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Especially since I am old, crippled with a bad back & seen way too much real violence in my time. Grumpy
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Colt Officer`s Model Match 22LR
A teenager helped save his younger sister from an alleged kidnapper by shooting the suspect with his slingshot, Michigan authorities said.
The 8-year-old girl was mushroom-hunting in her backyard in Alpena Township on Wednesday when “an unknown male appeared from the woods,” the Michigan State Police said in a press release on Friday.
“The suspect had come through the woods onto the property and came from behind her, grabbed her like you’d see in the movies — hand over the mouth, arm around the waist — and was attempting to pull her into the woods,” Lt. John Grimshaw with the Michigan State Police told ABC Traverse City affiliate WGTU.
The girl was able to break free, police said. Her 13-year-old brother also witnessed the attack and shot the assailant in the head and chest with his slingshot, police said.
Grimshaw called the teen’s actions “extraordinary.”
“He really is the one that … I believe saved his sister’s either life or from something seriously bad happening to her,” Grimshaw told WGTU. “He should be commended for it.”
The suspect fled the area but was located by state troopers hiding at a nearby gas station and was able to be identified in part due to injuries from the slingshot, police said.
An Alpena County Sheriff’s Office sign is shown in front of the county jail, in Alpena, Mich.
Google Maps Street View
“The suspect had obvious signs of injury sustained from the slingshot with wounds to his head and chest,” police said.
The suspect — identified as a 17-year-old from Alpena — was taken into custody and allegedly confessed to detectives that he “planned on severely beating the victim,” police said. He was lodged in the Alpena County Jail without incident, police said.
The suspect was arraigned on Thursday on one count of attempted kidnapping/child enticement, one count of attempted assault to do great bodily harm less than murder, and one count of assault and battery, according to police.
His bond was set at $150,000 and his next court appearance was scheduled for May 17, police said.
The suspect is being charged as an adult but his name has not been released by police.
While the Barrett M107A1 has been out and fielded for over a decade now, its legendary status still reigns true. For this reason, I recently had the chance to fulfill a dream by putting it to the test in 2023. Over the course of two days, I shot approximately 90 rounds between target shooting, hunting, and stretching this 50 BMG out to 1265 yards. I also put the rifle through its paces with various drills, hiked five miles in the dark, and experienced an unforgettable weekend. While I normally run rifles longer before writing a review, we had an action-packed weekend and a good variety of situations to test the rifle with. Given its proven history of exceptional performance and devastating power, this rifle is truly a force to be reckoned with.
The M107A1 utilizes state-of-the-art design, manufacturing, and materials, every component of the rifle has been engineered to be lighter and stronger than its predecessors. In addition to a 4-pound weight reduction over the M82A1, the M107A1 is optimized for use with a sound suppressor, providing a much-needed signature reduction capability. Lighter, stronger, more accurate, and more capable; the M107A1 has truly been engineered for action.
Barrett M107A1 Specifications:
- Caliber: 50 BMG
- Operation: Recoil Operated, Semi-Automatic
- Barrel Length: 29″ (737 mm) or 20″ (508 mm)
- Twist Rate: 1 : 15″ (381 mm)
- Overall Length: 57″ (1448 mm) or 48″ (1219 mm)
- Weight: 28.7 lbs (13 kg) or 27.4 lbs (12.4 kg)
- Mag. Capacity: 10 Rounds
- Rail Length/MOA: 23″ (584 mm)/27 MOA
Recoil System
When people think of shooting a 50 cal, they immediately anticipate a ridiculous amount of recoil. Luckily for anyone who has the opportunity to shoot the Barrett M107A1 that is not the case. Utilizing a massive muzzle brake, dual barrel recoil springs, a massive buffer spring, and weighing around 28 lbs, this rifle kicks about like a 12 gauge shooting 3″ shells. It is not quite as sharp as a 12 gauge, but the recoil impulse is much longer due to the distance the bolt carrier assembly has to move to eject and chamber another round. Shooting close to 100 rounds spread between two days, I never even ended up with a bruised shoulder. Kudos to Barrett for designing a rifle to tame the felt recoil of the renowned 50 BMG.
Bolt Carrier Assembly
The M107A1 features a bolt carrier assembly that is suppressor-ready. It comes with a Nickel Teflon® coated bolt which requires less maintenance when shooting with a suppressor. This rifle is designed to shoot both suppressed and unsuppressed without the need to change any components. This carrier is no joke being by far the largest and heaviest I have ever seen. However, it is built to take a beating.
Stock
One of the upgrades for the M107A1 is the “thermal cheek guard” featured on the top of the stock. This functions as a low-profile cheek riser that is comfortable and more temperature stable. The stock also uses a rear hand module which is mounted on an M1913 rail.
This helps shave some weight while providing a good resting point for the shooters off-hand to control shots. It also can be used to mount a lightweight monopod if one so desires, but I did not use it throughout my testing and just used rear bags instead.
An interesting feature is the curved rubber butt pad. While I appreciate the dense rubber, I would have preferred a flat butt since the curved one seemed to draw my shoulder a little too low causing my neck to stretch a little to get a proper cheek weld when shooting laying down.
Sights
While this rifle is worthy of a high-end scope, Barrett includes a set of pop-up irons with this rifle. The rear sight is adjustable for windage and elevation with ticks marked out to 1500 meters. I guess better have and not need than to need and not have.
Throughout this review, I never did end up using the iron sights, but I did use a Vortex Razor 6-36 for target shooting out to 1265 yards, and a Pulsar Thermion 2 LRF XP50 Pro for hunting wild pigs at night. Capable of shooting very heavy projectiles at very long distances, the M107A1 features a 27 MOA Picatinny rail machined into the upper receiver. This is nice as it allows for more elevation adjustment for any scope mounted to it.
Bipod
While shooting this rifle standing up is doable, Barrett includes a bipod for going prone when accurate shots matter. The bipod is lightweight and the whole thing features a quick-detach mount. The legs can be stowed either forward or backward by simply pulling down on the arm and rotating. Each side is independently adjustable to compensate for uneven terrain and accommodate various shooting positions.
Magazine
The M107A1 comes with standard 10-round steel magazines. For a 50BMG, that is a lot of heat. Featuring cutouts on the rear of the mag as witness indicators, it is easy to see how many rounds are currently loaded. Throughout my shooting, I never had a single magazine-related issue. They fed well and rocked in solid.
Muzzle Brake
The M107A1 muzzle brake is a cylindrical muzzle brake that accepts Barrett QDL Suppressor. One of the big perks to this weapon system is the fact that it was designed to run suppressed and the muzzle break works as a great suppressor host. Also, due to the cylindrical muzzle brake, this is easier to shoot un-suppressed than the iconic M82 muzzle brake which was known for a rather brutal muzzle blast. Now don’t get me wrong, even with the newer muzzle brake the M107A1 still packs a punch. The gas-punching me in the face was not a pleasant experience, but the muzzle brake does a good job of reducing recoil and keeping the gun on target for quicker follow-up shots.
Barrel
The M107A1 is available in two barrel lengths: 20 inches and 29 inches. Both barrels have a chrome-lined chamber and bore, while being capable of pushing standard 660gr ammunition at speeds of 2500fps and 2750fps, respectively.
While the 29-inch barrel offers greater velocity and is well-suited for long-distance shooting, it adds an additional 1.3 lbs to the rifle and made maneuvering in and out of vehicles while hunting more difficult. The 20-inch barrel, on the other hand, sacrifices around 250fps in velocity but is much more maneuverable. However, I will say that even the 29″ version is still wieldable. I hiked roughly 5 miles through fields and pastures with night vision chasing wild hogs during this review. While the M107A1 is heavy, it is not unbearable.
Both versions of the rifle feature deep flutes that help to reduce weight and improve barrel cooling during extended shooting sessions. Overall, the choice between the two barrel lengths will depend on the user’s specific needs and preferences.
Trigger
For a rifle as expensive as the M107A1 I would have loved to see a better trigger. While it works, I don’t feel like I was as accurate as I could have been. I forgot to bring a gauge to measure the pull weight, but it was around 5 lbs. There was no real defined wall, and the slack was smooth yet springy as in the 5 lbs of pull was required throughout the whole trigger press. It got the job done but wasn’t the typical precision rifle trigger people may think of.
Accuracy
While I have heard mixed reviews about the accuracy of the Barrett M107A1, I had to test things for myself. During this part of the review, I shot a cardboard target from a distance of 100 yards while battling intense crosswinds of 25-50mph. Due to the wind, the target was shaking, and I had to admit that I was only a 1MOA shooter at best. Oklahoma wind can be relentless, so it was anticipated to cause trouble.
Precision
Considering the circumstances, most of the ammunition I tested performed as expected, producing groups between 2-4MOA. However, I managed to achieve a 1.04 MOA 4-round group using match-grade PPU 725gr ammunition, discounting the fifth shot which I acknowledge I pulled. I have seen other people shoot sub-MOA groups using Hornady 750gr A-Max, which I believe is achievable after my testing. Unfortunately, I had ordered some, but it didn’t arrive in time for this review.
Despite the average groups, I was still able to shoot a TaTargets Goliath AR550 steel silhouette at distances ranging from 100 to 1265 yards. There aren’t many targets that can withstand the power of a 50 BMG, but the Goliath held up remarkably well. Even at a distance of 100 yards, the steel target remained unscathed on the front face, with not even a dimple to show for it. Although it’s a loud ringing target, we couldn’t hear anything due to the 30-50mph winds, but it was satisfying to see the target visibly swing when hit.
Devastation
As expected, 50 BMG is capable of causing significant damage. The typical 660gr M33 Ball ammo, for example, has a muzzle energy of approximately 11,000 ft-lbs, which is roughly 3-4 times more than that of a 308. While there are various rounds designed for specific equipment, the sheer energy of even ball ammunition can have a devastating effect on tissue.
During my review, I took the rifle out for hunting, but I was unsuccessful in catching any wild pigs. However, I did come across an armadillo, which is considered a varmint and tears up our farmland. I deemed it necessary to quickly dispatch it with the M107A1. The image below is a screenshot taken from a Pulsar thermal scope mounted on the rifle. Let’s just say that it got the job done.
Performance
During my testing, the Barrett M107A1 performed admirably. While I didn’t have the chance to test it with Barrett’s QDL suppressor, others I talked to have reported that it works well. The rifle had no trouble firing rounds downrange with enough force to obliterate an engine block.
The only problem I encountered was that by the end of the day, the rifle started to get gummed up with dirt. The combination of 30-50 mph winds and fine dust created a very dirty environment, which led to failures to feed. Fortunately, disassembling the rifle was easy thanks to the takedown pins, as illustrated in the user manual. After wiping down the chamber and applying more oil, the M107A1 was back up and running. In fact, it was able to cycle through 11 rounds in about 3 seconds without any issues – a mag dump to remember!
Summary
The Barrett M107A1 is a powerful and durable semi-automatic rifle chambered in .50 BMG. It has a solid construction and ergonomic design, that made it easy to shoot accurately and bearable to hike miles with. The rifle has impressive long-range capabilities and can take down targets at distances past one mile away. I was even able to get a few hits on a silhouette out to 1265 yards. The M107A1 has a reputation for accuracy and can shoot around 1 MOA groups when paired with premium ammunition. While the barrier to entry for owning the legendary M107A1 is high with an MSRP of $13,275, this rifle provides a lot of capability when used in the right circumstances.
The attack on Bari harbor in Italy in 1943 was a debacle of epic proportions
for the Allies. However, great good was ultimately to come from this dark day.
December 2, 1943, was a Thursday. Allied troops worked feverishly in the freshly-liberated Italian port of Bari on the heel of Italy, offloading the ammunition and supplies required to support the ongoing fight against the Axis. Italy had capitulated three months before, but the Germans still fought like lions.
The port was fat with ships from America, England, Poland, Norway, and the Netherlands. On this very Thursday, British Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham, commander of the Allied Northwest African Tactical Air Force, stated, “I would consider it as a personal insult if the enemy should send so much as one plane over the city.” He would live to regret that.
The Germans attacked with 105 Ju-88 A-4 bombers from Luftflotte 2 and achieved complete surprise. The raid spanned about an hour. The attacking Luftwaffe raiders sank 27 cargo ships in the harbor. More than 1,000 allied troops, sailors, and merchant seamen perished alongside roughly the same number of civilians. The Germans lost but a single plane.
That would be bad enough, but survivors pulled from the oily water also began to manifest horrific skin burns. Massive blisters formed on their flesh. Six hundred twenty-eight military patients were hospitalized, suffering from these ghastly injuries. Eighty-three of them eventually died.
At first, there was a suspicion that the Germans had attacked the harbor with chemical weapons. However, the truth was something potentially far worse. The details were immediately suppressed, but we had just inadvertently exposed our own troops to mustard gas.
Among the 27 sunken vessels was a Liberty ship called the SS John Harvey. Its top secret cargo included 2,000 M47A1 mustard bombs to be used in the event Hitler first employed chemical warfare agents on the European battlefields.
During the Luftwaffe attack, these diabolical weapons had broken open, and the mustard agent had mixed with the fuel oil spilled into the harbor’s waters. The results were predictably horrifying.
Adolf Hitler was likely among the top five worst people who ever lived, and the experience he had with chemical agents during World War I kept him from using these dreadful things in World War II.
In the face of such an epic tragedy, Lieutenant Colonel Stewart Francis Alexander, a chemical warfare specialist on Eisenhower’s staff, was sent to Bari to investigate. He immediately identified mustard gas exposure. Alexander’s “Final Report of the Bari Mustard Casualties” was predictably classified.
Sometimes some of the most momentous discoveries come from some of the most unexpected places.
Lt. Col. Alexander’s superior officer at the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) was Colonel Cornelius P. “Dusty” Rhoads. This was a citizen Army drawn up for the global conflict, and these guys came from all walks. In his previous life, Dr. Rhoads had served as head of the Treatment of Cancer and Allied Diseases Department at New York’s Memorial Hospital.
Col. Rhoads had an unprecedented opportunity to study hundreds of victims of mustard poisoning. He observed that the mustard agent suppressed cell division. Using his experience in oncology as a basis, it occurred to him that mustard agent might be used to inhibit the rapidly reproducing malignant cells that drive cancer.
Every day the human body creates around 330 billion new cells. Almost all of these cells demand that the entire genome be reproduced. Each of these packets of genetic information includes around 3.2 billion base pairs. Given that astronomical volume, mistakes are inevitable.
God designed us with proofreading mechanisms that catch most of these mistakes and destroy the aberrant cells before they can do any damage via a process called apoptosis. However, if one of these cells is almost but not quite normal, it can slip through that net and morph into cancer. These cancer cells typically multiply faster than normal cells and in an uncontrolled fashion.
Col. Rhoads became convinced that the active ingredient in mustard gas could be used, in very small doses, to attack rapidly-metabolizing cancer cells.
After the war, he approached Alfred Sloane and Charles Kettering to fund the Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research (SKI). These two men had made fortunes off of war production through General Motors. The resulting cutting-edge research facility was manned by scientists no longer needed for the advancement of war goals. They proceeded to synthesize mustard derivatives into the first effective medications for cancer. Nowadays, we call this chemotherapy.
In 1949, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Mustargen (mechlorethamine) as the first experimental chemotherapy drug in America. It was used to successfully treat non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. This effort planted a seed that became the flourishing field of oncology today.
Thanks to this serendipitous discovery and a lot of hard work, cancer is no longer the death sentence it once was. Today, chemotherapy agents specifically target rapidly-metabolizing malignant cells while selectively sparing the healthy stuff, but there is still some overlap. That’s why many patients undergoing chemotherapy lose their hair because hair cells metabolize quickly as well.
The attack on the Bari harbor in 1942 cost some 2,000 lives. However, the American Cancer Society has since described the Bari attack as the beginning of “The Age of Cancer Chemotherapy.” Millions of people have had their lives saved or extended due to research that spawned from that terribly dark day.