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50 Bmg Blow up....

IMHO, the rifle's "design" (use the term loosely) needs a pressure release at ~90* (orthogonal) to the bore, not 180* (reverse) of the bore...After all the reverse vector of the muzzle is the shooter's eyebox o_O

And yes in genreal this thing fails like a grenade (detonates), not some kind of controlled/redirected energy path way with shielding/reinforcement.

That breech cap shearing off opposite the muzzle should never be the failure mode, since its flying right back into shooters face.
 
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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....



I used to have one of his .50 cal rifles (and a .408) and it doesn't surprise me at all.
His rifles were massively overbuilt for the cartridges they fired.
Heavy as all get out. He was obsessed with making sure the guns would never blow up.

That's also the same reason I'm a huge fan of the Hoplite Rifles @THEIS is making as Theis has that same idea, to make sure your gun never blows up on you.
 
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Bill was a nice guy. Had the pleasure of talking rifles with him a few times at his shop in Arizona. As noted above, they are heavy. Mine unloaded is 40 pounds.

BA39F3EE-6610-4CA1-B264-CE2A872C533D.jpeg
 
The designer was correct about one thing ,this would blow your face off if it failed. Take that video into court and you won your case.
Aren't most guns tested by making it fail to see how it holds up , skipping that step would be quicker to get the product into production. If you pay for liability insurance why not use it ......
 
Agree and concur within above....

Really? Shooting off a plastic folding table...
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The designer was correct about one thing ,this would blow your face off if it failed. Take that video into court and you won your case.
Aren't most guns tested by making it fail to see how it holds up , skipping that step would be quicker to get the product into production. If you pay for liability insurance why not use it ......
Lol..absolutely not

you can make a action out of tin foil, never fire it, sell it snd be 100% legal

now if it blows up you have issues etc but you can sell it

that’s why I posted it’s a joke

you don’t have to run software, don’t have to send it out to be tested etc

in Europe especially England you have to fire proof loads and get the stamp before it can go for sale..not here

do you know how many smiths build a rifle and don’t even fire it before they ship it you...more than you want to know
 
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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...
Which leads me to wonder if the gun was compromised from the use/abuse.
 
...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
I don't know about that.... someone there is definitely a stoner........
 
I didn't know Dumb and Dumber 3 is already out. This guy should be wearing clown shoes. Were they just blasting 50 cal rounds across the building?
 
I didn't know Dumb and Dumber 3 is already out. This guy should be wearing clown shoes. Were they just blasting 50 cal rounds across the building?

Sort of. They have a portable bullet trap setup against one of the walls.
 
I don't think Ronnie Barrett is that cavalier about designing his rifles ....
 
Ok so I've watched this. No I don't have a 50. Never shot a 50. Dont want to shoot a 50.
I do however have a modicum of mechanical knowledge of firearms.
My first impression as I'm watching the disaster unfold, my first thought:
"Is that? No it couldn't be. Is that really a redesigned H&R Topper 58 design, for a 50 fucking BMG?"

So I watch the Tom Servo video....and if you get the reference I just made, you can imagine my golden commentary.
"Uh yeah sure, I ripped off the pin design from the Sturmgewehr."
Oh yeah, I bet buddy. I think Harrington and Richardson would like a word with you as well.

Yeah I get it, it was a slap round. Notwithstanding, that rifle was a piece of shit trauma chopper ride in the making, the day it was designed.
 
Ok so I've watched this. No I don't have a 50. Never shot a 50. Dont want to shoot a 50.
I do however have a modicum of mechanical knowledge of firearms.
My first impression as I'm watching the disaster unfold, my first thought:
"Is that? No it couldn't be. Is that really a redesigned H&R Topper 58 design, for a 50 fucking BMG?"

So I watch the Tom Servo video....and if you get the reference I just made, you can imagine my golden commentary.
"Uh yeah sure, I ripped off the pin design from the Sturmgewehr."
Oh yeah, I bet buddy. I think Harrington and Richardson would like a word with you as well.

Yeah I get it, it was a slap round. Notwithstanding, that rifle was a piece of shit trauma chopper ride in the making, the day it was designed.
My only quibble is that the H&R Topper is a super rugged, simple and proven design. A Topper will handle damn near any caliber with the right barrel. Action is strong as hell. Solid rear face, solid chamber. Oh and you don’t need to screw the back on the barrel like it’s a pickle jar after every shot...

The video gun looks like something from the Khyber Pass and that is probably insulting the folks in Darra.

The old LAPD zip gun museum/collection has better engineering. And those things were made from car antennas, clothes pins and rubber bands. Really.

An H&R break gun is a fine inexpensive little gun. The Serbu is designed with a pipe bomb as its inspiration! Not a topper!! Mission accomplished.

Sirhr
 
My only quibble is that the H&R Topper is a super rugged, simple and proven design. A Topper will handle damn near any caliber with the right barrel. Action is strong as hell. Solid rear face, solid chamber. Oh and you don’t need to screw the back on the barrel like it’s a pickle jar after every shot...

The video gun looks like something from the Khyber Pass and that is probably insulting the folks in Darra.

The old LAPD zip gun museum/collection has better engineering. And those things were made from car antennas, clothes pins and rubber bands. Really.

An H&R break gun is a fine inexpensive little gun. The Serbu is designed with a pipe bomb as its inspiration! Not a topper!! Mission accomplished.

Sirhr

Dude. Ive got a Couple toppers. One ive had since I was 9. Ive bought sold and traded a lot of guns. But those stay.

They took the "meat" out of the receiver so to speak. I didn't say he didn't completely botch the redesign.
 
I just don’t see how a screw cap 50 bmg is ever going to handle the stresses long term with enough margin. Fundamentally, every shot, the chamber threads and the screw cap is undergoing huge stresses at different rates, expanding and contracting at different rates. This also mean the threads are expanding and contracting at different rates. At some point, something is going to give. For small caliber, maybe...

Thanks but no thanks. I will stick to the tried and tested bolt lugs locking mechanisms....
 
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My only quibble is that the H&R Topper is a super rugged, simple and proven design. A Topper will handle damn near any caliber with the right barrel. Action is strong as hell. Solid rear face, solid chamber. Oh and you don’t need to screw the back on the barrel like it’s a pickle jar after every shot...

The video gun looks like something from the Khyber Pass and that is probably insulting the folks in Darra.

The old LAPD zip gun museum/collection has better engineering. And those things were made from car antennas, clothes pins and rubber bands. Really.

An H&R break gun is a fine inexpensive little gun. The Serbu is designed with a pipe bomb as its inspiration! Not a topper!! Mission accomplished.

Sirhr
Ive never owned an h&r, but my brother has a 20 guage pump from them. It is built like a tank. It doesnt feel like quality, but it also doesnt feel like junk. One of those guns i didnt want to like but ended up winning me over despite my prejudices.
 
My only quibble is that the H&R Topper is a super rugged, simple and proven design. A Topper will handle damn near any caliber with the right barrel. Action is strong as hell. Solid rear face, solid chamber. Oh and you don’t need to screw the back on the barrel like it’s a pickle jar after every shot...

The video gun looks like something from the Khyber Pass and that is probably insulting the folks in Darra.

The old LAPD zip gun museum/collection has better engineering. And those things were made from car antennas, clothes pins and rubber bands. Really.

An H&R break gun is a fine inexpensive little gun. The Serbu is designed with a pipe bomb as its inspiration! Not a topper!! Mission accomplished.

Sirhr

I can say that I have personally seen significantly better firearms that were actually made in the Khyber pass. Their technology has come a long way. Some of the stuff the taliban buys there is actually surprisingly well made.
 
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Heck of a video and situation. Only thing I'm going to add, is with regards to the safety glasses.

Too often, too many others think that those glasses are 'uncool' and 'clash with their loafers' or whatever. It was back in the early 90's when I had a rifle explode on me (yet another near-impossibility, though I didn't know that there was an ammo-recall going on at the time) and if it weren't for MY safety glasses I was wearing at the time, I too would have been blind. But in both eyes.

So yeah, ALL/EVERYONE truly should wear safety glasses whenever shooting.

(putting away my soap-box now)
Eye pro definitely came in handy for me this last year. I was confirming zero on my MK18 before doing some CQB training at work (using M855A1) By chance I was also wearing my helmet due to my peltors being attached to it. Long story short, it blew up on me, wish I could find the pics. The charging handle hit my helmet and the forward assist hit the guy next to me. The rifles were recently gauged so it should have been fine, however this is the second rifle on my team that blew up this year using the same ammo. The other guys MK18 blew up as he was entering the room, I watched it from the catwalk. After some research those things are loaded pretty hot. We have also had a very large number of bolts getting there lugs sheared off since we switched from green tip to the A1's.

I won't be shooting that out of my personal guns that's for sure
 
You can get prescription safety glasses (my dad uses them)
Worth finding an optician who will tweak your prescription for the intended use (dad was in their with a handgun to get the focus right so he could actually see the sights.)

My next pair are coming from these guys.
 
My only quibble is that the H&R Topper is a super rugged, simple and proven design. A Topper will handle damn near any caliber with the right barrel. Action is strong as hell. Solid rear face, solid chamber. Oh and you don’t need to screw the back on the barrel like it’s a pickle jar after every shot...

The video gun looks like something from the Khyber Pass and that is probably insulting the folks in Darra.

The old LAPD zip gun museum/collection has better engineering. And those things were made from car antennas, clothes pins and rubber bands. Really.

An H&R break gun is a fine inexpensive little gun. The Serbu is designed with a pipe bomb as its inspiration! Not a topper!! Mission accomplished.

Sirhr
When my dad had to take me to work, I used to love going through his zip gun collection. He had several briefcases full of all kinds of weird shit he confiscated from folks. Some of em were worth replicating.
 
Reminds me of the youtuber at the range alone and shoots himself in the leg. He posts the before and after video, "luckily, my training kicked in and I called my parents."
 
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Just lighting them off in the warehouse? That is enough for me to realize the level of intelligence at play.
 
If I judge actual engineering degrees by some of the stuff I work on that has been designed by an engineer, they don’t seem to be worth much either, lol.
This^^^

I'm just an electrician and I deal with shit that is supposedly designed by a PE, and is an absolute clusterfuck out of the box. Instructions for a light fixture need only be one page... And no more complicated than Tab A, Slot B.

But no, we have fixtures that require multitudes of complicated steps and apparatus... And they're assembled and boxed by children in China.

Fucking shit show.
 
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Just because you are an engineer, doesn't mean you are a good engineer. Just because you are a shooter, doesn't mean you are a good shooter. This sort of thing applies across the board. Just because you are a cop doesn't mean you are a good cop or necessarily even understand the law. Just because you were a solider doesn't mean you were a good soldier.

If you judge the whole population based on limited poor examples, then you can classify any population as not being worth much.
 

My next pair are coming from these guys.
I have a pair of XL-1 glasses from Wiley X. I am one of those afflicted with fat head disorder. :) I find that I wear my Gatorz most of the time as the XL-1 glasses are a bit too narrow for me. Almost feels like wearing swimming goggles
 
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My only quibble is that the H&R Topper is a super rugged, simple and proven design. A Topper will handle damn near any caliber with the right barrel. Action is strong as hell. Solid rear face, solid chamber. Oh and you don’t need to screw the back on the barrel like it’s a pickle jar after every shot...

The video gun looks like something from the Khyber Pass and that is probably insulting the folks in Darra.

The old LAPD zip gun museum/collection has better engineering. And those things were made from car antennas, clothes pins and rubber bands. Really.

An H&R break gun is a fine inexpensive little gun. The Serbu is designed with a pipe bomb as its inspiration! Not a topper!! Mission accomplished.

Sirhr

KYHBER PASS FOR THE WIN.
 
yeah....thats kind of what you get when you buy a firearm designed by Royal Nonesuch.....

degrees in youtube engineering arent really worth all that much.

You talking about the youtube moror on the Duke and King characters in Huckleberry Finn?