Tuesday, October 09, 2007

"Need" has got nothing to do with it...

Bored by your .338 Lapua? .585 Nyati just not making enough *BANG!* anymore? Everybody and their brother in your neighborhood has a .50 BMG rifle?

The solution is simple: Spend the dough for the $200 Destructive Device tax stamp and get a 20mm rifle!

What's it good for? Hell if I know; probably useless for anything except turning money into noise, but that's never stopped me from dropping a wad of cash at the fireworks store.

(H/T to the AtomicNerds.)

26 comments:

Mark said...

That's positively obscene.

I want one.

Anonymous said...

Looks big enough you can tack a .50 bmg on the side as a spotting rifle.


"Mine's bigger than yours"

LawDog said...

There's a suppressor available?!?

A suppressed 20mm bolt-action rifle...

Oh. My. Ever-loving. Gawd.

I WANT!

Kevin said...

Don't the individual rounds require a DD tax stamp as well, since they're over .50 caliber?

Rustmeister said...

"turning money into noise"

I like that. Can I use it from time to time?

Tam said...

"Don't the individual rounds require a DD tax stamp as well, since they're over .50 caliber?"

Only if they have the creamy explosive nougat filling.

Anonymous said...

I know Mike, and I got to "fondle" his "20".I didn't have much time to do so as he was packing it up to ship it off somewhere. The best part is that he is muttering about a 30mm and a 40mm. The sticking part on those is that he likes his stuff to be "man-
portable", and his designs for the two bigger ones are just a little too heavy at this point.

The 20 fits into two Pelican cases that weigh about 75 pounds loaded. On, yeah, one last - he couldn't find a scope for it that didn't disintegrate after a couple of shots so he is now building his own scopes using a 35mm tube with silicon-bronze mounted internals.
emdfl

Anonymous said...

My favorite part is that on the other model they already have a gooseneck trailer hitch mount for the thing. Tailgaters will no longer be an issue.

And thanks for the linky love. :D

Anonymous said...

You're very wicked. Now I'll be wanting one of these for years. First John Ross with the 20mm, now you. It's a plot!

It would be a maintenance nightmare for me. If I had one, I'd probably bathe with it and that means lots of aftercare. So sad.

Anonymous said...

I'd never even heard of the .585 Nyati...

Anonymous said...

Shades of Henry Bowman, Batman!

Unknown said...

Does it come with a light rail for nightime tactical moves (such as room to room CQB?
Who cares, I want one also!!!
Will

Anonymous said...

Not correct. A 20mm is still a DD, even if you shoot AP in it. Anything over .50 cal and not on the exceptions list.

I own a 20mm Lahti ... and yes, it is a Destructive Device, even though I only have AP rounds.

You can get it in a 200mmx.50" wildcat round he has cooked up, which would not be a DD.

Anonymous said...

Sorry .... 20mm - .50 BMG wildcat.

Billy Beck said...

Somebody -- an enthusiast -- once described 12-meter yacht racing as "standing in a cold shower, tearing up hundred-dollar bills as fast as you can"; the kind of thing that half-kooks do, and certainly nobody needs to do it. Think about people flying big-ass jet fighters on their own dime, or anyone else's that they can convince to buy part of the deal. Nobody "needs" to be doing any of that stuff any more than they "need" a cave, a chunk of meat, and fire in order to just stay alive.

But ain't it cool to live in a place where people can be as peacefully kooky as they want to be if they wanna, already?

Yee-hah. Let 'em roll.

Anonymous said...

You can just see the advert for this:

Some range.

You pan over someone with his 10/22...
to someone with his AR-15...
to someone with his .308
to the .458 win
to the someone with .50 cal rifle...

all of whom are looking wide eyed and horrified at the smoking recoil brake poking past the seperator curtain....and you pan to the Volkwagen carcass WAAAAY down on the range that has just been moved a couple of inches by the recoil.

Focus on someone Smiling about 8" wide.


As for the 30mm and 40mm versions. It's been done:

Recoiless rifles: Dangerous at BOTH ends

Unknown said...

kristopher,

the rifle is a DD, but the ammo isn't, unless it's explosive-filled.

If'n you have the cash for a 40mm grenade launcher, you have to hork up the tax for the launcher, and then for each individual round.

Anonymous said...

Correct, Marko.

A 20mm rifle is a DD.

A 20mm H.E. round is also a DD and needs separate paperwork for each round ( Example: police departments generally Form 10 a whole box of HE/flash-bangs, and mark off the serial numbers as used ).


A 20mm AP round is not a DD.

BTW ... this rifle is actually almost affordable to shoot, as 20mm vulcan is available. 20mm x 138b Lahti rounds are horribly expensive ... if you can find them. I horde and reload all my brass ...

The Captain said...

I don't really want one... yet I do. Badly.

Kevin said...

Kristopher, you own a Lahti? Can I be your friend?

Tam said...

kristopher,

"Correct, Marko.

A 20mm rifle is a DD.

A 20mm H.E. round is also a DD and needs separate paperwork for each round.
[snip]

A 20mm AP round is not a DD.
"


That's what I effin' said.

mdmnm said...

"Only if they have the creamy explosive nougat filling."

I very nearly got recruited into a civil war re-creationist group that served a mountain howitzer back when I was an undergrad. The guy that was doing the talking went on about how a basic uniform wasn't that pricey or hard to put together. Then he talked about hits on sheets of plywood at 1k, 1.5k and even 2k yards, music to my ears. Then he whispered about sometimes sheets of plywood set up against cut banks sometimes...disintegrating. Cool! Then I remembered that all recruiters, by long tradition, are liars and went on my way. Still cool, dd or not.

Lergnom said...

Jeff Schwartz described a monster called a 40/50 in his online novel 'The Consultant'. It was a 40mm shell, necked down to take a .50 BMG slug - top turret mounted on the protagonist's motor home called the Beast(I seriously want one!).

Anonymous said...

Tam:
That's what I effin' said.


Mea culpa ... I misread Keven's question, which caused me to mis-interpret your reply.

Sorry.

Anonymous said...

Mike claims the recoil is about the same as a 12ga. Seeing as how the brake was bigger then my hand and the damn thing weighs ~150 pounds when it's assembled, I tend to believe him.

Hell, WHO CARES?!? It's a farking man-portable 20mm!

Anonymous said...

Weight helps.

My Lahti, at 135 lbs, tends to shove more than kick.

It also has a tendency to twist ... spinning up the projo torques the barrel a bit.