Homemade .50-caliber rifle seized in Southern California, 1 arrested

ktla ^ | 10/13/2026 | John Ross Ferrara

[BenLurkin]

Authorities in southwest Riverside County recently seized a homemade .50-caliber rifle capable of firing Browning Machine Gun rounds, the City of Menifee Police Department said Tuesday.

The gun was fully functional and “lacked several important safety components” usually found in manufactured guns, making the rifle especially hazardous, according to police.

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TOPICS: Local News
KEYWORDS: banglist

[Paladin2]

” In the civilian market, yellow-tipped .50 BMG rounds are frequently Dominican Republic-made armor-piercing (AP) ammo. This specific lot has a nasty reputation for being hot-loaded, having degraded powder, and causing damage to rifles due to dimensions being on the large side. “

[If You Want It Fixed - Fix It]

Let a guy alone. Killing your fetus is legal, but God forbid a man make something!

[If You Want It Fixed - Fix It]

Let a guy alone. Killing your fetus is legal, but God forbid a man make something!

[Big Red Badger]

BMG round in a Soda Straw...
Pass

[Paal Gulli]

Where I live this would be legal. In fact, when I read the headline I thought it might be a D-I-Y .50-cal percussion rifle.

Looks like the breech screws together. Looks like the bottom of the three parts of the bolt group is backwards to the way it installs. I don't think there's a trigger, it has a catch that flips like a pen flare gun, or a zip gun.

A .50 Barrett weighs 30 lbs. That thing probably only weighs five, after you've installed the buttstock. If you shot it, it would knock you down and stop you for falling.

[bigbob]

You got something against 1/2” water pipe?

[Tacrolimus1mg]

That’s what happened to Scott of Kentucky Ballistics on YouTube. He got a hot-load .50 BMG and part of the gun tore his neck open due to rupturing under pressure. He only survived because he plugged the hole with his thumb.

His tagline is, “Stick a thumb in it” along with, “She be kickin’!”

[FreedomPoster]

Yikes! I missed that event.

[KingLudd]

I was expecting to see a picture of a Hawken or some other black powder rifle. Tons of guys hand make or hand finish their 50 cal rifles.

[Paal Gulli]

The design is remarkably similar to the Whitworth rifle, a field piece used by the Yankees in the War for Southern Independence.

The barrel is wrapped with reinforcement around the "firing chamber," and the breech screws shut.

Notice the screw-adjustable peep sight. Since this was a rifled gun, it was capable of better precision of fire than the usual smooth bores, and the peep sight helped exploit that superiority.

This was designed by the same guy who did the Whitworth rifle (small arm) the Confederates used as a sharpshooter's (sniper's) rifle. The field piece and the small arm shared the same polygonal rifling, not unlike a modern Glock pistol.

Calling artillery with a rifled bore "a rifle" was common at the time, such as the much more common Parrott rifle (designed by Robert Parker Parrott).

The D-I-Y .50 BMG has two layers of reinforcement around the firing chamber but considering what the screw-on breech does to rate of fire, I'm not sure why he thought it needed "cooling slits," but those would seem to me to have created points for stress to concentrate on.