Barrett M82 Rifle

The Barrett M82, also designated the M107 in United States military service, is an American semi-automatic, recoil-operated rifle chambered in the powerful .50 BMG cartridge, designed by Ronnie Barrett and introduced in 1982 as one of the first successful shoulder-fired rifles built around this heavy machine-gun-caliber round, intended primarily as an anti-materiel weapon for destroying equipment rather than as a conventional anti-personnel sniper rifle. Its size and the punishing recoil of the .50 BMG cartridge are managed through a large muzzle brake and a recoil-operated action that lets the barrel and bolt assembly move rearward together to absorb and spread out the force of firing, making the weapon practically usable by a two-person crew despite its substantial weight and the round's power. The rifle proved its anti-materiel role during the 1991 Gulf War, where it was used to destroy parked aircraft, radar equipment, light armored vehicles and unexploded ordnance from a safe standoff distance, and variants have since been adopted for both anti-materiel and long-range anti-personnel use by numerous militaries and police units worldwide.