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The .50 Browning Machine Gun
(12.7x99mm NATO) or .50 BMG is a cartridge developed for
the Browning .50 Caliber machine gun in the late 1910s.
Entering service officially in 1921, the round is based
on a greatly scaled-up .30-06 cartridge. The cartridge
itself has been made in many variants: multiple
generations of regular ball, tracer, armor piercing,
incendiary, and saboted sub-caliber rounds.
The .50 BMG cartridge is also used in long-range target
and sniper rifles, as well as other .50 caliber machine
guns. The use in single-shot and semi-automatic rifles
has resulted in many specialized match-grade rounds not
used in .50 caliber machine guns. A McMillan TAC-50 .50
BMG sniper rifle was used by Canadian Corporal Rob
Furlong to bring off the longest-range confirmed sniper
kill in history, at a range of 2,430 meters (2,657
yards/7,972 feet/1.509 miles) during the 2002 campaign
in Afghanistan.
A common method for understanding the actual power of a
cartridge is by comparing muzzle energies. The
Springfield .30-06 can produce muzzle energies between
2000-3000 foot pounds of energy. A .50 BMG round can
produce between 10,000-13,000 foot pounds or more,
depending on its powder and bullet type, as well as the
rifle it was fired from. Due to the high ballistic
coefficient of the bullet, the .50 BMG's trajectory also
suffers less "drift" from cross-winds than smaller and
lighter calibers, making the .50 BMG a good choice for
high powered sniper rifles.
For more .50 BMG information, visit
50
Caliber Vault. |
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