50 Bmg Blow up....

[Kocher]

To father behind the camera:
there’s nothing worse than to watch your son get chewed up and spit out right in front of you. Can’t imagine having to watch that.
Hell, I still think about the coffee press that broke, and spirit boiling water my son’s shoulder, like it was yesterday , and that was 12 years ago.

 

[stefan73]

The Barrett used to come with a SLAP barrel back in the day.

 

[1500varmint]

...did repeated firing stretch the cap? Barrel chamber area expands a tiny bit on firing... and that can, over time, potentially expand the cap beyond its elastic limit enough that it can loosen up.

In the Blowed up picture, the threads do not look healthy. They look worn and rounded. Just from firing that one round? Or was this thing high-mileage and the threads were tired.

Then (again) a SLAP round in a weak, tired, under-designed .50? That it has not happened before is remarkable.

This is a great point IMO.

The Kentucky Ballistics guy probably puts more rounds through his Serbu in a week than the average owner would put through one in a lifetime. On top of that he specifically looks for the hottest/most impactful rounds he can find, so he not using standard pressure/velocity rounds.

Hell, he may put more rounds through it than the factory has through theirs...

 

[stefan73]

.50 Ammo collecting is kind of a neat past-time. There is a lot of cool stuff designed for the .50.

But much of it is a big no-no when it comes to firing from guns not specifically designed for them. An M2HB will handle about anything. Though there are some cartridges made for aircraft... or Gatling Guns... Or other 'stuff' that is a no-no. For example, 'special' rounds were developed (or handloaded by SF guys) during the VN war that were full of Bullseye pistol powder. Those were left in ammo cache's or left where they would get picked up and used by the enemy. Result... you destroyed a weapon... injured a VC... and now 'all' the ammo in a certain AO was suspect. "If I pull my trigger, will I kill that GI... or blow my face off." That is psychological warfare at its best. Bet some of those came home in footlockers? Like I said... be aware of what you have.

All firearms are a system. And ammo is a key part of it. Just like not putting a .38 Super in your 1902 Colt .38 ACP... that gets expensive and painful when it blows your pistol apart. Yet the rounds are physically identical.

Know what you are doing before just putting a cartridge in a gun! Most here do. But there is arcane stuff that one needs to be aware of.

Cheers,

Sirhr

That ammo that they hot-rodded was enemy ammo if I am correct.

Collecting is some fun.

 

[stefan73]

I believe the shooter stated that he used a heavy barrel with a machine gun chamber was sent to him specifically for shooting the SLAP round.

I didn't hear that either. There was a great site that used to be very active and full of a lot of information about .50 BMG shooting. It is still around but not really active. Before playing with stuff that can run 245grns of H50 or Vhit 20n29 in a load maybe people should learn about the system they are playing with, just a thought

 

[roostercogburn98]

I collected 50 bmg once

 

[stefan73]

I collected 50 bmg once
View attachment 7615397

I still do! Lots of fun to shoot.

 

[Kocher]

Y’all do realize it’s very easy to play Monday morning quarterback. He always throws perfect passes..

I think everybody should watch a video like this when you first start shooting no matter what caliber, it’s a good reminder of what can happen when using any type of gun, machinery etc. Shit happens, And when it does, look out, well, (Insert here)

what do you think is this about the right size for 50 BMG I’ll just cut it off and put a cap on it?

 

[roostercogburn98]

I still do! Lots of fun to shoot.

Sold my Barrett few months ago, just the residuals laying around the gun room now

 

[stefan73]

The 647grn Barnes are for squirrel hunting

 

[stefan73]

 

[stefan73]

Removing the primer crimp on these things sucks BTW.
So, if you didn't know what you were doing you wouldn't know that you have to sub load the Spotter Tracer projectiles (tandem tracer projectiles used for recoilless rifle training as a submunition) or it will burst in your barrel!! Blue tips did the same thing.

 

[Kocher]

user should never pay the price for a poor design in event of a failure.
Builder says to p51 piolt: “going to shoot at some Germans today”?
Pilot says: “not until you unload all 6 gun bays”

You guys are a wealth of knowledge when it comes to 50 BMG!...
Good stuff

 

[tymurrey]

I currently own one of the cheaper 50’s. It’s a ferret 50 that I only have about 100 rounds through. Didn’t realize how impractical it was where I’m at in North Dakota, no good areas to really stretch its legs and every time someone wants to shoot it you have to worry about them sending a bullet over the berm to who knows where. I think the ferret design isn’t bad, I haven’t read on any problems with them really. I was worried about the obd that other brands have had so I primed a brass and tried everything I could to get it to fire with out the bolt fully closed and couldn’t do it. Needless to say it’s a safe queen now.

 

[stefan73]

I currently own one of the cheaper 50’s. It’s a ferret 50 that I only have about 100 rounds through. Didn’t realize how impractical it was where I’m at in North Dakota, no good areas to really stretch its legs and every time someone wants to shoot it you have to worry about them sending a bullet over the berm to who knows where. I think the ferret design isn’t bad, I haven’t read on any problems with them really. I was worried about the obd that other brands have had so I primed a brass and tried everything I could to get it to fire with out the bolt fully closed and couldn’t do it. Needless to say it’s a safe queen now.

I have a Serbu BFG-50 that I have probably put 1K rounds through. It is a fun shooter, and I still shoot it on occasion. I have a lot of fun shooting spotter tracer but I only deploy those when everything is wet since I don't want to start a fire.

 

[...]

user should never pay the price for a poor design in event of a failure.

by the way you guys are a wealth of knowledge when it comes to 50 BMG!

Hell, I'm sure we all remember this poor fuck

Another reason not to buy those cheap ass guns from turkey...

3rd world prices get you 3rd world engineering

The biggest cost driver of most items is engineering.....overhead, cost of manufacturing, and marketing are all pretty small comparably......so if an item is 1/2 the cost.....ask yourself where they cut those corners

 

[Kocher]

Good news for all those that have a 50 BMG there’s plenty of primers and powder and even cases and you guys are good to go?

can you reuse those bullets that were pulled?
I don’t think it would cause any failures maybe just some accuracy

 

[stefan73]

Good news for all those that have a 50 BMG there’s plenty of primers and powder and even cases and you guys are good to go?

can you reuse those bullets that were pulled?
I don’t think it would cause any failures maybe just some accuracy

You need to resize the pulled bullets, but yes, you can reuse pulled bullets.

 

[Kocher]

Hell, I'm sure we all remember this poor fuckView attachment 7615421
Another reason not to buy those cheap ass guns from turkey...

3rd world prices get your 3rd world engineering

The biggest cost driver of most items is engineering.....overhead, cost of manufacturing, and marketing are all pretty small comparably......so if an item is 1/2 the cost.....ask yourself where they cut those corners

Holy hell... I never saw that one
do you have a link to the story?

 

[Kocher]

I got to say it makes me rethink a lot of things about weapon safety, particularly about the design, in the event of a failure and what happens to the guy behind the failed tool when it does.

 

[...]

Holy hell... I never saw that one
do you have a link to the story?

It was making the rounds on the forums, I couldn't find an official news story but I did find a reddit link for what it's worth

 

[Kocher]

When I started shooting a 460s&w last year...
When using the lead bullets the results were wildly off specially when comparing Hodgkin versus other manuals and varied by as much as five grains. The max charge in one manual was not even the starting charge for the other! To damn hot. the primers were beyond squashed. If I was using full jackets it would not have been as high pressure but in this case it made a big difference.

 

[Kocher]

Funny to see that with that Turkish gun and blow up like that even some of the cheap guns that I’ve seen on YouTube the guy shoves all kinds of shit in the barrel even glued it in there with some JB Weld and the gun never blew up.. It was one of the cheapest semi autos out there I forgot the name but I believe it was still US made?

 

[stefan73]

When I started shooting a 460s&w last year...
When using the lead bullets the results were wildly off specially when comparing Hodgkin versus other manuals and varied by as much as five grains. The max charge in one manual was not even the starting charge for the other! To damn hot. the primers were beyond squashed. If I was using full jackets it would not have been as high pressure but in this case it made a big difference.

I like to cross check my load data.

 

[Texasflyer]

 

[Kocher]

Thank you for the backstory.. any information like that is good information

 

[Kocher]

I like to cross check my load dat

Now you tell me.. lol
Lucky, it was not to the point of blowing up but either way is something that made me change the way I load ammo.

 

[Kocher]

I dislike utube.

This looks nice...
Be fun to have something like that in a less pricier load. 338 or other...
Could something like that trickle down into the smaller caliber’s?

 

[kc7pwx]

Glad I saw this thread.
I always thought it would be fun to fire a SLAP round.
Now I would never fire a SLAP round in my gun, Ferret 50.
I agree that the Serbu 50 design is very bad and shouldn't be out there.
I know that there are Serbu's with thousands of rounds through them with no problems but the design flaws in that gun are to great to ignore imho.

 

[frank320]

Mark Serbu with the "designer" of the Serbu screw cap 50 cal - Royal Nonesuch. Have to watch to believe...
If you don't have time, skip to the 14:50 mark.... OMG - live loaded 50 cal round, he had no idea and pulled the trigger!!!


Unreal... can't make this shit up, as they say.

 

[THEIS]

Hi,

HOLY SHIT...it just keeps getting dumber and dumber....................

Sincerely,
Theis

 

[Steel+Killer]

Mark Serbu with the "designer" of the Serbu screw cap 50 cal - Royal Nonesuch. Have to watch to believe...
If you don't have time, skip to the 14:50 mark.... OMG - live loaded 50 cal round, he had no idea and pulled the trigger!!!


Unreal... can't make this shit up, as they say.

Wow did they smoke a joint before they started this video?

Is this still available?

 

[stefan73]

Glad I saw this thread.
I always thought it would be fun to fire a SLAP round.
Now I would never fire a SLAP round in my gun, Ferret 50.
I agree that the Serbu 50 design is very bad and shouldn't be out there.
I know that there are Serbu's with thousands of rounds through them with no problems but the design flaws in that gun are to great to ignore imho.

There are different model/designs made by Serbu, just so people know.

 

[Im2bent]

Hell, I'm sure we all remember this poor fuckView attachment 7615421
Another reason not to buy those cheap ass guns from turkey...

3rd world prices get you 3rd world engineering

The biggest cost driver of most items is engineering.....overhead, cost of manufacturing, and marketing are all pretty small comparably......so if an item is 1/2 the cost.....ask yourself where they cut those corners

Ha.... they redacted the the name on the pistol???

 

[Texasflyer]

Wow did they smoke a joint before they started this video?

Is this still available?

A few seconds after he talks about shooting the gun in his shop. He talks about his "weed head" welder and me thinks his impression is a bit too spot on.

 

[Im2bent]

Mark Serbu with the "designer" of the Serbu screw cap 50 cal - Royal Nonesuch. Have to watch to believe...
If you don't have time, skip to the 14:50 mark.... OMG - live loaded 50 cal round, he had no idea and pulled the trigger!!!


Unreal... can't make this shit up, as they say.

What a jack off. It went off hurrrr it was funny hurrr durrrr .

 

[...]

Mark Serbu with the "designer" of the Serbu screw cap 50 cal - Royal Nonesuch. Have to watch to believe...
If you don't have time, skip to the 14:50 mark.... OMG - live loaded 50 cal round, he had no idea and pulled the trigger!!!


Unreal... can't make this shit up, as they say.

...Eugene Stoner he is not...

Fuck, talking about the "difficulty" designing interrupted threads...locking lugs......they are essentially locking lugs......it's not rocket surgery.

I honestly don't believe they did ANY analytical design or failure analysis from the sounds of it.....just fucking cobbled together something that was "good enough"......

How this man has not killed anyone is a miracle

 

[Texasflyer]

Step 1. Go to home depot for pipe and parts.
Step 2. Grab a local burnout from the park and call him a welder.
Step 3. Get baked
Step 4.
Step 5. Wake up late and throw some bullshit together.
Step 6. Profit.

 

[Baron23]

Mark Serbu with the "designer" of the Serbu screw cap 50 cal - Royal Nonesuch. Have to watch to believe...
If you don't have time, skip to the 14:50 mark.... OMG - live loaded 50 cal round, he had no idea and pulled the trigger!!!


Unreal... can't make this shit up, as they say.

And somebody insures this guy for product liability???? Wow.

 

[THEIS]

And somebody insures this guy for product liability???? Wow.

Hi,

IF he has product liability then he is probably the reason my premiums just went up. Literally went up right under 2 weeks ago!!

Sincerely,
Theis

 

[Steel+Killer]

I can't believe the owner of a firearm manufacturing company(I use that term very loosely....LOL) would discuss in such a carefree way a ND with a 50 cal inside a building....

 

[brianf]

This whole thread is why the custom rifle industry is a joke (not anyone posting, morons on video)

No testing

No engineering

Safety margin

care free handling of firearms in general

Using ammunition that is from a unknown origin

Does anyone believe it took 85k to rip it apart...yet the information was given by the mfg who hasn’t tested anything

does anyone believe that it was a “hot” round

Look at a AR-50 bolt compared to a few threadsand tell me which ones you would shoot a 50bmg from. That round is orders of magnitude more powerful/dangerous that an long action magnum.

just a joke from every direction.

while I feel bad for the guy in the video hopefully all of the cheap 50 guys will toss those pieces of crap and put those companies out of business. It gives the rifle industry a bad name.

hurts the brain

 

[Hairball]

The 647grn Barnes are for squirrel hunting

If they get too big, you could always move up to the 800s.

 

[sirhrmechanic]

This whole thread is why the custom rifle industry is a joke (not anyone posting, morons on video)

No testing

No engineering

Safety margin

care free handling of firearms in general

Using ammunition that is from a unknown origin

Does anyone believe it took 85k to rip it apart...yet the information was given by the mfg who hasn’t tested anything

does anyone believe that it was a “hot” round

Look at a AR-50 bolt compared to a few threadsand tell me which ones you would shoot a 50bmg from. That round is orders of magnitude more powerful/dangerous that an long action magnum.

just a joke from every direction.

while I feel bad for the guy in the video hopefully all of the cheap 50 guys will toss those pieces of crap and put those companies out of business. It gives the rifle industry a bad name.

hurts the brain

There are some superlative builders. There are superlative gunsmiths. There are superlative engineers. Many of them, in fact, hang out here.

Then there are the folks with a Chinese Lathe and a "Gunsmith" sign over the door, and they claim to be a custom rifle builder, when really they are 'more or less' able to assemble an AR that goes bang mostly.

Don't lump everyone together. But for every 500 "Custom Rifle Builders" who say "I can builds you a Riffle..." There are about 5 who can.

Goes all the way back to the 19th century. About 1 percent of gunsmiths were masters. And their guns are in books on Kentucky Rifles or Hawkens. And the other 99 percent built shooting sticks that are now lamps at best. Recycled into toasters at worst.

But there are very, very talented builders and rifle-smiths out there. And as I mentioned, we are privileged here on SH to have more than our fair share of them. Not only lurking, but here learning, sharing, contributing and (most importantly).... listening.

Cheers,

Sirhr

 

[brianf]

There are some superlative builders. There are superlative gunsmiths. There are superlative engineers. Many of them, in fact, hang out here.

Then there are the folks with a Chinese Lathe and a "Gunsmith" sign over the door, and they claim to be a custom rifle builder, when really they are 'more or less' able to assemble an AR that goes bang mostly.

Don't lump everyone together. But for every 500 "Custom Rifle Builders" who say "I can builds you a Riffle..." There are about 5 who can.

Goes all the way back to the 19th century. About 1 percent of gunsmiths were masters. And their guns are in books on Kentucky Rifles or Hawkens. And the other 99 percent built shooting sticks that are now lamps at best. Recycled into toasters at worst.

But there are very, very talented builders and rifle-smiths out there. And as I mentioned, we are privileged here on SH to have more than our fair share of them. Not only lurking, but here learning, sharing, contributing and (most importantly).... listening.

Cheers,

Sirhr

1000% on all fronts

Problem there isn’t any delineation until we have someone post something.

unti then the pipe fitters take customers hard earned money.

 

[kc7pwx]

There are different model/designs made by Serbu, just so people know.

Based on the fact that he is willing to sell the Serbu 50 I would not trust any gun that he puts out.

 

[LeftyJason]

Saw these videos come out today.


Watching this one now.

 

[...]

simple redesign:

1. beef up that receiver to fully support that rear cap....frankly theres absolutely no reason not to do this.
2. add a failure point to the front take down pin, in the event the rear cap blows, the pressure will find a weak spot (hopefully that front pin) and blow the barrel forward away from the shooter......hell, leave the lower receiver as is and make the take down pin a shear pin....

proof loads for a .50bmg from what i can find are 65,000 psi.......i would use that as my standard loading from a design standpoint, then use a factor of safety of 3.5 or so for actual design.....especially for a single shot where you dont really have to worry about an operating system....you can get away with slightly more weight and "excessive strength" from your components.

 

[Long_Action]

They had a video where they did the same with 50bmg, but I can't find it anymore. 338 has a lot higher chamber pressure....

 

[KZP]

View attachment 7615619

1. beef up that receiver to fully support that rear cap....frankly theres absolutely no reason not to do this.
2. add a failure point to the front take down pin, in the event the rear cap blows, the pressure will find a weak spot (hopefully that front pin) and blow the barrel forward away from the shooter.

proof loads for a .50bmg from what i can find are 65,000 psi.......i would use that as my standard loading from a design standpoint, then use a factor of safety of 3.5 or so for actual design.....especially for a single shot where you dont really have to worry about an operating system....you can get away with slightly more weight and "excessive strength" from your components.

Pretty sure that cutout they did is for cocking the hammer.

The cap flying off isn't the only issue. Watch how the lower receiver & rear stock tube snapped, which destroyed part of his left hand. It's barrel connection to the receiver is inadequate in dealing with failure pressures.

After seeing this thing fail, I conclude it is terrible design throughout because there is no secondary shielding surrounding the parts that can fail. Paired with the weak receiver connection, nothing exists to contain or slow down the parts that would quickly head towards the shooter. Even if the rear cap area was reinforced, it's still going to send sections at high velocity directly into the wielder.