With only a round in the chamber -- and no belt -- how "auto" would you expect a .50BMG to be?
TXnMA
Posted on 08/12/2018 10:17:14 PM PDT by NoLibZone
A British soldier from the elite Special Air Service has shot and killed an ISIS commander from more than a mile away, in what is thought to be the best long-range shot in the regiment’s 77-year history.
Using a a huge .50 Calibre Browning machine gun, which is nearly 40 years old, the unnamed sergeant, who is a veteran of Iraq and Syria, managed to hit the fighter directly in the chest with a shot that blew off the commander’s arm and shoulder.
“The Islamic State commander was briefing his men and clearly liked the sound of his own voice because he was standing still for a least 20 minutes while his fighters sat on the ground in front of him,” a source familiar with the incident, which took place in June in Afghanistan, told The Daily Star Sunday.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
With only a round in the chamber -- and no belt -- how "auto" would you expect a .50BMG to be?
TXnMA
Not sure.
The Israelis still use the Browning M2 for a ranging gun on (some of) their main battle tanks. In the 1970s, the US invented a subcaliber training device that mounts a Ma Deuce directly to a tank's main gun tube. The "Telfare" device is much cheaper to shoot and the .50 doesn't need the same backstop as a tank's main gun (a difference of several miles). But the Israeli military is too small for anything as expensive as a tank to be dedicated just to training, so their training tanks roll into battle, just like any other. And when they do, they roll with the Telfare device still mounted. And to make it earn its keep, they use it for a ranging gun.
I couldn't find a photo of the real thing but this is from a model of an M1 tank with a Telfare device mounted. Note the ammo can directly to the left of the machiunegun's feed port. On the M60 tank it mounted directly to the gun tube but on the M1 it mounts to the gun mantle.
TO: TXnMA
"With only a round in the chamber -- and no belt -- how "auto" would you expect a .50BMG to be?"
No need. The Browning M2 is select fire.
Carlos Hathcock, USMC, Vietnam...
Actual test conditions at arsenals or other test facilities. Aberdeen is MD has some serious enclosed test facilities. Even some commercial bullet/ammunition manufacturers have underground tunnels in excess of 300m.
Not sure one can determine “theoretical MR”, as by definition is average distance from the center of a group-it is actually quite easy to determine- fire a group, then use a square to draw lines perpendicular to the outside impacts, then measure and the X and Y values of all the impacts to determine center of the group, then from tis point, measure to each bullet hole and average, that is the mean radius of the group. Of course, a three shot group touted by the gun rags tells you nothing statistically. The government uses groups of 100 or more... I use not less than 10 shot groups for the sake of time and barrel life: seems statisticians state 8 shots is the minimum to tell you anything reliable.
There is a smart phone app called RangeBuddy that allows you to photograph your group, determine a distance measure on the target for comparison, then mark the shots with icons, it will then determine MR, MOA, offset from aim point etc for free....
True enough. What makes the M2 a useful “rifle” compared to most other crew served light, medium and heavy MGs is that the M2 fires from a closed breech configuration. The M60, M 240 M 249, MG 30/40 series and the RPKs etc all fire from an open bolt-
(Open bolt- meaning the bolt strips a round from the feed tray assembly, feeds into the chamber and fires when the trigger is depressed, whereas a closed bolt system the operator manually strips, feeds and chambers a round, closing the bolt locking the round in the chamber and then fires the round when the trigger is pressed, the self loading system repeats as long as the trigger is depressed and ammo is available. The former is good for heat control, reducing cooked off rounds and reliability, the latter for accuracy and safety).
In the single shot mode, the bolt has to be manually release before each round is chambered, then fired using the trigger spade.
A mile shot is notable, but way back when , Carlos Hathcock, Gunnery Sgt ret ( deceased) used this weapon and a Unertl 16x scope in a custom mount to kill in Vietnam at 2460 yds.....a record standing until 2003 ish when a Canadian sniper exceeded that range with a similar setup. Now, Bolt action single man portable weapons in more efficient calibers exceed these ranges considerably. Good for us!
Did you even read the article before you posted?
According to various sources, the weight of the Browning machine gun makes it unsuitable for dismounted soldiers. (From Wiki: “The lightweight “Army/Navy” prefixed AN/M2 “light-barrel” version of the Browning M2 weighing 60 pounds (27 kg) was also developed, and became the standard .50-caliber aviation machine gun of the World War II-era...”) It’s heavier than the sniper rifle. And, there is a forty year old gun in active service? And, the barrel is still good enough for a record long shot? Well, you can change the barrel, but call me skeptical.
So this, presumably professional, sniper used an inappropriate weapon why? To prove he could?
Sometimes you read stuff and it makes no sense.
Check your scales, more like 34 minutes from horizontal and still booking on
Yeah, saw that soon after I posted. My stupidest error in a while...well, at least today.
Yeah, he was a true hunter. He stalked his targets, not sitting on a rooftop picking them off. His relating his stalk of some NVA big shot was epic. Damn few could do what he did, crawling through grass for days to get close.
Kyle and he were totally different types of snipers.
A comment on that page mentioning that with the transit time from trigger pull to impact, the gunner could have sent a text message saying “bye bye” to the target.
That should become a thing.
flr
Well done ....
He used a 10x scope
The fact that it might have been an old barrel is no handicap
Talking about the action of a common 50 BMG and the way the head spacing is done on the M2.
but the machine itself is essentially immortal.
Have you ever seen one come apart at the receiver because someone failed to adjust the tolerances correctly when changing bolt carrier group out because it FAILED. Not pretty when that happened from one atop a troop carrier. The gunner might have well been hit by a frag in the face. Of course unless you are talking about the milling machine which does not take in wind drift and even the thermal heat barriers that the bullet trajectory would take when fired for that distance.
The .50 spotter used on the 106mm RR was a different cartridge than the .50 BMG. It worked really well, had the same trajectory as the main gun.
http://cartridgecollectors.org/cmo/cmo08dec.htm
anyone have pictures of the item at issue?
“I just don’t think you can ‘hold’ 64 feet, and get within 2 feet of your target. Perhaps someone could enlighten me”
We had weapons 40 years ago that could make the shot but we did not have the optics to put on those weapons that make the shot possible. Our optics today are incredible for these sniper weapons. You dial in altitude, temperature, humidity, and position. Position is important as it takes in the rotations of the earth relative to the direction of target. The toughest part is estimating wind across the terrain. The optics on these weapons cost much more than the rifle.
I can make a 500 yard shot with my very ordinary optics on a 300 Win Mag and my 7.62-51, both are Remington 700s. With optics costing many thousands I could do that 1 mile shot. I wish I could afford those optics, my wife would kill me if I bought them.
ps
With the advent of computer driven laths and machining the barrels on just an ordinary Remington and most manufactures of barrels are superior to the barrels costing thousands of dollars 50 years ago. A very high quality weapon can be bought today for just a few hundred dollars.
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