www.twz.com I think at some point someone is going to question having a giant heavy action while getting the same performance as something smaller and lighter. I understand that there is an argument that the 50 BMG primers are more consistent at very cold temps but I've never seen data to actually back that up. Not that logic and reason have a damn thing to do with government purchasing...Link to decent article on a possible 50 cal replacement already being discussed here.
Barrett .50 Caliber Sniper Rifle Replacement For SOCOM May Fire A Smaller Round
A gun in a smaller caliber could replace the iconic .50 caliber Barrett, as well as Mk 15 rifles, in U.S. special operations inventory.
Lehigh had a multipurpose round in 338 for a while so it isn't like you can't CNC a bullet and stuff it with whatever filling you want. Even an 833 grain 50 cal bullet like spotter tracer is marginal as a payload though. There is a reason actual HE rounds in 50 are essentially collectors items rather than a production round. Even in 14.5mm there really aren't HE rounds. With 20mm you get all the way up to 11 grams of HE which means the KE of the projectile is still probably higher in most cased than the explosive energy. That changes as you get further/higher/slower of course. Those aren't really made with antipersonnel in mind so with optimization maybe you could get a 20mm with a burst diameter large enough to be meaningful. I don't see anything in the realm or antipersonnel grenade that ever saw combat use smaller than 30mm though. The 25x59 is the smallest diameter long range shoulder fired grenade I can find and it never saw service. I wonder if something that small with a contact fuze is big enough to matter. Maybe the air burst capability was the only thing that gave it a practical use...
Depends on the purpose/mission. I would say no in this application. Especially since we have more room to add goodies in the 375 for other needs.
Not entirely.
You cant blame applied Ballistics for using hornady advertising tactics. After all the enabelr was designed shorter to fit into a standard cheytac mag to use optomized bullets. Unlike the bmg in standard mags. but if you optamize a bmg with 850 plus grain monolithic high bc bullets the enabeler will not even be close. But remember we are talking about military application in nato spect actions and mags .
