The 50 Browning Machine Gun, sometimes known as the 50 BMG, is a 50 in (12.7 mm) caliber cartridge that was created for the M2 Browning heavy machine gun in the late 1910s and entered formal service in 1921. The machine gun was initially produced during World War I, and despite being cumbersome, the tank began to find its place on the battlefield—it was also resistant to most rifle and artillery shots.
The 50 BMG cartridge has a 290-gram capacity (19 g). The round is a scaled-up version of the 30-06 Springfield, but it has a case wall with a long taper to make feeding and extraction easier in different guns. This cartridge's rifling twist rate is 1 in 15 in (380 mm), with eight lands and grooves.
The 50 Browning Machine Gun is employed in anti-materiel rifles in addition to the M2 Browning heavy machine gun. There is a wide range of ammunition available, and match grade ammunition has boosted the use of 50 caliber rifles by allowing for more precise firing than lesser quality rounds. During WWII, the 50 BMG was principally utilized for anti-aircraft duties in the M2 Browning machine gun, both in its "light barrel" aircraft mount form and the "heavy barrel" (HB) version on ground vehicles.
Depending on the powder and bullet type, as well as the weapon from which it is shot, the 50 BMG round may create between 10,000 and 15,000 foot-pounds force (14,000 and 20,000 J). The 50 BMG's trajectory suffers less "drift" from cross-winds than smaller and lighter calibers due to the high ballistic coefficient of the bullet, making it an excellent option for high-powered sniper rifles.
Roy Weatherby designed the 460 Weatherby Magnum, a belted, bottlenecked rifle cartridge, in 1958. It's based on a.378 Weatherby Magnum that's been necked up to take a.458-inch (11.6 mm) bullet. The.460 Weatherby Magnum was developed as an African hazardous game rifle cartridge for hunting large, thick-skinned dangerous species in Africa. The Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute (SAAMI) published voluntary standards for the cartridge in January 1994, hence it is not considered a proprietary cartridge.
The 460 Weatherby Magnum case is made from a necked up.378 Weatherby Magnum case. Although the.378 Weatherby Magnum case was influenced by the.416 Rigby case, it is regarded as a one-of-a-kind case that has served as the parent cartridge for various high-performance cartridges. The.460 Weatherby Magnum requires a large propellant capacity in order to propel a 500 gr (32 g) bullet at 2,700 ft/s (820 m/s).
The.460 Weatherby Magnum is intended to have headspace on its belt. Because of their tight chamber tolerance, they headspace on the belt rather than the shoulder, as opposed to most current belted cartridges, which headspace on the shoulder regardless of the belt.
Although the 460 Weatherby Magnum is a powerful cartridge, it cannot compensate for inexperience or bad aim. Harvesting bison, elk, moose, and brown bear can be performed by lowering the cartridge's performance to meet the criteria. The.460 Weatherby Magnum cartridge may be loaded to perform similarly to the.45-70 Government and the.450 Rigby. The much-decreased recoil of such loadings is a benefit.