New Thing #16 - .50 BMG

.50 Big Mother-(insert expletive here) Gun. Okay, not really, it stands for Browning Machine Gun. But, I prefer my version better. Today I shot quite possibly the largest gun I've ever seen in person, a .50 caliber rifle. My brother-in-law's best friend Matt bought this massive gun normally reserved for snipers. It costs around $2500 and weighs upwards of 20 pounds. Oh yeah! I'm not messin' around, I like to play with the big toys. The shells were around 4 to 5 inches in length, almost the length of my entire hand. They cost $3.50 EACH (in comparison, a box of .22 rifle shells costs around $12 for 1000 of them). The $3.50 is what it costs for Matt to reload the ammo himself. Factory shells cost even more.


Here's a picture of the gun with one of Shawn's signs. (If you know Shawn, you know this sign makes perfect sense.)


Here's the infamous shell.


I'm holding $21 in my hands.

I have to admit, I was a bit nervous about shooting it. I've shot big guns before and the recoil tends to nearly knock me on my ass. Fortunately, this time, we had it propped on a stand and I got to sit down. There's no way I could have held that gun and then shot it. I would have totally ended up with a face (or butt) full of dirt. I was at my sister's house, and we propped up the gun in the end of their barn shooting towards a wooden log 53 yards away. Shawn, my bro-in-law, painted the log bright orange with a white circle in the center.


I had to pose with the gun! Look how freakin' awesome I look! ;-)


No, my sister is not an unfriendly person. I told her to give me her meanest face. This was very hard to achieve since both her and I couldn't stop laughing. (This should be their Christmas card, with the heading: "Merry Frikkin' Christmas." lol)


See, we're being big dorks.

Shawn shot one first so I could be prepared and know what to expect. I was really fearing a huge bruise in my shoulder from where the butt of the gun would slam into it. Let's just say that after watching Shawn shoot, I was even more nervous than before. I didn't really know what to expect, except a loud boom and the smell of burnt sulphur in the air.

After Shawn shot it, we got everything set back up for me. We had a bit of finagling to do to get it at the right height and angle for me to shoot it. The gun would either be pointed too high to miss the log completely, or pointed directly at the ground. Because of the angle I was shooting from, I needed a booster seat. This was achieved with a bag of "Weed & Feed" fertilizer from Shawn's garage. Never say country folks aren't resourceful. Next, we had to put a 2x4 with a sand bag on top to help hold the weight of the gun. There was no way I was going to shoot that thing AND support it's weight at the same time! I also added a bit of padding between my shoulder and the gun to help with the impact.


Here I am sighting in my target.

Here's the video. I'm warning you in advance, it'll make ya jump!



Oh. My. Gosh. That was such a rush! Probably not the best idea after having the heart scare, b/c my heart was beating a mile a minute. I kind of had a false start, because after I got settled and got my mind wrapped around what I was about to do, someone went driving down the gravel road past their house. So, I had to wait a few minutes to let them go by. No, before you ask, I was NOT aiming at the road. We just didn't want to scare the pants off whoever was driving by and cause them to have an accident. That gun was hella loud.

Okay, back to the shooting spree. After, the car went by, it was do or die time. I counted to 3, to let my family prepare for pictures/video and then I pulled the trigger. As you saw from the video, everything sitting on the table went flying, as did I. I'm really surprised I didn't fall out of the chair. But, I have to admit, it wasn't as bad as I was fearing. Shawn told me the recoil wasn't that bad, but I figured it was just a seasoned shooter trying to calm down the nervous newbie. But, he was right, it was pretty cool. And my shoulder doesn't hurt at all. I couldn't stop laughing afterwards though, b/c you can't explain it until you experience it. I can't imagine guys shoot that thing for a living. I think my brother-in-law was telling me that a Canadian sniper team holds the record for shooting that thing over a mile and half to hit their target. Wow.

After I went, I convinced my sister that she had to do it. I really didn't think she was going to try it. She looked even more nervous that I was. She did it though! You'll see from the video below that she shot with her left hand. That's because she's left-eye dominant, and she always shot with her left hand growing up. Her reaction was pretty classic as well. I'm going to guess she won't ever be doing that again!



My brother and my dad followed next. I was kind of surprised that neither one of them had shot the gun before. These are two die hard gun fanatics, so it's pretty funny that I shot before them. :) They both liked it, but they weren't nearly as vocal as Steph and I were after our shots.


Here's a shot of all of our "hits". I know we're kind of all over the place, but we did all hit where we were aiming. My cross hairs were lined up right above the white circle. See, NAILED IT!

I'd definitely do it again though. At least then I'd know what to expect! Thanks to Matt for letting me borrow his "baby" and thanks to my family for experiencing this with me! I don't think I had to twist dad & Jason's arms very much, but Steph was a trooper! ;-)