I bought this .50 BMG Bluegrass Armory Viper last October but I followed the well meaning advice of an online guru who owns two Vipers and that was largely responsible for me not shooting the .50 BMG for many months. In retrospect, I should have trusted the guy who designed and builds the Viper when he said there is almost no difference in accuracy between their mil-spec chambered guns and their match chambered guns. The match chamber means different things to different manufacturers. The mil-spec Viper is chamber reamed as small as the mil-spec tolerance allows, which is also the high end on the match chamber spec, so the mil-spec chambered Viper is also a match chamber by the loosest definition.
I was told I'd need to turn the case necks with the match chamber, and I was fully prepared to do that. I planned on reloading for it 100% anyway (I can't afford to shoot it otherwise), so turning case necks adds little and I figured I wanted the best possible accuracy. Well, I learned that the case necks weren't the problem. My resized brass wouldn't fit, but it was because the case head was too large just above the extractor rim. I eventually decided to modify my reloading die and I machined .075" from the bottom of the resizing die so the tapered die would go down further over the tapered brass and resize it more. I realized I'd still need to remove at least another .075" more from the die before the case head would chamber, and that would push the shoulder back too far for the .50 BMG specification. >
I shot one PMC commercial round at the Spring Kentucky KTOG Konvention (against my better judgment and in a fit of frustration) and the brass stuck in the chamber. I expected a steep learning curve with the .50 BMG but I was becoming a little frustrated.
I returned the Viper to the manufacturer. They're only 21 miles south of me. The shop manager told me they've made about a hundred match chambered Vipers and maybe ten still have match chambers on them. Bluegrass Armory is currently running way behind in production and aren't very customer friendly before the sale, but once you have one of their guns they'll go to extremes to make the customer happy. They knew about my situation before I called. When I called, I was told, "I heard you wanted us to saw that barrel in half so you could shoot two 25 caliber bullets at once." :-?
I visited while they swapped my barrel as I watched. It was very interesting.
Now, I couldn't be happier. Reloading is a breeze... at least after that way oversized once fired brass from the loose chambered machine gun is resized. That's an aerobic workout.
We all took turns shooting the newly re-barreled Viper at the KTOG National at Knob Creek last month, and we blew up a lot of stuff. I had loaded 150 rounds of cheap South African ball ammo, twenty rounds of armor piercing incendiary (API), ten rounds of armor piercing (AP), ten rounds of incendiary and ten rounds of tracers. The API and incendiary are a lot of fun. KY-*******-Geek's old HP LaserJet 4 laser printer was a lot of fun, too. It threw toner into the air and ignited it into a huge rolling mushroom cloud! Photo courtesy of KY-*******-Geek.
An API round into an old hard drive will typically char the front and easily punch a hole through it, but occasionally the hard drive would explode in a blinding flash of light with nothing left but a ball of plasma. I'm not sure if we were accidentally hitting the more massive spindle motor, or maybe someone was shooting incendiary ammo.
I gave the Viper the nickname Boomer, mostly for the booming percussive muzzle blast that will rearrange internal organs, but partly because she seemed to need a girl's name and I had recently caught up on all the Battlestar Galactica DVDs. Lt. Boomer is kinda cute.
On Saturday of the KTOG National, we shot 63 rounds and around 60 rounds, the Leupold 6.5-20X50 VX-III scope was internally disassembled by Boomer. I sent it back to Leupold that Monday, which cost me $21 in shipping. I felt a bit silly insuring a destroyed scope.
On Sunday, we shot forty-some more rounds using the very nice Sightron 4.5-14X50 scope I pulled off my SU-16E. It has the Leupold quick release rings, so it was easy to move over and zero using the Leupold Zero Point Bore Sighter (highly recommended).
Many people had their intro to .50 BMG shooting at the KTOG National. A couple of the New York guys bought .50 BMG rifles of their own afterwards. I'd like to think I was partly responsible for that gun buying craziness, but it was really all Boomer... and probably a bit of concern for the gun bans they may face in the near future.
