50 AE vs 50 BMG: Comparing Apples and Watermelons
Let’s talk about the big boys. The ones that scare the neighbors and make everything from squirrels to World War 2 era tanks rethink their life choices.
In the good ol’ USA, if you’ve got a bore that punches out past half an inch, we’re talking bigger than .50 caliber, you’ve officially stepped into the deep end of the regulatory pool. And why is that? It all boils down to the boogeyman of gun laws: the National Firearms Act (NFA).
This old piece of paper basically says that if your weapon’s hole is bigger than 0.50 inches, it’s a “Destructive Device” unless it’s explicitly designed for sporting use. That’s why your favorite scattergun is a Title 1 freedom-bringer, but a shoulder-fired 20mm cannon is a heavily regulated Title 2 nightmare that demands fingerprints, photos, and a $200 tax stamp.
The gun market, being pragmatic, has mostly said, “Nah, we’ll stay right below the line, thank you.” They only go over if they’re 100% positive they can get an NFA exemption.
And that, my friends, is exactly why the .50 cal scene is so incredibly crowded. It’s the maximum amount of mayhem you can get without crossing into “Destructive Device” territory. Today, we’re putting two of the wildest interpretations of that 0.50-inch limit head-to-head. In one corner, we have the original, the king, the long-range wrecking ball: the .50 BMG. And in the other, the relatively new kid on the block that brings pure, unadulterated handgun thunder: the .50 AE. Let’s crack these two open and see where the overlap ends and the madness begins.
.50 Action Express vs .50 Browning Machine Gun Spec Comparison
.50 Action Express
.50 Browning Machine Gun
Why Compare .50 AE to .50 BMG?
Not all 50 calibers are the same. But I think often when people hear the term “50 Cal”, they might be lumping them into the same category. This is probably most common with new shooters or those outside of the shooting community. Hopefully we can clear up the differences.
Lets start with a history lesson then get to the comparisons.
.50 BMG History and Purpose
The BMG in .50 BMG isn’t some fancy marketing term, it’s short for Browning Machine Gun. The man who gave us half the guns we love, the absolute legend John Browning, gifted this massive cartridge to the world back in the 1920s.
This .50 BMG was originally cooked up to feed the one and only M2 Machine Gun, a piece of hardware affectionately known as “Ma Deuce.” When the .50 BMG hit the scene, it was a massive deal, purpose-built for serious business. They wanted a round that could kill the WW1 era tanks.
Now, armor back then was basically tinfoil compared to what we have today, but the fact that the .50 BMG has hung around right next to the M2 for nearly a century tells you everything you need to know. This round is brutally powerful. It has successfully made the jump from being purely a machine gun round to becoming an iconic precision rifle cartridge. You can find anti-material sniper rifles chambered in this caliber in military armories across the globe; they’ve been a fixture since the 1980s.
For us civilians? We use it for one thing: obliterating targets at ludicrous range. It’s just an absolute blast to send downrange. Sure, it’s about as practical for deer hunting as a bulldozer is for mowing the lawn, but for long-range, high-performance shooting, the .50 BMG is still the undisputed king.
.50 AE History History and Purpose
Before the .50 AE stomped onto the scene, most of the handgun rounds that could really bring the heat, like the trusty .44 Magnum or the fire-breathing .454 Casull, were designed for revolvers. What’s the telltale sign of a revolver round? A big, fat rim, which makes them easy to yank out of a cylinder. Trying to shove those rimmed cartridges reliably into a semi-automatic handgun is usually a massive pain in the backside.
The .50 AE, however, was a clever beast. It was engineered from the ground up for the semi-auto platform. Because of that, it found a home instantly in guns like the short-lived but cool AMT Automag V, the tough LAR Grizzly WIN MAG, and, of course, the gun it’s synonymous with: the monstrous Desert Eagle.
This round is pure power and size. It hits like a freight train, which, as you might guess, means it’s not so nice to your hand. Recoil differs between guns, but regardless it’s going to jump and buck. That stiff, hand-jarring recoil makes it a poor choice for your average self-defense scenario or duty use. It’s great for flexing on the ‘gram though.
Where does this wildcat really shine? It’s a champion in metallic silhouette shooting competitions, where you need to knock down heavy steel targets. It’s also incredibly capable for hunting medium and even large game. For those specific tasks where raw power and diameter are the names of the game, the .50 AE absolutely delivers.
Huge Differences
These two rounds have massive differences. They crafted one round for a heavy machine gun and the other for a handgun. That creates some pretty big differences between the two rounds. These very different rounds are both big bore and heavy recoiling relative to their platforms. We will explore those differences in depth and detail a thing or two they have in common.
Size Differences
While both cartridges use a .50 caliber projectile, their size differences are massive. The .50 BMG uses a projectile that weighs anywhere from 647 grains to 800 grains. The .50 AE utilizes projectiles that weigh anywhere from 300 grains to 410 grains. That’s a pretty massive difference in weight.
The .50 BMG uses a 3.91 inch long bottlenecked case with a case capacity of 292.8 gr. H2O. The .50 AE uses a case that’s only 1.285 inches long and has a case capacity of right around 50 gr. H2O depending on what data sheet you use.
The overall length of a .50 BMG round is 5.45 inches. It’s a great big bullet and cartridge. The .50 AE is small enough to fit into a magazine that squeezes into the grip of a pistol. It’s only 1.610 inches long. Admittedly, that’s big for a pistol round, but quite small compared to the .50 BMG cartridge.
Performance Differences
When you look at the raw difference in size, you know right away you’re dealing with two completely separate beasts. The performance disparity between the .50 BMG and the .50 AE is truly astronomical; it’s the difference between a high-powered pickup truck and a Saturn V rocket.
The .50 BMG is the heavy hitter, built to be big, heavy, and hard-hitting, with a massive menu of specialized projectiles for every purpose you can imagine. What it absolutely excels at is carrying an immense amount of energy in a huge bullet for a very long time.
Just look at the track record: The current world record for a confirmed sniper kill belongs to an unnamed JTF-2 Sniper, who took out a target at a mind-boggling 3,871 yards using a McMillan TAC-50, which is, naturally, chambered in .50 BMG. This round laughs at the one-mile mark. In fact, seven out of the top ten longest sniper kills ever recorded were made with the .50 BMG.
When you launch a standard 750-grain .50 BMG projectile, it’s clocking in at around 2,820 feet per second and delivering a catastrophic 13,241 foot-pounds of energy. That kind of destructive force is used to neutralize serious enemy equipment, whether that’s a lightly armored vehicle, a critical generator, or even an IED. It’s the ultimate multi-tool, leveraging extreme range and overwhelming power for a huge variety of tasks.
Now, let’s talk .50 AE. It is undeniably powerful… for a handgun round. Like its massive rifle cousin, it does a stellar job of propelling a heavy bullet and maintaining solid energy retention over a respectable distance. A handgun is never going to compete with a rifle, but for a pistol cartridge, the .50 AE offers truly excellent ballistics.
It’s the round of choice in metallic silhouette shooting, where competitors are regularly asked to engage steel targets out to 200 meters, a significant stretch for any pistol. The .50 AE delivers that semi-automatic action that makes it easier to reach out and touch targets, and it’s powerful enough that adding a fixed, low-powered optic can really maximize the cartridge’s capabilities.
In terms of raw numbers, the .50 AE can push a 325-grain projectile at about 1,450 feet per second, impacting the target with approximately 1,517 foot-pounds of energy. That’s serious, nearly five times the power of a standard 9mm. However, when you put those numbers next to the .50 BMG, the comparison evaporates. It’s not even a competition; it’s like trying to compare a large lake to the entire Pacific Ocean.
Purpose Differences
The difference between the .50 AE and .50 BMG can be easily seen in the weight and size of the platforms that fire them. The .50 AE Desert Eagle is big for a handgun but still plenty easy to carry and shoot. The big handgun weighs 4.5 pounds, but it can still be holstered and carried like a handgun. As long as you don’t have to conceal it, you’ll be good to go.
The .50 BMG fires out of rifles like the aforementioned McMillan TAC-50. This gun weighs 26 pounds and is 57 inches in overall length. That’s pretty standard for a .50 BMG rifle. Weapons like the M2 reach weights of 84 pounds.
The .50 BMG is too powerful to hunt any animal that walks this earth. Maybe if we Jurassic Park the world and need to fight a T-Rex, then the .50 BMG will do it. Other than that, it’s a gun designed to hit things at long ranges. For the average joe, it’s not exactly a great option for any kind of defensive shooting or anything beyond hitting steel really far away.
People can employ the .50 AE from a handgun for target shooting and competitive shooting sports. It’s also very capable of taking hogs, deer, and similar animals. It’s incredibly powerful and acceptable for hunting. However, the round is much too powerful and heavy recoiling for home defense, and the guns that chamber it are too larger for concealed carry.
The One Thing They Have in Common
What do these two vastly different rounds actually have in common, aside from that half-inch projectile diameter? Honestly, not much, but hear me out.
The biggest thing they share is that they are both an absolute ton of fun to shoot. They definitely aren’t for everyone, but if you don’t mind a little (or a lot) of excessive recoil, you’re going to love these guns.
I even had the chance to take a mile shot under the guidance of a very experienced shooter, and I managed to hit a rather large piece of steel pretty quickly. That feeling was incredibly satisfying.
On the other end, shooting a magnum-powered handgun like the one chambered in .50 AE is always a major thrill. You get that brief moment of trepidation before you pull the trigger, but you quickly learn how to manage the recoil and operate the gun efficiently. Being able to put rounds on target fast with that much power is a rewarding feeling in its own right.
Ultimately, both of these calibers are big-bore blasters that provide a fantastic shooting experience. The final point they share is a nice, high price tag associated with both the ammunition and the weapons themselves. They aren’t cheap—and you’re unlikely to ever find a bargain when the projectile is a half-inch in diameter.
Getting your .50 On
These are two very different rounds, and they don’t necessarily compete with one another. They both excel at sending big bullets downrange that pack a major punch. Picking one or the other is plenty easy, and you’ll need to figure out what you want to shoot and how far away your target plans to be sitting. They are so different that it’s pretty easy to determine which one of the big .50s you need.
Speaking of, what are your experiences with these two .50 caliber rounds? Or any .50 caliber round. Let us know below if you enjoy shooting the half-inch bullets now and then.
About Travis Pike
Travis Pike is a former Marine Machine Gunner and a lifelong firearms enthusiast. Now that his days of working a 240B like Charlie Parker on the sax are over, he's a regular guy who likes to shoot, write, and find ways to combine the two. He is a "simplicisist" when it comes to talking about himself in the 3rd person and a self-professed tactical hipster. Hit him up on Instagram with story ideas.
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