anybody have ballistic info for 50bmg

[Invicta]

i was just curious, does anybody know how many ft-lbs of energy the 50 bmg round develops. i just wanted to know how much more powerful the 50 bmg is compared to say a 30-06 or similar round. i know a good 30-06 round will generate about 3000 ft-lbs of energy at the muzzle, so a 50 cal must be something like 10,000 ft-lbs.

 

[pickpocket]

The Barrett M82 (SASR):

29" barrel
12.7mm
854 m/s

I think it produces somewhere between 11,000 and 12,000 ft-lbs at the muzzle. Maybe I should look it up.

 

[Chuck Dye]

The current Oehler Ballistic Explorer Ammo Library lists only the PMC 660gr bullet at 3080 from a 24" barrel. Muzzle energy is 13906 ft-lbs. The trajectory is ±3" to 300.7yds, ±4" to 335.9yds, and ±5" to 366.5yds. It retains over 1000 ft-lbs kinetic energy to just beyond 1850yds. For comparison, my .30-06’s favorite load, the Federal High Energy 180gr Nosler Partition, is ±3" to 286.2yds, ±4" to 320.3yds, ±5" to 350yds, and drops below 1000 ft-lbs K.E. in the neighborhood of 790yds. Naturally, your mileage may vary.

 

[Dave Haven]

It depends on the load and barrel length. My .50 has a 45" barrel. I've driven a Speer 647 gr fmj with 250 gr of Thunderbird T-5070 to 3250 FPS. That's 15,172 foot pounds of muzzle energy.

Velocity drops to subsonic (<1100FPS) at around 2000 yards. Energy drops below 1000'# just before it gets to 3100 yards. (According to my ballistics program.)