Whale apparently hunted with .50 caliber firearm

The Associated Press is reporting that an injured whale was recovered yesterday after being shot with a .50 caliber firearm. It is important to remember that the Associated Press have demonstrated little understanding of firearms in the past.

Picture 18

They have claimed that the whale was shot with a “.50-caliber machine gun”. I would be impressed if they can tell the difference between a .50BMG rifle (if it was in fact .50BMG and not another .50 caliber cartridge) and a .50BMG machine gun. Or if they even know the difference between a machine gun and a rifle.

However, I do find it interesting that the Makah Tribe, who are legally allowed to hunt whales, use .50 caliber rifles. I guess they may be used when a harpoon has not killed a whale and they are not able to take another shot with the it.

50Cal

More here.

UPDATE: Some tribesman are being held by the Coast Guard, but not charged, over the incident. More here.

Related Posts

Steve Sep 9th 2007 ammunition, rifles Tags: , No Comments yet

Leave a Comment

Comment Policy: I reserve the right to remove comments at my discretion. Think of comment threads like a dinner party at someone's house. If you make the party unpleasant for others or me, you won't be invited back. I am happy to tolerate a wide range of viewpoints, even extreme ones, but I'm not going to tolerate nastiness, rudeness, trolling, vitriol, or excessive snarkiness toward the author(s) or other commenters. You may make your case passionately, but civility is expected. Please stay on topic and respect the technical nature of this blog.
Spam Filtering: To avoid spam, comments are filtered using Akismet and then manually approved. Do not be alarmed if you comment does not appear instantly. I do not check the spam folder more than once per day.