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50 Bmg Blow up....

If you wish to use the drag racing (and clutches specifically) analogy; after Mike Sorokin was killed when his car was cut in half by a clutch explosion in 1967 racers stopped slipping clutches for a while. The bigger change came when manufacturing competitors came together to find a way to protect the drivers as Sorokin was not the first to die or be injured.


Given things like venting already exist, it is just a shit and unsafe design IMO.
 
Gun is safe and failure was 100% the round. Won't edit my previous post..... Sorry you guys don't like a gun that was made for the poors....
 
Gun is safe and failure was 100% the round. Won't edit my previous post..... Sorry you guys don't like a gun that was made for the poors....

It hasn't been proven that the round was the reason for failure. Even so, I can't see how it can be declared a safe gun when the design sends shrapnel at high velocity directly into the shooters neck during failure.
 
Gun is safe and failure was 100% the round. Won't edit my previous post..... Sorry you guys don't like a gun that was made for the poors....
If you want you can just take a pic holding your RN50 and post it here….we won’t judge
 
I have an EDM Arms Windrunner myself.

I would bet that if the guy had shot that same round out of a full EDM built windrunner in good condition, they may have at most needed a bit of patching up at the clinic if even that.

I would also suggest had it been an AI rifle, similarly there would have been at most, very minor injuries to the shooter, if any at all.
 
Flame on, could give zero fucks. Hinge pin was broken, Lower was bowed out, Cap sheared the threads off and the 2 lugs were also taken off. This firearm had multiple failures due to the round. At first, I thought it was just the cap, but looking at the rifle..... it was the round. You put the same round in any 50 and you will still have a bomb. Might lose an eye, fingers, or who knows? I could give 2 shits about Mark, but I call it like I see it.
 
Flame on, could give zero fucks. Hinge pin was broken, Lower was bowed out, Cap sheared the threads off and the 2 lugs were also taken off. This firearm had multiple failures due to the round. At first, I thought it was just the cap, but looking at the rifle..... it was the round. You put the same round in any 50 and you will still have a bomb. Might lose an eye, fingers, or who knows? I could give 2 shits about Mark, but I call it like I see it.
Again,

Any rifle would likely blow up under same circumstances….it’s how the rifle handled the blow up that makes or breaks it

The Serbu is a POS and handled it like a POS

The end
 
Flame on, could give zero fucks. Hinge pin was broken, Lower was bowed out, Cap sheared the threads off and the 2 lugs were also taken off. This firearm had multiple failures due to the round. At first, I thought it was just the cap, but looking at the rifle..... it was the round. You put the same round in any 50 and you will still have a bomb. Might lose an eye, fingers, or who knows? I could give 2 shits about Mark, but I call it like I see it.

For all your engineering stuff you say, you seem to be either ignorant of designing stuff for catastrophic events or willfully ignoring that.

WHAT features had been built into the rifle in question to minimize injury to the shooter in the event of catastrophic ammunition failure?

Answer that one question and list the feature and design.
 
I have an EDM Arms Windrunner myself. Being in Tool & Die for 25 years, I've seen a lot of failures in steel throughout the years. Takata was using crazy pressures on the components to make sure they were safe. 25 years ago, it was new technology.... Most of you folks have zero understanding of Metalurgy. You can have lamination in steel, blisters, or cracks that may show up immediately, or over time. Like I said before, it's not the best design, but shooting standard 50bmg ammo is probably perfectly safe. Bunch of Karens want Marks head on a platter and his business shut down. I could use all the analogies in the world and it still won't matter. A 50BMG round is nothing more than a scaled up 30-06 round.... it isn't some magical fuckin voodoo round. The round that took the gun apart probably would have wrecked any 50bmg rifle it was shot from. Different rifles would have come apart wherever the weak link was. Accidents happen.... Drag strip I raced at had a death at the track. Guy dumped his clutch @ 5k and it came apart and went into someones chest. Guy died instantly! I raced at that very track 20 years after this happened. If everyone was a Karen back in the day, the track would have been shut down. Manual transmissions would have been banned and Chevrolet would have gone under. I wouldn't have a problem shooting modern factory rounds thru a RN50, but what do I know.
From the way you speak we should learn nothing from prior failures and just keep on trucking? As far as your drag strip story was anything done as far as shielding to contain parts in such a failure or do people still die at the drag strip from exploding clutches? Marks turd failed and he is doing nothing to prevent it from happening again. By the way why did you over pay for that Windrunner when you could have saved big bucks with a perfectly sound Serbu? As has been said responsible manufacturers build their firearms to fail in a way that does not kill the shooter.
 
Flame on, could give zero fucks. Hinge pin was broken, Lower was bowed out, Cap sheared the threads off and the 2 lugs were also taken off. This firearm had multiple failures due to the round. At first, I thought it was just the cap, but looking at the rifle..... it was the round. You put the same round in any 50 and you will still have a bomb. Might lose an eye, fingers, or who knows? I could give 2 shits about Mark, but I call it like I see it.

You are phrasing it as if the cap failing alone should not cause damage to other parts. The cap failing is what caused the chain reaction of everything else that became damaged. The chamber is in one piece. The poor design is why it had an unintended rapid disassembly when the cap was shot backwards.

If that chamber was grenaded, maybe the argument could be made that the round alone would have destroyed any other rifle.

I'm not convinced the round alone is to blame for this. It's just as plausible that certain rifle parts became fatigued from normal use, it so happens that a slap round was shot when it failed, which directs most attention to itself being the cause.
 
Is it possible the cap was say a 1/4 turn short of being fully tightened thereby causing excessive headspace or are the ears so tight a fit that that is not possible? And would that scenario cause this level of failure?
 
Is it possible the cap was say a 1/4 turn short of being fully tightened thereby causing excessive headspace or are the ears so tight a fit that that is not possible? And would that scenario cause this level of failure?
The two "supports" that sheared off behind the cap are supposed to prevent this from happening. They claim the rifle can't be closed into battery unless the cap is all the way forward. But maybe it had enough slop that this is exactly the cause. Possibly a bit of debris got on the cap surface, so when threaded on there was a gap.
 
Is it possible the cap was say a 1/4 turn short of being fully tightened thereby causing excessive headspace or are the ears so tight a fit that that is not possible? And would that scenario cause this level of failure?
It’s designed to only close with the cap fully tightened to prevent closing it while lose. Even at that it should still handle a failure if the cap was left a bit loose.

Anyone in the gun world knows that complete idiots buy their guns, complete idiots buy the ammo, complete idiots spend as little $$$ on the gun and ammo as possible and complete idiots fire that ammo in their weapon

The gun needs to be “idiot” proof. This gun is not

KB is not an idiot when it comes to rifles. But did fire an essentially unknown round in this 50. It failed. The manufacturer should plan for this to happen.

If you make the cheapest 50 BMG rifles you should expect to attract the most idiots. So plan accordingly
 
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I took a screenshot and brightened it up. Looks like only 3.5~ threads were holding the cap?

serbu01.jpg
 
I'm also curious as to how many rounds (of all kinds) KB had through that. I'd think being a guntuber that it was higher than the average serbu owner but still a relatively low count compared to a typical .50
 
Shouldn’t matter,

A “real” rifle burns through barrels. Not actions
It kinda does. Unsafe design made for 'the poors' that had a lifespan within the range it may be used (very little).

The barrel seemed to be the initial point of failure as well but surely not in the conventional sense.
 
Flame on, could give zero fucks. Hinge pin was broken, Lower was bowed out, Cap sheared the threads off and the 2 lugs were also taken off. This firearm had multiple failures due to the round. At first, I thought it was just the cap, but looking at the rifle..... it was the round. You put the same round in any 50 and you will still have a bomb. Might lose an eye, fingers, or who knows? I could give 2 shits about Mark, but I call it like I see it.
If this is the way you see it then you need to make an eye appointment right away.
 
@Long_Action gun was “probably safe” under what metrics? What testing was done on the gun prior to being sold to the public? At what pressure does the gun fail?

Hint you don’t know because not even the fucking owner does. No instead after it just about killed a man he called up his buddy in the Ukraine to give him some calculations. Which his numbers were based on full thread length engagement and torqued to spec. Not fucking hand tight with 3.5 threads holding it all together.
 
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It kinda does. Unsafe design made for 'the poors' that had a lifespan within the range it may be used (very little).

The barrel seemed to be the initial point of failure as well but surely not in the conventional sense.
Can you imagine a rifle maker saying

“the guys who buy my product won’t fire more than 500 rounds anyways so if
It fails at 600 we’re good to go”
 
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Can you imagine a rifle maker saying

“the guys who buy my product won’t fire more than 500 rounds anyways so if
It fails at 600 we’re good to go”
Given the Lorcin's and other pot metal firearms of the world that attitude certainly exists. The unfortunate reality here is the stakes are much higher with a .50 BMG. I've not seen mention of factory destructive testing on the design so that attitude was there even if by carelessness IMO.
 
Given the Lorcin's and other pot metal firearms of the world that attitude certainly exists. The unfortunate reality here is the stakes are much higher with a .50 BMG. I've not seen mention of factory destructive testing on the design so that attitude was there even if by carelessness IMO.
Agreed
 
Search the internets... you can find a lot of videos where rifles come apart during firing. You have 2 different failures that can happen. Out of battery and in battery. In battery is always way worse, as the pressure is contained. Maybe we can get 12 of those explosive slap rounds and blow up every 50bmg on the market. I'm guessing most guns would provide an outcome that would be less than perfect. I had a case separation in my 1919 and luckily my face wasn't near the top cover plate. You never know what you could get with old military ammo or unknown reloads. That round was way overpressure and made the pressure too quickly. It would have been a bomb in any gun and the shooter was very lucky. Seems like a decent guy who won't push a law suit and the last thing we need is attention drawn to the 50bmg round.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but has it not been stated a number of times (in video) that THAT particular barrel was made by the manufacturer (Serbu) specifically FOR shooting that SLAP round?

Has that not already been confirmed, time and time again?
 
It has.
But none of this idiots fantasies would survive the truth so he keeps ignoring that fact so he can keep polishing serbu's gun.
 
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but has it not been stated a number of times (in video) that THAT particular barrel was made by the manufacturer (Serbu) specifically FOR shooting that SLAP round?

Has that not already been confirmed, time and time again?
Actually the first mention of that I've seen was via comments in this thread.

The first 2:30 of the KB video in the OP contradict that; "I've been using this for a while". If it had also been "made" to use with SLAP a different muzzle brake design would have been used if anyone was paying attention. IMO the brake had nothing to do with this failure, it is just another place things can and do go wrong with sabots.

I'll re-watch the rest of that video but it is not what was stated right out of the gate. If someone has a time stamp where it was stated please link it.

ETA:
Found it myself was a different video

That being said the 36" barrel is one of the three options (18, 22, 36 Heavy). He also stated "machine gun chamber" which is not a listed option. This is on their site:
Ammo Suppliers:
We recommend you stay away from American Eagle in the black box, if possible. Soft brass getting stuck in the chamber and being difficult to extract has been a commonly reported problem. You're welcome to try it out for yourself, but please be aware of its issues before concluding that the rifle is to blame. Our chamber is between match and standard so certain rounds can be too large.

You can find ammo online from United Nations Ammo, Freedom Munitions, American Marksman, etc. Ammoseek.com is a great search engine for ammo.

Great ammo we currently test fire with: American Marksman .50 BMG M33 Ball Ammunition, 660 Grain, FMJ.

Who knows.
 
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Actually the first mention of that I've seen was via comments in this thread.

The first 2:30 of the KB video in the OP contradict that; "I've been using this for a while". If it had also been "made" to use with SLAP a different muzzle brake design would have been used if anyone was paying attention. IMO the brake had nothing to do with this failure, it is just another place things can and do go wrong with sabots.

I'll re-watch the rest of that video but it is not what was stated right out of the gate. If someone has a time stamp where it was stated please link it.

ETA:
Found it myself was a different video

That being said the 36" barrel is one of the three options (18, 22, 36 Heavy). He also stated "machine gun chamber" which is not a listed option. This is on their site:
Ammo Suppliers:
We recommend you stay away from American Eagle in the black box, if possible. Soft brass getting stuck in the chamber and being difficult to extract has been a commonly reported problem. You're welcome to try it out for yourself, but please be aware of its issues before concluding that the rifle is to blame. Our chamber is between match and standard so certain rounds can be too large.

You can find ammo online from United Nations Ammo, Freedom Munitions, American Marksman, etc. Ammoseek.com is a great search engine for ammo.

Great ammo we currently test fire with: American Marksman .50 BMG M33 Ball Ammunition, 660 Grain, FMJ.

Who knows.

Thank you for NOT being a knob-gobbler and actually paying attention to the words in font AND video. Maybe, just maybe, this thread can evolve into something productive.
 
Wait, pit thread turn productive?

We all know every thread in the pit turns into sticking something into something it was never supposed to be stuck.
 
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Search the internets... you can find a lot of videos where rifles come apart during firing.

1) one poor design doesn't greenlight another poor design.

Toyota can't say " yeah our cars explode when rear ended, after all, Ford's did, so our design is perfectly safe"

No, no they can't, especially when you can buy a Kia, Subaru, Chevy, ect. that doesn't explode.


2) I'm going to explain this to you in one last attempt to get it through your thick retard skull...

Mark did 0 engineering on this firearm....that is a fact.....that means it is inherently unsafe

Also, no one is faulting the gun for blowing up necessarily, we are faulting it for not having any safety features to protect the shooter when it did so, something nearly ALL other modern firearms have.....that also makes it inherently unsafe.

"Under normal conditions" doesn't apply in engineering...


I'm going to ask you again, because you haven't answered it yet...

Would you drive a car that shoots the steering column through your chest in the event of an accident?

Would you describe such car as being "safe"?
 
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When things blow up they don’t usually give any notice or indicators that there is a problem until well.....when it blows up. You could shoot 5000 SLAP rounds through it and not see any signs of trouble, but at 5001 it finally has had enough and blows up. If you were the guy behind it for 1-5000 well you’re good to go probably didn’t even need eye pro, but I damn sure wouldn’t want to be the guy behind it for 5001.
 
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Search the internets... you can find a lot of videos where rifles come apart during firing. You have 2 different failures that can happen. Out of battery and in battery. In battery is always way worse, as the pressure is contained. Maybe we can get 12 of those explosive slap rounds and blow up every 50bmg on the market. I'm guessing most guns would provide an outcome that would be less than perfect. I had a case separation in my 1919 and luckily my face wasn't near the top cover plate. You never know what you could get with old military ammo or unknown reloads. That round was way overpressure and made the pressure too quickly. It would have been a bomb in any gun and the shooter was very lucky. Seems like a decent guy who won't push a law suit and the last thing we need is attention drawn to the 50bmg round.

First, an out-of-battery failure in a properly-designed bolt action is worse. In-battery, a properly-designed bolt-action directs the gases away from the user, with little or no harm. Out-of-battery events (caused by "hang fires") have been known to severely injure shooters when the bolt is ejected rearward. So, please, if I'm shooting a firearm not designed by a muppet, please have the round fire in-battery.

You keep on making two assumptions in the process of writing off this event:

1) That the round was overpressure

2) That any other gun would have failed just as catastrophically

I don't believe that #1 is correct because of the ease with which the remains of the suspect round was removed from the chamber in Serbu's latest video. That doesn't match my experience in removing stuck brass from chambers when exceeding the limits of good judgement.

We know that #2 isn't right because case head separations (or "sneezes", as Chad Dixon amusingly refers to them) don't routinely cause rifles to spontaneously disassemble. In fact, some rifles will withstand blocked-muzzle and even blocked-breech events without any structural failures.

We can indeed find plenty of videos on the internet of Kabooms. It's extremely uncommon to find ones that result in serious injuries. And it's even less often that we get a "manufacturer" (quotes because I'm using that term in the loosest possible sense) who confesses to performing only the most rudimentary analysis after the kaboom occurred, and then expresses surprise as to the nature of the failure upon physical inspection of the article in question.

The bottom line is that this design never took into account the possibility of a case head separation, and that actual test-to-failure never occurred because Serbu would have known how this would come apart. Maybe he even would have fixed it before putting it on the market.

In a properly-functioning free market, good ideas are rewarded and bad ideas are punished. This idea deserves to be punished. For the sake of your own reputation, please stop trying to defend this thing.
 
Hi,

LOLOLOL a few things.

1. Metallurgy knowledge lacking?? TRY ME!!

2. Don't need to draw attention to the 50 BMG...yet YOU are the only one here saying it was the 50 BMG that caused this issue, all others are saying the rifle design caused the issue. YOU are the only one here saying that 50 BMG rifles are ONLY as safe as the dangerous 50 BMG ammunition; all others are saying the rifle design is the issue.

3. Worst firearm failure is "In battery" failure...Please explain that one to me because that sounds like something straight out of a Serbu video.

4. Who cares what rifle failures can be found online. I can find girls doing all sorts of shit my wife doesn't do too. What is your point?

Sincerely,
Theis
 
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It’s designed to only close with the cap fully tightened to prevent closing it while lose. Even at that it should still handle a failure if the cap was left a bit loose.

Anyone in the gun world knows that complete idiots buy their guns, complete idiots buy the ammo, complete idiots spend as little $$$ on the gun and ammo as possible and complete idiots fire that ammo in their weapon

The gun needs to be “idiot” proof. This gun is not

KB is not an idiot when it comes to rifles. But did fire an essentially unknown round in this 50. It failed. The manufacturer should plan for this to happen.

If you make the cheapest 50 BMG rifles you should expect to attract the most idiots. So plan accordingly
I would argue the KB comment. He fired numerous rounds of unknown history that demonstrated excessive pressures and he continued on until failure even after acknowledging it. So,
 
Hi,

LOLOLOL a few things.

1. Metallurgy knowledge lacking?? TRY ME!!

2. Don't need to draw attention to the 50 BMG...yet YOU are the only one here saying it was the 50 BMG that caused this issue, all others are saying the rifle design caused the issue. YOU are the only one here saying that 50 BMG rifles are ONLY as safe as the dangerous 50 BMG ammunition; all others are saying the rifle design is the issue.

3. Worst firearm failure is "In battery" failure...Please explain that one to me because that sounds like something straight out of a Serbu video.

4. Who cares what rifle failures can be found online. I can find girls doing all sorts of shit my wife doesn't do too. What is your point?

Sincerely,
Theis
Worst failure I personally saw was an "out of battery" with the exception of someone chambering a .300BO in a 5.56 which gets pretty exciting.
 
Who said the rifle "sheared the lugs"?

Honestly...
If you think two .250" Steel "rabbit ears" are lugs, you really are a retard.

Metallurgy? Holy shit.....just wow. Metallurgy played a very small part here.

"Poors rifle"
I think you are conflating poors with retards.
I'm kind of a upper level poor. I dont own a 50, because I'm not a retard.
 
Who said the rifle "sheared the lugs"?

Honestly...
If you think two .250" Steel "rabbit ears" are lugs, you really are a retard.

Metallurgy? Holy shit.....just wow. Metallurgy played a very small part here.

"Poors rifle"
I think you are conflating poors with retards.
I'm kind of a upper level poor. I dont own a 50, because I'm not a retard.
What's wrong with owning a .50? Are you some type of FUD? Or are you just talking about the "POORs" .50's?
 
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Imagine a ladder manufacturer NOT knowing how much weight their ladder design can take....they would be out of business pretty fast.

This point is the one that bothers me the most.

Seems like more trial and error went into the build than engineering and mechanics...
 
Gun is safe and failure was 100% the round. Won't edit my previous post..... Sorry you guys don't like a gun that was made for the poors....

Hi-Point is made for poors and its engineered with extra safety and also to assist LEO if used in crimes.

Lots of vids on youtube doing dumb stuff with Hi-Point and no one goes to the hospital.
 
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What's wrong with owning a .50? Are you some type of FUD? Or are you just talking about the "POORs" .50's?

Calm down, I'm not a fucking Fudd. Read my shitpost again.
I cant really afford one of proper quality, even though I'm not quite a poor. At this point in my life I couldn't shoot one if I had one.
I almost bought one back in the early 90s at a Dixie Deer Classic. They had a Barrett for $3500. I was young and dumb enough to go in hock for something like that.

I doubt there is any such thing as a "poors 50"
The Serbu is a retard 50. Hence my reference about confusing "poors" with "retards".
 
This point is the one that bothers me the most.

Seems like more trial and error went into the build than engineering and mechanics...

This was like trial and error, but without any of the "trial" part. Clearly, that task was left to the end user.
 
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Some of what is in this thread has....well, leaved me gobsmacked.

To me, this rifle resembles nothing so much as a '60 gang zip gun and, again to me, arguing in its favor is utterly moronic.

Cheers and carry on.
The RN50 to me is not a good design.
Calm down, I'm not a fucking Fudd. Read my shitpost again.
I cant really afford one of proper quality, even though I'm not quite a poor. At this point in my life I couldn't shoot one if I had one.
I almost bought one back in the early 90s at a Dixie Deer Classic. They had a Barrett for $3500. I was young and dumb enough to go in hock for something like that.

I doubt there is any such thing as a "poors 50"
The Serbu is a retard 50. Hence my reference about confusing "poors" with "retards".
Gotcha, thanks for clarifying. I have heard over twenty years of "fifty cal bad, could be used in a crime but hasn't been and my 06 is all I need" type crap, so I might be a little sensitive about it ;)

There are better low (relative) budget fifties than the RN50, that is for sure.
 
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This was like trial and error, but without any of the "trial" part. Clearly, that task was left to the end user.
I remember seeing some of his trial and error videos from when he was first designing the BFG-50. It was interesting to see. He should have stuck with that design.
 
I remember seeing some of his trial and error videos from when he was first designing the BFG-50. It was interesting to see. He should have stuck with that design.
he should have become a Armalite Dealer for the AR-50 lol
 
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he should have become a Armalite Dealer for the AR-50 lol
I’ve owned both. The Armalite AR50A1 and BFG 50. The Armalite is a real bolt action 50. It feels overbuilt. The BFG feels like it’s assembled in your garage. With close enough is good enough mindset.

Anyone who’s owned both would probably say the Armalite feels like twice the gun for $500 more

One is a real gun and designed as such. The other is two pipes threaded together with some spot welds holding the base and stock on it
 
yup, my ar-50's bolt was like paper towel tube sized truck axel
Yup! But they slide like butter. My AR50 is second smoothest “sliding” bolt I own. The cam over is a touch stiffer but otherwise it’s almost on par with my AI’s

The BFG was sloppy. I also had to manually press the hammer down in the action so the bolt would clear it to close. I replaced the trigger/hammer before ever firing it as it was over 9 lbs from factory
 
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I’ve owned both. The Armalite AR50A1 and BFG 50. The Armalite is a real bolt action 50. It feels overbuilt. The BFG feels like it’s assembled in your garage. With close enough is good enough mindset.

Anyone who’s owned both would probably say the Armalite feels like twice the gun for $500 more

One is a real gun and designed as such. The other is two pipes threaded together with some spot welds holding the base and stock on it
I really liked the Armalite! Nice rifles!!

I am hoping to buy a DT HTI down the road.