.50 Browning Machine Gun

John Moses Browning (January 21, 1855 - November 26, 1926), born in Ogden, Utah, the son of a Mormon gunsmith is considered by many to be the greatest firearms designer ever to live. He invented many innovative and popular sporting and military weapons produced by his own company, as well as Winchester, Colt, and other domestic and foreign manufacturers. His military arms are credited-even by the enemy-with giving the United States and its allies weapons superiority in every conflict of the 20th century. Of the .50-caliber machine gun, German Field Marshal Herman Göring said, "If the German Air Force had had the Browning .50-caliber, the Battle of Britain would have turned out differently." Browning was the inventor and designer of the .50 caliber machine gun in 1910, but it wasn't until 1917 that the United States Army placed an order with Browning for his machine guns. Over the next eighteen months 57,000 of these guns were produced for soldiers fighting on the Western Front. Browning also produced an automatic rifle which fired a 20 round magazine. Over 52,000 of these were purchased by the United States Army and deployed as a support weapon for the light machine-gun. He is credited with 128 gun patents - his first (for a single shot rifle) was granted October 7, 1879.

In addition to designing several versions of lever action rifles for the Winchester Firearms company, the weapons he developed included:
A semi-automatic shotgun
A pump action shotgun (including the US Army issue M97)
A .22 caliber rifle
The M2 .50 caliber heavy machine gun
The Model 1917 water-cooled machine gun
The Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR)
The Browning Hi-Power 9mm semi-automatic handgun
The Colt Model 1911 .45 semi-automatic handgun

The last three weapons saw use in World War I, World War II and the Korean War. The Colt 1911 had the longest period of service from 1911 to 1986, and a variant is still used by special operations units of the USMC and FBI's Hostage Rescue Team. Browning had a long standing relationship with Fabrique Nationale (FN) to build many of his guns. In 1977 FN acquired the Browning Arms Company which had been established in 1927, the year after Browning's death. His M2 .50 caliber heavy machine gun was designed prior to World War I, and is still in use by U.S. Armed Forces.

Browning belonged to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and served a two year mission for the church in Georgia beginning on March 28, 1887. His father Jonathan Browning, who was among the thousands of Mormon pioneers in the mass exodus from Nauvoo, Illinois to Utah, had established a gunsmith shop in Ogden in 1852.

The Browning .50 caliber machine gun has seen combat in every war since it was first put into service by the United States Army in 1917, and has served faithfully protecting our men and women in the military.

Bore diameter: .50 inches (12.7mm)

Maximum effective range: 7,450 yards (That's 75 football fields laid end-to-end)

Maximum Range: 4.22 miles

Cyclic rate: of fire: 550 rounds per minute

Penetration: The most regularly used round of .50 caliber ammunition is called the "ball." According to the U.S. Army, ball ammunition is so powerful it can penetrate one inch of concrete, six inches of sand, and 21 inches of clay at a range of 1,640 yards. The deadliest .50 caliber ammunition is the Raufoss multi-purpose round. These bullets combine armor-piercing, explosive, and incendiary effects for maximum destruction. The United States Marine Corps notes that the Raufoss multi-purpose round can penetrate an inch of steel at 2000 yards. Additionally, International Defense Review estimates that the round is "probably capable of disabling a man wearing body armor who is standing behind the wall of a house at 2,000 meters." The impact of these rounds are so horrific that in 1998 the International Committee of the Red Cross tried to have the round declared an "exploding bullet" banned under international law. An excerpt from Sniper: The Skills, the Weapons, and the Experience provides an example of how the U.S. military exploited its tremendous firepower during the Gulf War: "The Barrett M82A1 was used in the Gulf War; a hundred rifles were rushed to the Marine Corps in time to see action in the desert. In one engagement, Sergeant Kenneth Terry of 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, hit and knocked out an Iraqi BMP armored personnel carrier with two armor-piercing incendiary rounds at a range of 1100 meters."

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