Spatula they aren't machine guns. They are for ultra-long range target shooting. The USMC (and other branches I presume) use them to kill vehicles and bad guys from real far away.
Saw an interesting show... "Suicide missions: Snipers" on the history channel. It concluded by discussing how the military was moving away from sniping to kill people and more towards sniping to simply kill equipment.... from 2000 yards
Oh... and a .50 is pretty much for target only. There is no real hunting application. In some states, it is even illegal to hunt with anything bigger than a 45 calibre. They used to have a problem with people shooting something 1200 yards away, but not being able to retrieve (or not wanting to) the animal. Ah.. Idaho at its best.
Oh.. and in most states its illegal to hunt with a .223 also (no 22 caliber weapons).
AKDejaVu