it was no longer fun to shoot. I love shooting and always thought bigger was better until I shot an M2. While it was fun, the fun was outweighed by the sheer shock of the muzzle blast.

i know there are people out there who love it, to each his own i guess
 
"Allied artillery holds that crown."

The Germans also had very capable artillery, in many cases equal to or better than US artillery. US artillery held no special fears for them.

What they did not have, however, was a weapon equivalent to the M2 in size or hitting power.

The closest thing they had was the 13mm machine gun, but that was used only by the Luftwaffe.

In some ways it was not unlike the fear that many US GIs had of the MG 42 and its ferocious rate of fire.

The US military was so concerned about that fear that they put out a special training film on the MG 42 in which they claimed that its "bark was worse than its bite."

Well, I guess so, if you don't worry about the fact that its bite can practically saw you in half in about 2 seconds. :)
 
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