{"id":57678,"date":"2020-09-29T02:00:39","date_gmt":"2020-09-29T06:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=57678"},"modified":"2020-09-28T08:40:51","modified_gmt":"2020-09-28T12:40:51","slug":"light-fifty-the-barrett-m82a1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2020\/09\/29\/light-fifty-the-barrett-m82a1\/","title":{"rendered":"Light Fifty: the Barrett M82A1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"853\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/iEDFn3UtVIc\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Forgotten Weapons<\/strong><br \/>\nPublished 10 Aug 2016<\/p>\n<p>Sold for $6,900.<\/p>\n<p>The story of the development of the Barrett M82 .50 BMG semiauto rifle is really a neat story &mdash; much more interesting than most people probably expect, and reminiscent of many firearms development stories of the 1800s. Ronnie Barrett was working as a photographer in the late 70s, and became interested (perhaps obsessed?) with the idea of a semiauto .50 caliber rifle after a photo session with a Vietnam War jungle patrol boat (which was armed with a pair of M2 .50 caliber machine guns). At the time, the only civilian options for the .50 BMG cartridge were conversions of WWII antitank rifles like the Boys and PTRD.<\/p>\n<p>Barrett, with basically no formal engineering background, sketched up a design and approached some machine shops for advice and assistance. He started working in his garage, and after a couple years had a functioning prototype completed. He sold the rifles commercially at gun shows and through publications like <em>Shotgun News<\/em> until making his first military sale in 1989, to the Swedish government. The following year he received an order from the US military, and sales took off from there.<\/p>\n<p>Contrary to common expectation, the Barrett M82A1 is not really a &#8220;sniper&#8221; rifle &mdash; as a semiautomatic design with a recoil-operated action it&#8217;s potential accuracy is much less than that of a bolt action precision rifle &mdash; and this is amplified by the lack of a precision .50 BMG cartridge in US military service. In practice, the M82A1 will shoot about 3 MOA with normal ball ammunition, and about 1.5-2 MOA with good handloads. It is used primarily as an EOD rifle to detonate heavy-walled unexploded shells at a safe distance, and as an anti-material rifle to attack light vehicles and infrastructure at a long distance. These are relatively large targets, which require the large payload of a .50 BMG projectile but not the extreme accuracy of a true &#8220;sniper&#8217;s&#8221; rifle.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Screenshot_2020-09-29-Light-Fifty-the-Barrett-M82A1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Screenshot_2020-09-29-Light-Fifty-the-Barrett-M82A1-480x270.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"270\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-60576\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Screenshot_2020-09-29-Light-Fifty-the-Barrett-M82A1-480x270.png 480w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Screenshot_2020-09-29-Light-Fifty-the-Barrett-M82A1-150x84.png 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Screenshot_2020-09-29-Light-Fifty-the-Barrett-M82A1-768x432.png 768w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Screenshot_2020-09-29-Light-Fifty-the-Barrett-M82A1.png 853w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Forgotten Weapons Published 10 Aug 2016 Sold for $6,900. The story of the development of the Barrett M82 .50 BMG semiauto rifle is really a neat story &mdash; much more interesting than most people probably expect, and reminiscent of many firearms development stories of the 1800s. Ronnie Barrett was working as a photographer in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5,13,663],"tags":[1366,49],"class_list":["post-57678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-military","category-usa","category-weapons","tag-forgottenweapons","tag-guns"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-f0i","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57678"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60577,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57678\/revisions\/60577"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}