I didn't know this about the 50 BMG

“Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear.”

― Edgar Allan Poe

It's TV. They want to make it more exciting while continuing to indoctrinate the public into believing that "guns are bad" and "guns are magic death rays that kill everyone in the area".

A .50 round through the face can leave something resembling what was once a head; so I think blowing limbs off from the bullet passing a foot away is a bit hard to swallow. But it is amazing the M2 is so old and still in use every day. I guess if it's not broke, why fix it?

If that were true, then I'd have a hell of a lot more kills in Call Of Duty...

its a myth and has been confirmed to be BS.

the sonic boom created by the bullet is too little to do any damage at all simply because the bullet doesnt move enough air.
if the myth was true we would see more damage when people are striked by a bullet.

you can fire a 50 bmg past a wineglass really close and it wont break.

You speak the truth! They covered it on mythbusters years ago.

In 1977, ignorant young soldiers repeated this lie. Some things just never die.

Mythbusters attempted this myth with a 50 bmg shot through a corridor of wine glasses, thinking they'd be shattered by the shockwave. They never did. The only time they got them to break was when they got so close the bullet started nicking the glasses.

I've been on the side of a 50 when it went off, not in front of the muzzle butprobably 6 or so inches from the break. Bad timing on my part, round rolled forward on my shooting bench, I leaned forward to grab it as the guy on the bench next to me fired. I will say even with plugs and ear pads I still got a nice ringing.

And while all my limbs are in tact it is not a scenario I'd like to re-create at any point in time.

I would bet that if one went right by your head it would most definitely get your attention. I'd be getting my head down most ricky tick. You don't really "hear" the report if you're close to the barrel went it fires, you feel it in your diaphragm as a sudden pressure increase. It "body slams" you. Thank you Mr. Browning. That'll do.

If that were true, we couldn't use paper targets with them, because the holes they make would be a lot bigger than .500".

I have a friend that was in the 75th. He repeated a similar silly fable that if a 50BMG passed by your head, it'd suck your brains out through your ear. I'm sure these rumors have been around forever and get adopted by everyone when they're green when they hear it from someone that seems like an authority.

It`s BS The MythBusters got their hands on a Armalite AR-50 .50 caliber sniper rifle, one of the most powerful rifles available. They then lined up two rows of glass objects, such as windows, wine glasses, cups, and lightbulbs and fired the rifle so that the bullet would pass between both rows. However, the bullet's sonic boom failed to break any of the glass, no matter how close it passed by, so you think it will do anything if it passes by you by a foot ?

No.

Just no.

Here's one that was proven. A 50BMG will disintigrate in 2' of water. Ironically a 9mm FMJ penetrated deeper.

Anyone happen to know when the Mythbusters episode aired?

rskent said:

Anyone happen to know when the Mythbusters episode aired?

Click to expand...

curving bullets

Something we often forget is that we are knowlegable because we enjoy the hobby, the engineering or the challenge of shooting. Many who carry a firearm for a living consider it just another part of their job and maybe not an exceptionally important part. They take whatever they hear from "authority" as gospel and have no practical reason to question it.

I know my own Grandpa, a veteran of WWII who actually did see heavy fighting, continued to believe the old saw about .45ACP knocking someone down even if it hit them in the toe or finger. Admitted he never saw it happen, but also believed his "source" to be reliable. And this from an otherwise HIGHLY intelligent and educated (thank you, G.I. Bill) man.

Heck, I leanred far more from my Dad and on my own than I ever did from the military.

I own a 50 BMG (Bushmaster BA50) and I can assure you it is BS. I line old bowling pins up about 6 inches apart and pick them off. Unless hit by shrapnel from the other pins, the un-hit pins will not even move..

Bullets go supersonic about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way down the barrel, so any sonic boom is coincident with the rest of the muzzle blast....

As a projectile passes through the air, it can and will disturb the air pressure around it's flight path (like when you are passed by a large truck on the interstate).

Hard to see that kind of air pressure disturbance tearing off limbs.... I could see it popping your ears if it passed close by your head though.

Firing a .50 BMG off a tripod will cause the ground in front of the barrel muzzle to actually rise and fall as the gun fires, caused by the exploding gasses leaving the barrel, and the vacuum formed when the bullet goes downrange.

With this kind of power, of course the bullet passing within a foot will rip off an arm. It's commonly taught in basic training (or was in 1965) that an M16 round hitting a VC in the finger would also rip off the arm, and cause bones to shatter all through the body, just like a hit with the .45 ACP round. Common knowledge. [/sarcasm]

medalguy said:

Firing a .50 BMG off a tripod will cause the ground in front of the barrel muzzle to actually rise and fall as the gun fires, caused by the exploding gasses leaving the barrel, and the vacuum formed when the bullet goes downrange.

Click to expand...

Is 'exploding' the correct word in the above quote or would "rapidly expanding" be a better description of what is happening in the barrel behind the bullet?


Sent by someone using something.

Mythbusters and the Blue Angels combined to see if you could break glass with the sonic boom of a very low-flying aircraft, and they couldn't even shatter wineglasses. It's hard to believe that the bullet would have a more powerful sonic boom.

It's kinda like the story that is reported in BTS for the movie shooter, that the ex-military "expert" they hired said that in reality the shot that took out the foreign prime minister would really have thrown body parts 200 feet...it might have thrown body parts (I've seen videos of people getting hit by the .50, and a direct hit can send limbs flying) but it wouldn't be anywhere near 200 feet.