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50 Bmg Blow up....

frank320

Sergeant of the Hide
Full Member
Minuteman
Apr 8, 2019
379
572
Boy was I cringing the whole time watching this video....
He blames it on the "hot" slap round, but that particular 50 cal rifle(if one can even call it that) looks flimsy as hell for a 50 cal.
Be careful out there...

 
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Holy shit.... i never liked the look if the serbu, screwing a cap on to hold a round in just never struck me as good...i only made it 7 mins in and im good...
 
Hi,

I stopped wasting my time listening when he said he spoke with Mark and they estimated right over 80k cartridge pressures to rip the screw on breech plug....................

That makes me assume a few different things:

1. Serbu does not test each build with certified proof rounds.
2. Serbu does not have dynamic FEA on the design that shows exactly what the pressure would have had to be for the failures.
3. Why does that breech plug rely solely on threads and not any lugs??
4. Unless that is some cheap alloy the pressures were significantly higher than that...the 277 Sig Fury OPERATES at 80k, lolol


Sincerely,
Theis
 
I would not say that the rifle is flimsy, but rather that its provisions for handling a catastrophic failure are almost non existent.
This is where firearms tech has made a huge leap in the last hundred years and why you damn near need to load your rifle case with bullseye to have a chance of sending your bolt through your head.

This firearm is not built to safely handle a catastrophic failure.
 
I shot quite a few of those old rounds in my M82-1. Fortunately I never had a failure like that, I think the Barrett is better constructed, though the instructions you get with it stress being sure to make sure both front and rear pins are in place before firing or else it could cause 'CATESTROPHIC' failure. That go my attention.

That guy is truly lucky.
 
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I would not say that the rifle is flimsy, but rather that its provisions for handling a catastrophic failure are almost non existent.
This is where firearms tech has made a huge leap in the last hundred years and why you damn near need to load your rifle case with bullseye to have a chance of sending your bolt through your head.

This firearm is not built to safely handle a catastrophic failure.
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.
 
Makes me think of those 50 uppers that fit on large frame AR lowers.....thinking Armalite did one.

Never looked into what holds everything together but if its two push pins.......no thank you.

1619726908338.png
 
Makes me think of those 50 uppers that fit on large frame AR lowers.....thinking Armalite did one.

Never looked into what holds everything together but if its two push pins.......no thank you.

View attachment 7614803
like this one, posted 2 days ago that fell apart while being carried....
Guy was lucky he wasn't in the process of shooting it.

 
Hi,

What in the world is it with these "youtube" guys??? LOLOL

Geezus so this "broke in half guy" is going to talk about how bad it could have been if that happened while shooting..YET he opts to get another one because he has over 100 rounds of ammo and 1k dollars of accessories, lolololol

Sincerely,
Theis
 
Great video! Important lessons to learn:

1. Don’t trust unknown surplus ammo.
2. Carry an IFAK, make its location on your person obvious.
3. Know your basic first aid.
4. Invest in good eye protection.
5. Don’t be a cunt and give up.
 
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)
 
Welp looks like I'll only be shooting my 22LR for a couple weeks till I get this video out of my head... Worse case I might get a chipped tooth but wont need a medi flight.
Me too... I am going back to airsoft and air rifles in the short term to work back up slowly, but that video image is going to be hard to erase.
I already feel my flinch coming back strongly... :)
 
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Makes me think of those 50 uppers that fit on large frame AR lowers.....thinking Armalite did one.

Never looked into what holds everything together but if its two push pins.......no thank you.

View attachment 7614803
Thats all that holds the Barrett together albeit very serious pins.
 
So, SLAP-T and SLAP is still manufactured if I am correct. The problem with it is that you need to ream some of the chamber as the sabot on the SLAP round sits a little deeper. Not doing this will force the sabot into the chamber and you will see elevated pressures. I have chambered a SLAP-T round for schnitts and giggles into my .50 BMG (but never fired one through my rifle). It took a rubber mallet to close the bolt and the same mallet to open it (slightly the sadist), not all seat that tightly but it is a known thing. I wonder how he got the breach plug to close correctly with that SLAP round? I doubt he did, even though he said he did.

There was a number of .50 AR uppers that were made by various manufacturers, ferret etc.

I think about how bad it would be to have a bullpup design fail next to your face (but I still want a DT HTI). With that the Serbu's other .50 the BFG-50 seemed to be a solid design that has been around since about 2001.
 
Hi,

What in the world is it with these "youtube" guys??? LOLOL

Geezus so this "broke in half guy" is going to talk about how bad it could have been if that happened while shooting..YET he opts to get another one because he has over 100 rounds of ammo and 1k dollars of accessories, lolololol

Sincerely,
Theis
My thoght exactly. Id strip the accessories off and ship that mother fucker back so fast my head would spin telling them to fuck the replacement give me my money back. The scope will go on any good rifle, and the rounds arent that hard to sell. I just wish he had named the manufacturer so others could be warned.
 
I shot quite a few of those old rounds in my M82-1. Fortunately I never had a failure like that, I think the Barrett is better constructed, though the instructions you get with it stress being sure to make sure both front and rear pins are in place before firing or else it could cause 'CATESTROPHIC' failure. That go my attention.

That guy is truly lucky.
The Barretts chamber was made for that round when they tested the platform for the round.
 
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My thoght exactly. Id strip the accessories off and ship that mother fucker back so fast my head would spin telling them to fuck the replacement give me my money back. The scope will go on any good rifle, and the rounds arent that hard to sell. I just wish he had named the manufacturer so others could be warned.
He did name the manufacturer.
 
At one point I owned the Serbu BFG 50. Had several issues from the 30 MOA base installed backwards to the bolt catching on the hammer and not closing without you manually pushing the hammer down. Couple that with the 9.8 lbs trigger pull and it was a real work of art.

I bought the Armalite AR50 A1 shortly after acquiring the Serbu. The Armalite puts the Serbu to shame in every aspect
 
True that but you still need to be careful about the old surplus ammo.
Especially some of that old SA stuff!! That stuff was terrible back in the day. SLAP was known to not be accurate out of bolt guns and also known to require a deeper/longer chamber than your standard .50 BMG chamber because of the plastic sabot. Not having that will increase your chamber pressures. Should it have caused this?
 
At one point I owned the Serbu BFG 50. Had several issues from the 30 MOA base installed backwards to the bolt catching on the hammer and not closing without you manually pushing the hammer down. Couple that with the 9.8 lbs trigger pull and it was a real work of art.

I bought the Armalite AR50 A1 shortly after acquiring the Serbu. The Armalite puts the Serbu to shame in every aspect
It depends on which gen Serbu for the BFG-50, I am using the second gen trigger and tried the second gen muzzle break and then went to the Armalite AR50 break which is much better. I remember Mark went through a number of welders back in the day. When it was him and "Welder Boy" if I remember correct we didn't see any problems and I think you are maybe the second person to have a complaint that I have seen. For a relatively inexpensive introductory rifle into the .50 BMG world the BFG-50 was pretty good and great for the price. There were and are better out there like the old EDM's (even though they had some problems with the trigger and the owner since passed and his son doesn't seem to like the take downs), AX50, AR50, McBros, HTI are on the top of my list.

I am thinking that I am going to buy a DTA HTI this year.
 
I was always taught that it was 1.5xdia for thread engagement.
thats a rule of thumb.....for anything holding high pressure youd want to actually sit down and figure out the actual strength of the threads using their tensile stress area.....

just looking at those threads, they look like a basic Unified thread and frankly quite paltry....i would have gone with buttress threads, but admittedly i havent actually run any numbers on it.

but it sure as hell doesnt give me the warm and fuzzies.
 
Is that an actual rifle just not a black gas pipe with a screw on cap and a pistol grip ?
 
This Serbu "screw cap" 50 cal seems perfect for those Sunday afternoon YouTube backyard party videos with the famous last words:
"Give me that! Hold my beer and let me show you how it's done."

My bet is we are going to see a whole bunch of these screw cap 50 cal Serbu rifles come on sale in the classifieds soon:
"Like new Serbu 50 cal single shot rifle, will throw in whole bunch of mil surplus 50 cal ammo for free!"
or "Buy my surplus 50 cal ammo and I will throw in a Serbu screw top 50 cal rifle for free!"
 
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