.50 bmg question

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Sharps-shooter

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I have a question about the .50 bmg as used in special-purpose military sniper rifles. I read a work of fiction recently that repeatedly asserts that the .50 caliber "destroys people" "blows men apart", and so on. is this realistic (at a few hundred meters)? I would have thought ball ammunition would put a .50 caliber hole straight through them without slowing down much or expanding much, the way a .458 caliber bullet does when shooting a human-sized animal. Am I wrong?
 
"destroys people" sounds pretty close, "blows men apart" could be a stretch, it will do considerable damage but stops short of actually cutting you in half like some claim. at any rate, 12,000+ FT/LBS of energy could ruin your day.
 
GIGO

Garbage in, Garbage Out is a good way to understand the damage done by any non exploding (Cannon) projectile. Take the energy in foot pounds striking the victem, subtract the energy of the projectile exiting the victem the result is a very accurate measure of the damage inflicted. A .50 BMG ball round with 10,000 ft lbs of energy exiting a torso with 8500 ft lbs of energy does no more damage than an old 50 cal muzzle loader.
 
I have a question about the .50 bmg as used in special-purpose military sniper rifles. I read a work of fiction recently that repeatedly asserts that the .50 caliber "destroys people" "blows men apart", and so on. is this realistic (at a few hundred meters)? I would have thought ball ammunition would put a .50 caliber hole straight through them without slowing down much or expanding much, the way a .458 caliber bullet does when shooting a human-sized animal. Am I wrong?
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I think the military often uses Raufoss rounds, which should certainly blow a person apart.
 
In the book "Not a Good Day to Die" (about a major battle in the 'ghan), there is a picture of an enemy fighter...or at least several pieces of an enemy fighter...flying in every direction after being hit with a .50 BMG from a Barrett.
 
For what it's worth, I've never even been issued ball ammo for my M-107, I've gotten nothing but M8 API so far, and I know Raufoss rounds get used with some frequency, but I'm not sure when or by who, like I said, all I ever get is M8.
 
I think the military often uses Raufoss rounds, which should certainly blow a person apart.
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The Mk211 is an AP round. It is designed to penetrate light armored vehicles before detonating. Tests in (Norway, I believe) concluded that the effects of the Mk211 Rafouss round on a human target were not different than other .50 BMG projectiles. The Mk211 multi-purpose round is designed for anti material applications (trucks, parket aircraft, etc.). For that purpose, it is highly effective.

To the original question, the .50 BMG really isn't tremendously more devastating to a human body than, say, 7.62mm NATO. Reason being that the round is not any faster, only 40% larger. Similar velocities mean similar stretch cavities relative to bullet size. Kind of like shooting a coyote with a .30-06; it isn't going to give a kill much more spectacular than the .22-250, since the target animal doesn't offer enough resistance to stop either round short of the vitals.
 
The Mk211 is an AP round. It is designed to penetrate light armored vehicles before detonating. Tests in (Norway, I believe) concluded that the effects of the Mk211 Rafouss round on a human target were not different than other .50 BMG projectiles. The Mk211 multi-purpose round is designed for anti material applications (trucks, parket aircraft, etc.). For that purpose, it is highly effective.
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Interesting information. Could it be that the Raufoss tends to go through a person before detonating? That would make sense if the round is designed to have a delayed detonation so that it goes off after penetrating the armor of a vehicle.
 
Shoot a squirrel with a .17hmr fmj and that's about the same level of destruction a .50bmg fmj will do to a human.
 
It will rip off limbs or blow up a head. But a body shot just puts a big hole through them. Even 25mm AP will only put a hole about the size of a small watermelon in a bad guy. 25mm He blows them up though.
 
I got the oppertunity, and not a good one, to see up close what a .50 round will do to a human at point blank range.

Let me preface this with how this happened...

I drove AAV's while in the Marines and we have the Cadillac-Gage Upgunned Weapon Station on our vehicle. It's holds a coax M2 .50 cal and Mk19 40mm grenade launcher. Due to the design of the turret there are only two ways of removing the .50 from the turret. Either you unscrew the barrel from outside the turret and then remove the receiver from the inside or you traverse the turret to the side to just the right spot, elevate the guns and slide the entire unit into the crew compartment.

It was common practice for us to just unscrew the barrel from on top because you had to crawl up there to remove the Mk19 anyways.

We had just gotten back from the range (no suprise) and we were back at camp and pulling our guns for the evening. If anyone is familiar with the M2 you will realize you have to charge the weapon back a little bit in order to unscrew the barrel. Inside the turret, we don't have the normal charging handles but one unit on the side with a wire and a hook on the end. You use that to charge the weapon. We had a bad habit of wrapping that hook around the butterfly handle of the M2 for leverage to charge it just that little bit to remove the barrel.

The tractor next to me was doing it's thing and the crewchief was on top of the tractor, standing in front of the .50 barrel with his hands around it preparing to unscrew it while his crewman in the turret charged the bolt back so that he could.

I heard a BANG! and in that millisecond my body recognized gunfire and I found myself flattened out on the top of my vehicle. (instinct) I looked over and that crewchief wasn't standing on top of the tractor any more and people were standing there with that *** look on their faces.

What caused this ND was a repetition of bad habit and failure to clear the weapon. There was still a round in the chamber of the M2 and when the crewman used the charging handle in the manner we did, he also hit the butterfly trigger causing the weapon to fire. There was enough slack in the wire on his charging handle to cause him to hit the triggers without taking the gun out of battery.

I can tell you this much, he took that round center mass. It left a small hole in the center of his chest and an exit hole about the size of a softball in his back. I don't know if the round caused that or the gasses due to the close range which I would estimate around 6 inches from the muzzle.

The good news, if you can call it that, is it caused us to really change the way we did things including how we cleared the weapon and how we remove them.

The bad news is that he left a son and pregnant wife behind.
 
I don't know where its written but I know that the .50 has been documented to have cut a man in half at over a mile and a half away.
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:rolleyes:
 
Sorry about the chief, I have a son and a pregnant wife too, hate to leave them alone. IIRC the .50 BMG as a sniper round isn't anti-personnell, it's rather anti-materiel, for which the Raufoss is very effective. Effects of ball .50BMG on living creatures should be caused by excessive energy the bullet has, simple physics. Must be some Hollyweird stuff when people fly apart when shot with smth like that.
 
Interesting information. Could it be that the Raufoss tends to go through a person before detonating? That would make sense if the round is designed to have a delayed detonation so that it goes off after penetrating the armor of a vehicle
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That is precisely what the study concluded. That said, it was also mentioned (and this is far from verbatim) that an individual wearing hard body armor may well have the round detonate inside him.
 
Banshee said:
only thing wrong is that is not a man being shot with a 50BMG. It is a rockchuck being shot with a small bore varmint rifle.

check out the videos at dog be gone.

http://www.dogbegone.com/video.htm

I have these DVDs. very neat..
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Have you seen Exploding Varmints?

1. See the varmint?
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2. Impact.
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3. I think that is the hindquarters and the tail flying through the air.
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This is from the first DVD. The second one has a "twofer" rockchuck shot--two lined up, killed with the same shot.
 

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I don't know where its written but I know that the .50 has been documented to have cut a man in half at over a mile and a half away.
Heres a ~graphic~ video of people being blown away by the .50 in Afganistan
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I'm afraid your post is incorrect on both counts. A .50BMG round is going to make a small entry wound and a fairly large exit wound, but it's not going to cut someone in half.

The video is neither .50cal nor humans. It's from a promotional video called "Varmint Safari II" and shows rock chucks being shot in the Rocky Mountains using varmint rifles.

http://www.rmvh.com/Scenes.htm
 
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