Another Great Shot

[Mountain]

I guess I'd have to see what "extreme accuracy" means. The. 50 BMG round in and of itself is not all that accurate (in comparison with other available calibers). It has the range, no doubt, but not repeatable accuracy.
1 mile is 1760 yards. 1 MOA would be +/- 17.6 inches, or approximately the width of a man. Remove all atmospheric variables and there is still no way in hell that weapon system is capable of 1 MOA.

Not to take anything away from the shooter: he still had to get the bullet in the neighborhood in order to connect.

Since they had a scope adapted to the gun, I'm wondering if they went to the trouble of using special loads. I disagree regarding 50 BMG inherent accuracy, especially for the AMAX and similar projectiles with a BC of 1.05 or more. Nothing else comes close to that BC. The Hornady AMAX 750 is easily capable of sub-MOA in the right gun, as are some of the high BC specialty turned solid projectiles.

That M2 would not be the right gun, LOL. The standard ammo isn't that great either. In a heavy barrel, single-shot target rifle, your typical 50 BMG surplus rounds will do ~1.5 MOA at best and 2 MOA is probably a reasonable assumed accuracy. Not terrible, but not sniper worthy.

 

[PatMcD]

But apparently not.

The M2 was known to be uncannily accurate for decades. Troops were scoping them in Korea to take sniper shots, and then of course there’s Hathcock’s achievement (with two shots, yes, but his target was in motion). All those guys had “more precise” options, yet still saw something useful in taking a shot with an M2.

My point about a mile being intermediate range for a heavy MG is that the system was designed to keep a round stable at ranges well beyond a mile. These are also “tunable” weapons systems: they’re designed to be highly adjustable for reliability and, if desired, increased accuracy.

So provided a shooter can control all those variables, allowing him to satisfy himself that the bore was pointed at the bad guy, I don’t know that this constitutes a “lucky shot.”

Nobody disputes that the 50 BMG round can shoot that far and still do incredible damage. It'll go double that distance, in fact, and still disable a vehicle.
I say "lucky shot" because it's not repeatable. Set up a man-size target at 1+ mile, use the same M2 with scope, and have thesame guy take 20 shots. If he gets more than 1 hit I'll eat my hat.

Again, he had to know exact distance down to within 10 yards, guesstimate all the wind variables between him and the target, hope the target doesn't move, and take the shot, and he still got the bullet to a point where it had a chance of hitting the target. Pretty impressive. But the gun and ammo isn't capable of repeating it.

 

[Dennis in MA]

 

[whacko]

It was an M2 mounted on a vehicle. 40 years is not unheard of for a service life for an M2. Didn't the army just find one hidden away that was like 90 years old and still serviceable?

I deployed in 2003 with m2s on our convoy security platforms that were made in the 1940s. They took care of business just fine.

On convoys in a bouncing 5 ton....the Gunner ain't gonna be accurate at all. But with ma deuce you don't have to hit your target.....just land a few bursts of 6 within a few yards and their head go down.......good enough to keep a convoy rolling.

 

[Picton]

Nobody disputes that the 50 BMG round can shoot that far and still do incredible damage. It'll go double that distance, in fact, and still disable a vehicle.
I say "lucky shot" because it's not repeatable. Set up a man-size target at 1+ mile, use the same M2 with scope, and have thesame guy take 20 shots. If he gets more than 1 hit I'll eat my hat.

Again, he had to know exact distance down to within 10 yards, guesstimate all the wind variables between him and the target, hope the target doesn't move, and take the shot, and he still got the bullet to a point where it had a chance of hitting the target. Pretty impressive. But the gun and ammo isn't capable of repeating it.

We may never know.

But I'm betting some bored soldiers at some sort of outpost over the past few wars have probably done exactly that kind of thing, setting up E-type silhouettes at a mile or so and plinking away with Ma Deuce. I'd be curious what their hit rate was.

Either way, the result here was a win.