I have a 44 bolt action with which I have harvested 4 deer. It is a WONDERFUL rifle, but it's not a 308.

If you planted them, harvest might be a useful word. Kill is the word you are looking for. You took a life for your table, at least, try be honest.

Does it matter? Deer, like cattle, sheep, and other similar animals are a renewable resource and can indeed be harvested like any other crop... Does one kill the animal to harvest it? Oh, yes, but the terminology doesn't matter. I've killed many deer... and harvested more than a few cattle...

It's not a pistol round. Drop one on the ground and see what it looks like. It dwarfs all the rounds in the game except the 5mm.

I am not arguing with your statement, that his opinion is based on common perception. I don't know on what he base it since he did not say it. All I say is that his opinion, just like common perception you describe is wrong. And I provided some evidence and sources. They might not be the best and you are welcome to discuss them but you can't dismiss video or photo by coming up with what is common perception.

Common perception is not and argument. Do you disagree?

Do you realize that's staged video played with actors?

But regardless, I am not in disagreement with you about penetrative power of .50. You don't have to convince me. What I however disagree with is, that penetrative power equals wounding capacity of the round. Actually these two are contrary to each other for reasons I already wrote about.

Yes it is heavy. But that's not an argument. Everything soldier caries around is heavy when added on top of each other. Soldiers carry everything what it takes to wage war and win. And it's not even up to soldier to decide. Modern soldiers carry about 100 lbs of equipment and weapons (add or subtract depending on country and branch). There are even recorded instances of soldiers suffering injuries from all the weight they have to carry. And by the way, soldiers generally carry MORE weight then their predecessors regardless the fact that predecessors used larger and much heavier cartridges. And munition for their personal weapon is just small part of it, they have to carry munition for squad weapons too, like mortar rounds, grenades and rockets for grenade and rocket launchers, ammo for machine guns, communication equipment, food water, entrenching tools and so on and so forth.

If their personal weapons would use .50cal, they would carry .50 rounds for it. They would may be not carry 600 but you can be sure that they would if that was what would make them win the fight. Reason they don't is that smaller bullets do the job just like .50 would or better. .50 is not anti personal round by design, it's anti material and anti armor round. That's not to say it's newer used against enemy personnel, it's just not it's primary purpose.

I newer said it is. I said that wounding power of .44 modified for big game hunting is equal or close to wounding power of .308. Which it have to, because even 5.56 is considered bit too little for big game hunting. Yes you can hunt deer with it but anything bigger and it might not kill reliably enough (and yes I know there are people who do, but they themselves say you have to be more careful with bullet placement with 5.56 or it's .223 variant).

Makes no sense. So you claim, that basically driving screwdriver (substitute any other sharp object) through body with more speed will produce larger in diameter hole?

No, it won't. Hole will be the same.

All rounds produce wounding hole which is just marginally larger then their diameter, regardless of speed. It's ability of the bullet to change it's shape, or position -and thus changing it's cross section along the axis of the movement which produce larger hole.

What speed and mass produce is dept of that hole, not it's diameter.

Ability of bullet to expand, turn or shatter -which are the most important factors contributing to size of the wound, especially it's diameter, is based primarily on construction of the bullet and it's shape, not directly on it's speed. That is very easy to attest. Fire two bullets of exact weight and exact speed but different shape (say one flat nosed and other sharp nosed) in to body. The results will be dramatically different.

Bullets which are unstable upon impact, like Warsaw Pact 5.45x39 are usually specially designed to be unstable. It's not their speed and mass (which in this case is small anyway) which makes them unstable. Standard 5.45x39 have a hollow tip, there is large cavity right in it's nose under the cap which causes center of the mass to shift backwards from where it normally would be. That causes bullet to more likely tumble inside the target. You can see it here: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/86/9c/3d/869c3d6a5e5b99e5bffe89c343dd3087.jpg. That's why they are more effective then 5.56 NATO.

Likewise hard caped bullets are less likely to deform or shatter then soft shaped bullets. Most high performance military bullets are hard caped.

Higher speed and mass actually generally contribute to the stability of the bullet (or any object) since inertial force is proportional to mass and acceleration (in this case deceleration). Higher mass = larger inertia and higher speed = larger deceleration (because friction increases with square of speed) = larger inertia too.

That's also exactly what wounding profiles of traditional high performance cartridges show. They start turn at the end of the wound (and thus create large cavity) when they are solved down, not at the beginning of the wound when they still have high velocity. More modern rounds designed to be unstable like 5.45x39 are different of course. They then produce two large cavities, one at the beginning of the wound and one at the end.

Common perception is only an argument when the subject is subjective, such as the mindset of somebody elses opinion (such as "Hitler was evil"), or a commonality such as the common perception that gravity works (things do not fall upwards), or when there are no other facts presentable with which to arrive at a determination such as the statement "There is/is not life anywhere in the universe other than on earth." I'm a little uncomfortable with blanket statements, eh?

Yes, I know this is a staged video with actors based on a real encounter. It's not that there aren't real videos out there, it's that they are too bloody (and graphically so) to be posted on this site...

I don't know that I've ever actually disagreed with the idea that penetrative doesn't equal wounding capacity. The arguement I'm involved in has to do with relative ability to inflict damage between the .44 cal pistol and the .50 caliber rifle.My position is that damage is conditional, and based on other factors.

Okay, you say the .50 won't do the extreme damage that it's known for because the human body is not thick enough right? We're talking an 18 inch margin, which is where the video showed more extreme damage occurring. But what if the target body is in a prone position, and the bullet enters the upper torso and passes through the torso into the hip and leg area. Or the sniper is (as is often true) in an elevated position firing downward into a standing target or prone target that is at an angle? Will it not do extreme damage in that situation?

So, to hear you tell it, one would think that there is no upward limit on what a soldier can carry and remain an effective fighting man. So let me ask you, do you think a man can carry say... 500 lbs of equipment, weapons, and ammo and all that is required is orders to do so? Second, do you really think that 50 rounds of .50 cal ammo would be enough? Do you have any idea of the amount of ammo a soldier goes through in the course of even a relatively short engagement? Especially considering auto and semi auto weapons.

Back in WWII heavy .50 cal machine guns were used, but they required a crew to carry. Even the LMG usually had a two man crew with one man carrying the weapon and the other carrying the ammo...

Of course now, the military is moving into the idea of robotic pack mules, so maybe having too much to carry will change.

Oh come on. That is more of an issue of an ongoing debate of terminology, than anyone being dishonest. It will not be solved on a video game chat board no matter how much you believe yourself in the right...and will more than likely only serve to derail a thread and get it locked. Hunters and the press use both terms, regardless of whether anyone agrees/disagrees with the implications of either verb. It's hardly a settled matter. Just stop. This will devolve this thread into politics...which would be bad.

He or she is not being dishonest.

Realistically, they would be the only weapon the user would ever use, with a rifle for long range. any firearm above 9mm is bound to do serious damage, and the .44 is known to create massive holes in anything it blasts in that's organic. Thick skull or not, a Deathclaw would had it's head shattered in different sections from a .44 magnum shot and die from a massive hemorrhage, or a painful gutshot that incapacitates it from the massive shock a .44 creates.

Is wounding ability (or damage or what ever you call it) subjective subject?

Actually there are not that many videos of .50 hitting humans around. I was not able to find any. I found one or two hunting videos of not very good quality or lacking description but that's all. I was not looking terribly hard though. .50 is not very common cartridge when it comes to killing people or hunting game.

Yes it is conditional, I agree with that. But not random. It is based on objective facts, physical properties and laws. All I try argue is that energy of the bullet alone, is not directly proportional to wounding ability like some posters claim. And that's not my personal claim. Btw I don't argue against .50 being very lethal, I argue against some fantastic claims about it's lethality. There's no evidence that it cuts people in two when it hits torso and there's no evidence that it blows limbs away. Not to mention shock wave nonsense.

In fact under certain conditions it can produce very little damage.

Yes in that case damage will increase. I don't think that situation when sniper stands directly or almost directly above it's targets or when shooters stands right in the front of perfectly prone target and hits torso are all that common, but when that occurs, .50 will deliver it's full damage.

However, and you can see that on the video, even then .50 doesn't do catastrophic damage claimed here by some poster. The second gelatin cube was not torn in to bits, it was not cut in half. It remained in one piece and cavity which was produced as far as I can see is comparable to much less powerful cartridges.

That's also exactly what source I posted before claim. .50 produces cavity of the same or similar diameter to .308, it's just creates it deeper in the gelatin. Which is exactly problem with .50, under most conditions, it tends to over penetrate human sized targets. For that reason, if I could choose between being hit with .50 and .44 in to the arm, I would rather receive .50. It would most likely leave my arm in better shape then .44. In case bone would be hit, it would likely make no difference anyway but .44 would do much larger damage to muscle.

On the other hand if it would be my chest to be hit, potentially inside body armor, story might be different.

I think how much can soldier carry and remain effective is conditional

It was quit common in WWII for soldiers to discard their helmets, bayonets, entrenching tools and lot of other things because every gram of weight made difference when you had to march 40 km every day. And remain combat capable (not to say effective). You may look at old photos from Eastern front or Northern Africa and wonder why soldiers does not have helmets. That's why. What they however newer discarded was their weapon and ammo.

The second LMG man was machine gun assistant. His primary role was not to cray ammo, ammo for machine gun was typically carried by all soldiers in the squad (you can newer have enough ammo for machine gun). His role was to carry and exchange reserve barrel (which had to be exchanged periodically because of overheating), reload and serve ammo magazines, spot targets for gunner, protect him with his own weapon and replace him if he was shot or otherwise put out of action.

I would just like to chime in and say that I do find the fully upgraded 50 cal sniper rifle in fallout 4 to be fairly weak compared to its peers assuming max stats. its comparable to a fully upgraded laser rifle. the plasma rifle does far more damage, the 44 magnum does more damage (these two cannot be silenced though) and the gauss rifle beats everything, massive damage, semi auto or chargeable, mounts any scope, can be silenced, etc.

some weapons just seem to fall off into uselessness as you progress, and I wish it were possible with mods and perks to bring everything to a more even playing field at end game, I just like some weapons for RP reasons, but you really cannot use them at points :C

@Arras, as I said, the bigger the hole, the more damage - for projectiles...NOT screwdrivers. The greater the mass, and the greater the velocity, the larger the hole into the tissue, and the greater the bleeding surface, and the more likely something critical will be damaged.

That's basic science.

However, if I could drive a screwdriver all the way through a buffalo skin-shoulder blade-lung-heart etc, and out the other side, I'd be pretty certain it would die...ergo, my point still stands.

I'll just clarify, again, as you missed my point...I specifically avoided the term diameter, and I referred to 'size' of the hole, and 'bleeding surface'.

As a further general comment, small arms rounds are known by their actual nomenclature, i.e. .577/45 (being a .577 Schneider case, with a .45 calibre projectile). Simply referring to a projectile by calibre or bore size leads to all sorts of confusion, which is why debates between those who do know a significant amount about firearms and ammunition, and those who only have a very basic layman's knowledge (or less) is virtually pointless, in realistic terms.

The honor of Bethesda demands it!

But seriously, you're right...and consider the weight of a .50BMG service rifle on top of that, not to mention how awkward all of them would be to use due to their size. Even the biggest Col Blimps in the Puzzle Palace could grasp .50BMG is wildly impractical as a round for a infantry service rifle....outside of it's intended purpose (in light automatic cannon) it's a tool for specialists.

That's utterly nonsensical. Believe or not, the military is made of human beings. They actually care about human concerns and will not normally ask the impossible of people unless there is no other option in a life-or-death situation. If they asked that on a regular basis, the entire US Military would consist of about...12 people.

Just like in Skyrim.

Hunting animals is called "killing" or "bagging".

Raising tame animals for resources is called "herding" or "ranching". Killing them for food is called "slaughtering". The overall method is called "husbandry".

General knowledge for any who care.

The largest argument I am seeing is that the .50 is designed to kill armor, not people, but that also is irrelevant as the .44 does more damage against everything, power armor, robots, cars, vertibirds, there is no way the .44 pistol should outperform a .50 rifle against these types of opponents, and yet it does so both in that it has a higher damage, and fire rate, meaning you can't get ohko with the .44 you can't with the .50, but the .44 will get the second shot first,

and thus there is no reason for the .50 unless you are sneak sniping with sandman from a range only slightly greater than the .44, but not killing the target in one shot with the pistol while one shotting with the barely better sneak bonus on the rifle.

The .50 rifle needs a damage buff, because it is utterly inferior in every conceivable way.

The 50 is for rifleman, the 44 is for gunslinger. They are similar in game so that both can be competitive.

You know, for a worm, you really aren't all that misguided.

yeah, believe it or not, I was raised on a fairly remote cattle ranch. We had a lot of cattle, and we also did our deer hunting from the back porch... along with bear and the occasional cougar... but the point is that it does not matter what you call it. Venison pan fried converted into hunter's steak, simmered in thick brown gravy with hash browns and pancakes on the side is a breakfast to kill for no matter what you care to call it....

Heh, aparently it is a subjective subject. You see I would call getting a wound that will almost certainly kill me "damage" whether it's lethal because my internal organs are jellified, or because I bleed out in a few minutes. Some people apparently don't think that is significant damage,so the matter is subjective. A matter of opinion, I guess....

As to the second man on the LMG, Frankly Scarlett, I don't give a damn what he was carrying. He was definitely carrying something, whether it was ammo, spare barrels, or a change of underwear for the gunner, he was still carrying part of the load. The rest of the squad may have been helping out by carrying ammo, but the point is that if each one of them is already carrying as much .50 ammo as he can for his own use, there isn't going to be anyone able to help carry ammo for anyone or anything else, eh?

I suggest you think about the nearby post that mentions that soldiers are (at least for the moment) human and limited by their humanity in what they can and can't do.

I've got something else for you to think about though... I'm not certain if the effect has a name (though it almost certainly does) but there is a thing with full metal jacket bullets. They have a tendency to hit bone, and follow the bone. Meaning that if a high velocity full metal jacketed bullet were to strike you in the arm and hit bone, there is a reasonable chance that the bullet will follow the bone either down to your wrist where it will exit, or up your arm into your chest where it will rattle around inside your chest before finally either exiting your rib cage or coming to a full stop once its energy is spent. What does your high velocity little damage theory say about that?

Hungry now. brb.

Well, in the game, the .50 cal is mostly used for rifles. And the rifleman perk offers greater damage than the gunslinger perk. Max rifleman reduces armour resistance of enemies by 30% in addition to the double damage both perks offer, which is huge. Gunslinger offer no armour reduction. So while the .44 offers better damage in the low levels (since you can't max perk out) it is balanced by lack of ammo. .44 ammo is very scarce in low to mid level, and uncommon in higher levels, while the .50 cal is somewhat common from mid level and up.

I'm not talking realism here (since the .50 cal should offer bigger damage than the .44) but merely, viewing it from how Beth have chosen to balance them. A thing to tip the scale in favor of the .50 cal would be to introduce ammo types, as the .50 cal would come in more powerful varieties (incendiary and explosive for example)

Size refers to all dimensions of the wound. What you wrote would be true only for depth (or length if you wish). Bullet which penetrates all through body will still have smaller bleeding surface then one which penetrates half way but creates cavity size of fist.

I know. But those who know guns, understand that we talk about .50 Browning Machine Gun and .44 Magnum. Those who don't know, does not care anyway. As for differences within these two types themselves, that's well beyond scope here, we are discussing general performance.

What is so hard to understand? You know that military DO use .50 bmg right? It's among other things used in Barret M99 or Bushmaster BA50 and dozen of other sniper/anti material rifles, not to mention heavy machine guns.

We don't have to discuss if soldiers would be able to carry .50 ammo because that question was solved. They DO carry it. And believe it or not, that's not only thing they carry. Not by far. Of course they don't carry as many rounds as those who carry 5.56x45. Just like generation earlier, when main infantry weapons were chambered in 7.62x63mm, which weights about double that of 5.56x45 were also carrying them without falling on their faces. They were simply caring less of them or less of other equipment.

As simple as that.

That would be effect equal to ricocheting off the armor. I am not sure if bone is dense enough to cause ricocheting, especially upon high performance bullets. If it happens, it also happens only at certain angles of impact upon bone and just like such bullet could be ricocheted in to the more tissue, it could also be ricocheted out of it. Like rib "leading" you bullet away from chest and all the important organs inside.

So if such effect even exist, it works both ways -potentially increasing or decreasing damage, depending on situation.

I'm not disputing that, as it was my point - the bigger the hole, meaning a larger bleeding surface, the higher lethality.

In some cases, a lower velocity round, with greater density, is a preferable option over a lighter faster round, for hunting. 'Raptor' rounds are fast becoming a large game preference in some hunting circles, even though their accuracy drops off significantly, and velocity is lower compared to the same round in other materials - Raptors are 95% brass, and 5% lead, and are pair matched for large bore express rifles - one semi-frangible hollow point with tear-away petalling to increase wound channelling, and a wad-cutter style solid slug. It's not uncommon for .470 express Raptors of both types to pass through cape buffalo, and there's even been some reports of .375 express doing it (but personally I'm doubtful on that). Edit: I'll add that due to the vastly increased hardness of the brass/lead composition, Raptors are machined with a driving band arrangement to engage rifling, rather than the body of the round being driven into the rifling as with standard projectiles.