Goodness what a grueling and fun article series this has been. I sincerely hope everyone has enjoyed my exploits and learned a thing or two. I learned a few things along the way I would like to share from my perspective. I have always liked .50 BMG rifles and obviously the big cartridge itself, but I had always relegated it to circus status in my personal battery. My original .50 BMG was one of the excellent Armalite AR50s that was built like a tank and shot exceptionally well. I liked it, but over the years I rarely took it out of the stable as the years rolled by.
I was super busy pretty much all of my life and not that it has changed all that much, LOL as I am still super busy with multiple businesses that I run and a couple of new ventures I will be announcing to you all in very short order… anyway, shooting and learning about something like a .50 BMG is just not something you can do upon occasion or once in a while. The reason that the .50 BMG is still going strong even after 100 years is that it does things that you simply cannot do with anything else loaded with gunpowder.
This is a cartridge and rifle combination that you can't think that you know. You have to put the time in the old-fashioned way shooting your rifle in multiple positions, with multiple loadings in all sorts of conditions so that at the end of the day, you won't have to think that you know it, you actually will know it.
This article series took me an entire month to complete while I conducted my research, visited our fine ER twice, LOL, and shot up an entire AA degree worth of ammunition in all of our field testing. I shot group after group with multiple different factory and handloaded ammunition, I blew shit up and I made four, 1st round hits beyond the 1-mile threshold at varying distances from 1,769 yards out to 2,087 yards in a row in difficult wind conditions with no assistance from wind meters or ballistic calculators. You simply cannot do that with any rifle if you never move beyond a casual or circus relationship with your rifle like I had once upon a time with my Armalite AR-50.
For those of you wanting to do the math on my AA degree of .50 BMG ammunition shooting that I tortured myself with, Sam and I fired more than 700 rounds of .50 BMG ammo during this article series in all 51 flavors! I think… LOL I have all sorts of long-distance sniper rifles in pretty much every caliber you can think of in varying precision rifle platforms and I can tell you that I ignored .50 BMG for too much of my life based on my real world testing as it is simply too effective to ignore.
In comparing my new Cadex Tremor .50 BMG to my equally expensive Cadex Shadow 40 in .375 CheyTac, it ended up that the .50 Tremor does more things well than does the .375. The .375 does out fly .50 BMG at extreme distances but not by as much as you might think looking at ballistic program data. I know my Cadex Shadow in .375 CheyTac very well and on the same day, in the same conditions that I was shooting my ranges' maximum extreme distance 22” x 27” silhouette targets with my .50 BMG. I was only able to manage 3 out of 4 first round hits at the same set of targets with my .375 CheyTac that I went 4 for 4 on with my .50 BMG.
Specialty ammunition advantage is clearly in favor of .50 BMG as is being more affordable to shoot than my CheyTac… I agree that sounds completely ludicrous as I look at my visa statement on what this article series has cost me, LOL, but it would have cost me about 25 percent more had I done this month-long testing with my .375. Thank God I wasn't that stupid!
For those of you who have and love .375 CheyTac, please don't think I am bashing your cartridge as I absolutely love the CheyTac too as it has been my go to extreme distance round for a long long time… I was simply surprised at how good the .50 BMG really is at the end of the day if you give it a chance like I finally chose to do.
50 BMG is like our President Trump was and is. Unapologetic, in your face and always ready willing and able to just kick everyone's a**.
My final battery of tests involved shooting running targets and 1-mile plus night shooting through one of my PVS-27 night scopes. Which coincidentally is the ONLY night vision scope on planet earth that has a fighting chance to still be working after you shoot it on your .50 BMG rifle, LOL. We effectively killed a couple of inferior units, a Deidal 740 and a Deidal 760 dedicated NVD, meaning not a clip on night vision device, a stand alone unit complete with its own aiming reticles. At least, they had aiming reticles for a little awhile anyway and no I am not going to laugh at that one.
After I said my prayers, I mounted my unbelievably expensive AN/PVS-27 pinnacle tube night vision clip on in front of my Leupold 7-35 MK 5 HD and we began our night vision portion of this review. We had roughly half moon which was oddly shining in the wrong direction to be of much help that night and I was only able to dial to around 12 x with all the weird light scintillation that was occurring.
The wind was pretty much a non-factor at around 3-5 mph from 9 o'clock. Since we had blown up two NVDs already, we skipped the foreplay and went right to 1,769 yards, or 1 mile plus 9 yards. I am proud to state that I went 10 for 10 at more than a mile with my Cadex .50 BMG. I chose not to shoot my .375 Cadex head to head as I am pretty sure I would have been able to also go 10 for 10 at the same distance in the mild wind, so I saved myself the ammo expense since I wasn't going to be able to beat my previous .50 BMG score.
The fire and brimstone out of a .50 BMG muzzle break after dark is truly something to behold and I was very glad my PVS-27 is auto-gated to prevent tube damage from the near nuclear looking blast each time I pulled the trigger, LOL!
The big benefit of shooting at night is that you are under the cover of darkness in case you are having to engage hostile combatants or zombies, but shooting the big .50 at night doesn't really provide you much concealment after you pull the trigger. Of course, the upside to opening up with a big .50 is that it is a game changing event much like opening up with full auto is. I jokingly tell my gun club members that my Cadex Tremor .50 BMG is a duck gun… You start shooting it and everyone starts ducking, LOL!
Moving Target Leads
Understanding what your potential target is doing, or could start doing is vital to the success of being able to learn how to lead your moving target in order to score a hit. Distance and time of flight also come into play as the further you are way from your moving target, the more your lead time or hold off is going to increase.
At this point in my testing, I was going broke and working on my own cardboard sign so I could go panhandle on every street corner in town like our fleet of cardboard rangers do so I opted to only shoot moving targets at 2 distances. 200 and 400 yards. Our moving targets are AR500 ¾ inch horizontal runners that cover a distance of approximately 22 yards in each direction, for and aft. They are hung by a 2x4 with a hanging mechanism that press fits into a trolley on wheels pulled by cables spun by an electric motor with battery backup. No I can't tell you the finer workings of this contraption as I am management. I simply paid for it all, LOL!
An average man will walk around 4 fps which translates into 2.7 mph, and once you take a shot at him if you miss you can expect him to up his pace to around 9 fps or a little more than 6 mph. If you truly motivate said individual, he can likely get to around 12-14 fps or pushing 10 mph. Run Forest Run!
At 200 yards, simply tracking your target in your swing and using proper follow thru swing as you press the trigger will get you a hit every single time. Although shooting a .50 BMG on a reactive target at this distance is guaranteed to cease all your target's reactions as my first hit blew our silhouette completely off the trolley and knocked it completely off its tracks in the process, whew! Can you say 12,000 plus pounds of impact energy?
Once your highly motivated targets start running for cover at this distance you are going to have to give them approximately a 3 MOA lead or about a 1 MIL lead. We didn't get to finish at 400 yards since I temporarily disabled our running targets but at the sane 2.7 mph pace a 2 MOA lead should get the job done. Heading to run for your life mode at 400 yards, you will likely have to use a 4 or 5 MOA lead in your tracking swing to get your hit.
With that final bit, I have concluded my .50 BMG series of articles and for those travelers amongst you who wish to travel Like a ~BAT~ out of H**L, I highly recommend .50 BMG.