I was more curious as to how it performs on soft tissue and if how it is portrayed in movies like Rambo is actually correct.
I found a ballistic gel test of a 750 grain Hornady A-Max, and while it is pretty impressive, it's not what I expected.
http://www.brassfetcher.com/hornadyamax.html
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50 BMG was not developed to shoot people, it was developed in 1920 to shoot the then-new tanks, and during the past 90 years it has done many tasks well (including shooting tanks). IIRC, a 50 BMG will shoot through 6" of armor plate or 13" of reinforced concrete.
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I understand that, which is why I don't believe it would be
that devastating on soft tissue targets. The majority of .50 bmg rounds as far as I know are FMJ's or designed to punch through barriers, so they wouldn't expand in soft tissue which means most of the damage on the target would be from hydrostatic shock. But would that be enough to create the devastating results portrayed in Hollywood?