Originally Posted by Imold

50's are awesome. I got to experience an eye opening demonstration of how much recoil one has back in the fun days. Was up in one of those perimeter guard towers on phone poles when a tech finished going over the .50 and re-setting the head space. He called for permission to demolish some jungle and told us to have some fun with it. First guy to use it fired a few short bursts, and we felt the tower sway a little (about an 8x10 platform with a thick layer of sandbags for walls). He started timing the bursts so he fired on the back swing, and it got so bad we decided that would end badly if he kept doing it. A lot of folks don't know that a .50 isn't just big, it's high velocity, and ricochets easily. We got bored when there wasn't any action, and one day after a heavy rain, tried hitting targets with a .50 on single shot (military Brownings had a selector) by bouncing the rounds off puddles. That was about as accurate as closing your eyes. Give a bunch of 19-22 year olds toys like that...