The Firearm Blog

The .50-Caliber Rifle Construction Manual written by Bill Holmes was published in 2002. The Amazon customer reviews have criticized the book for its poor drawings and complex construction techniques.

A guy names “mxwelch” on YouTube has build a working .50 BMG rifle based on Bill’s book. To simplify construction he used an M2 maching gun barrel which he cut it down and re-chambered, instead of building his own, and made the rifle single shot instead of a magazine fed repeater.

The total monetary cost was $400 which includes the M2 barrel and chamber reamer rental. It took over 25 hours of shop time to build!

It weights 34 lbs and can shoot 1.5 MOA.

McBride did 3 things in the War. He ran a Machine Gun Squad, acted as a Rifleman, and acted as a Sniper, and he described all three extensively. Of course he grew up shooting, and joined the army already a skilled armed outdoorsman. He thought the 2 things most valuable about basic training for the general soldier was rifle range practice to get better with your weapon, and marching about to get in shape for the rigors ahead.

Jovian Thunderbolt has written a review on the above a book. I really want to get this book! More here.