wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of this lol.

[towboater2013]

Found this detecting city park in new orleans. 1300 acres of 1700's beauty.

 

[togg77]

That's,as you probably know, is a 50 cal round and probably from WWII forts placed around the city.

 

[GeorgeinSC]

I have found a number of those 50 cal bullets at the beach. The ones I have found appears to be Armour piercing as they have a iron/steel core. Makes one wonder how they arrived at the beach.

 

[togg77]

GeorgeinSC---during WWII a lot of strafing practice was done along the east and west coast beaches.

 

[Ytcoinshooter]

We have a popular beach here the army air corps used for target practice. You can dig .50 cal brass shells till your pouch drags your pants down. The copper shrapnel confounds water hunters, bits sounding good and falling through the scoop holes!

 

[msareborn]

I believe the .50 caliber BMG standard military ball round like this is 700 grains. It travelled at approximately 2900 fps. Compare that to a common 30/06 deer hunting round, with a 165 grain bullet traveling at about 2900 fps. Not wanting to be on the receiving end of the 50 BMG is an understatement. It is common to be decapitated, from one shot. Ugh!

 

[togg77]

Once upon a time our tank company had over 5000 rds of 50 cal left over from our time on the tank tables so the Captain told his favorite gunner,guess who, to remain on the table and fire all rds so as to not have to turn back in.My loader and another guy would take the 100 rd belts,standard # in an ammo box, and join 5 belts together. They would feed those 500 rd belts up to the top mounted fifty and I would hold the butterfly down and burn through all 500 rds.At the end of the day the barrel was smooth bore,but a midnight recon to the next battallion over resulted in a brand new barrel. A fifty will cut a tree down,several in fact.

 

[mudpuppy]

Amazing! my Father in law was a waist gunner on a B-52 over Germany...he had some stories...his one hand was frostbit to the end of his life, said when that big 50 would jam, you had to pull off a glove under your arm, and clear that jam barehanded...with that waist gunners door wide open at that altitude, your hand would freeze in no time...on their final mission, there were only three of them alive out of a 10 man crew when they landed back in England....he only told me that story once, late one night, when he was very drunk....said his best friend was the tail gunner, and had his bubble shot out and froze to death in the tail...said he tried to get him out of there and when he pulled off his leather hat, and his scalp and ears were frozen inside of it...He never really got over it...wife says it affected him his whole life...those big calibers give a guy the shivvers alright...thinking about it.....That Barrett 416 is an awesome round too...

The guys that hunt civil war bullets got to get the creeps every now and then I would imagine...what that big lead would do to a fellow if he was in front of it...
Mud

 

[JimmyCT]

yep that is one large projectile and anyone that gets hit by it would be instant "lights out"

 

[mudpuppy]

Oops, I meant B-17...wrong plane....those 52's made an impression on me in my earlier years and its stuck in my head..if you ever get the chance to watch some low altitude passes out in SE MT by the 52 crews out of Ellsworth, on that one road that goes from Rapid to Broadus, your teeth will rattle....

 

[lloyd0161]

Oops, I meant B-17...wrong plane....those 52's made an impression on me in my earlier years and its stuck in my head..if you ever get the chance to watch some low altitude passes out in SE MT by the 52 crews out of Ellsworth, on that one road that goes from Rapid to Broadus, your teeth will rattle....

Lol, Mud,

Too bad we didn't have B-52s and modern jets in WWII