Originally posted by 101ABN
No, it wont shake the gun apart... i have had .50 mounted to my vehicle in the past and they are steady... fired tons of rounds out of them.. since all parts inside the gun move during fire.. the reciever remains steady... also, the barrel will move with every shot too... its all about the head space and timing of the weapon. i can imagine as time went by during the war, barrels were replaced after long active missions and then after time the whole gun system would be replaced since you cant just replace the bolt and bolt carrier. Ive spent 12 of the last 14 years of my army life with a M2 .50 cal... love it!!!
Several years ago I was at a Navy facility (NSWC Crane) to do some testing on M2HBs. We had attached a device that records firing and stores the data for future download. It monitored weapon timing, being able to record shot times to within a millisecond.
We set up our hardware on the test range and a Master Chief Gunner's Mate and a couple of junior POs bring out an newly refurbished M2HB, with an immaculate parkerized finish. It looked new, but I asked the Master Chief to double-check the head spacing and timing as I wanted a tight gun to avoid skewing the data. He dutifully opened the receiver and using his head space gauge, verified it was ok. They then loaded a belt of ammo, cycled the charging handle the required two cycles (half-load, full-load) and we began with the goal being to shoot short bursts of 3 or 4 rounds.
However, after just two rounds, there was a misfeed. Recycling the charging handle seemed to fix it and another attempt was made. Again, there was a feed jam after two rounds.
They open the receiver and fiddle around a bit. Reload, two pulls on the handle and shoot... Another jam. After some swearing by the Petty Officers, I stood up and looked at the weapon myself. I'm quite familiar with the M2HB, although I hadn't handled or fired one in years. It took about two seconds to discover what the problem was. I strolled over to the Master Chief and took him aside.
"Chief, the rear stop is missing."
"It's what? It's missing??"
"Yeah", I said, "there's no rear stop installed."
He walks over, looks and goes bonkers. After reaming the GM2 who signed off the weapon, he has them go get another from the armory.
When the new gun arrives, the Chief inspects it personally.... He discovers an issue when checking it with the timing gauge. So, we waited while they adjusted the timing. Finally we were able to do the test.
The lesson was easy to see... Never depend upon an armorer to give you a functional weapon. Inspect it yourself, and shoot it to verify function and accuracy.
My regards,
Widewing