I still remember the day I met Sarah. I recall the
very moment my eyes first captured a glimpse of her. Having no way of knowing
how much she would come to mean to me or how she would change my life, it
wasn’t long before I affectionately referred to her as “The Mrs.” or “the Old
Ball and Chain.” Every day I woke up with a smile, eager to show her off to my
friends who’d undoubtedly never seen her rival. Amongst their flurry of
questions, though never the first, always one would emerge. They wanted to know
why I named my gun Sarah. I’d always smile in reply and answer, “Because nobody
doesn’t like Sarah Lee.”
The truth however is not so simple. As with any
lady of immense reputation, Sarah has become an object of desire and jealousy,
excitement and fear, love and loathing. She’s not your average firearm. She’s
no ordinary weapon. She’s big. To be more precise, she’s chambered in the fifty
BMG (Browning Machine Gun) caliber and as a Barrett 82A1, to many she defines
combat-proven sniping capability. Legendary fails as a word to describe both
the amazing capacity of the BMG and the myths that have formed around it.
Uniqueness surrounds the BMG more so than the
flocks of admirers at the firing range. Sarah’s beauty is enticing, but she is
so much more. Recreational shooters love the BMG not just for the extended
range and wind resistance. There’s something indescribably awesome about it. Rounds
of ammunition aren’t merely fired off; they’re detonated. A visible concussion
wave radiates from the rifle’s muzzle and, in my experience, forces a smile
onto all of the faces within the blast radius. Though poets’ song and artists’
brush may strive to tell of bliss, one need only pull the trigger to know how
close he is.
The BMG reigns as the king of cartridges. In the
decades following its development, several “ballistically superior” rounds have
been created and used. A bullet is said to be better for having a greater
ability to preserve its own kinetic energy over long distances. The four
sixteen is faster. The four o eight possesses less recoil and a flatter
trajectory. Snipers’ appreciations for these rounds threaten to dethrone the
king, but neither will ever have the sheer stopping power provided by the BMG.
It was developed primarily as an anti-material weapon, purpose built for puncturing
tanks, stopping trucks, and destroying targets on the opposite side of
barricades. No other bullet has been mass-manufactured with an equally large
variety of tactical options including: armor-piercing, incendiary, tracer, and
even explosive rounds. Long live the king.
The fifty caliber’s power gave rise to the notion
that a near miss could still kill its target. Some claim the resulting
shockwave from the bullet can tear an ear off. Other people even imagined it
taking an arm. The myth is entirely ridiculous, but the fact that people haven’t
only believed it, but spread it, proves how much respect it has. The only
reasonable origin for the lore comes from Vietnam. Given the scarcity of BMG
ammo for the machine guns, commanders told their soldiers not to engage soft
targets with the fifty calibers. People assume a lot of things and dying from a
gut-wrenching shockwave is an inhumane manner to conduct war. Despite all of
the unjustified hype surrounding the giant cartridge, from time to time I’ve
taken to saying it’s a hard cartridge to underestimate.
Just a number of months ago, I
walked into a friend’s house and was immediately asked, “How was the range?”
I replied, “It was awesome! I
started a fire!” I regarded the statements to be as separate as they were true.
I’d only shot three tracer rounds that day, but I guess it was enough. The
unexplained and fascinating part was the fire’s location. It was significantly
to the right of my target and behind the berm I was shooting into, unable to be
seen when it started. Luckily it could be seen from a road in the distance. A
couple individuals charged up the firing range in a truck to combat the flames
and scold the fool who made them.
Not two years earlier, Sarah’s first
real target, her first victim was a tree in Washington’s Tahuya State Forest.
Before I fired that first bullet, I wasn’t certain if I would be able to see
where it impacted. I was throwing out armor-piercing incendiary, tracers
because they were the cheapest things I could find. I’d only recently placed a
scope on the rifle and I couldn’t even know where the bullet was destined to
land. The tree stood only a hundred yards away and at sixteen inches in
diameter, it couldn’t have known what was to come next. Not only did every
impact appear perfectly visible, many hits resulted in chunks of wood flying
out the other side. The tree didn’t stand a chance. As I heard it start to
crack and buckle under its own weight, I lost my composure and forgot my
military reserve. I shouted excitedly and threw my hands up, watching more than
fifty feet of tree come crashing down. I approached the tree afterward for the
first time and stood atop it, victoriously.
Only weeks before my lumberjacking career, I fired
Sarah for the first time. She didn’t even have a scope, but I couldn’t wait. I’d
anticipated the moment for longer than I could remember, seeing images of her
brothers and sisters in old war movies from my childhood. I carefully assembled
the gun. I filled the magazine with each of the five dollar rounds I owned.
Flipping up the iron sights, I looked down the barrel intently for the first
time at a target. My hands trembled slightly, but I tried to hide it from my two
friends who were equally eager. Slowly I exhaled and pulled the trigger…
The safety was still on. I flicked it up and took
aim again. I focused on my breathing and tried to keep recoil out of my mind.
Just as I’d always been taught I slowly squeezed the trigger.
Click. I forgot to chamber a round. I reached up
and pulled back on the charging handle and then I pushed it forward again. Embarrassed,
I only glanced at my friends, less able to cover my second mistake. Once more I
lined up the shot, steadied my nerves, and tensed my finger. I fought my
instinct to close my eyes and concentrated on the target.
Click. “Oh, come on!” Evidently the charging
handle hadn’t gone all the way forward. The daylight was dying. I couldn’t
forgive myself three times. I found the problem, fixed it, sat down, stopped
caring about the target, pointed down range, checked the safety, shouldered the
gun, and hurriedly pulled the trigger.
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