.50 caliber rifles. At some point we need to have a serious talk about this.

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Sorry, but that post is horribly one sided and provides no reasoning at the end of the day.

Really? Then go respond to it and try to actually refute the arguments contained therein. I realize it's so much easier to just spout vacuous one-liners like this, but you spend enough time on these forums to put forth a little effort, no? Set aside a couple minutes and construct a rebuttal and post it in the thread instead of spouting off trite bullshit like this.

but if you want to play Infantry Only Battlefield in DayZ, I guess more power to you. I thought this was more than a generic FPS, but I guess people like you can't see the complete lack of "point" of the rifle other than so someone can stroke their ego with a BFG.

Okay, wait. So did you even read my post? "Only Battlefield?" "generic FPS?" You cannot possibly have read that thread and walked away thinking that's what I'm advocating for. Well, that is, unless of course you came out with a bunch of pre-conceived notions about people who use these weapons and you refuse to abandon them no matter what. That can't be true, can it? Surely you're more reasonable than that.

This makes me even more excited for your rebuttal, which I'm sure will show up if I just wait patiently.

By the way, I absolutely love that you're still here. And every bit as entertaining as ever. Never give up, man.

Edited August 22, 2012 by ZedsDeadBaby

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Those guys fired hand-loaded hollowpoint ammo - Hollowpoint ammunition is indeed outlawed by the geneva conventions

No, it's not.

Can people seriously not use Google anymore? Is Google broken?

The Hague Conventions prohibit expanding bullets. But only for international conflicts. And only in war. Neither apply in Chernarus.

Despite the ban on military use, hollow-point bullets are one of the most common types of civilian and

police

ammunition

...

Edited August 22, 2012 by ZedsDeadBaby

[Dabs 12]

Also these aren't *real* Hollow point rounds, they are ballistic tip rounds most likely.

"Ballistic Tip" and "Hollow Point" are the exact same thing. Look it up. One is a brand name, one is a generic term. Also, look up what Hand-Loaded means while you're at it - The .50 cal V-Max isn't available as a cartridge, only as a bullet for hand-loading.

I do agree that incapacitation and damage via blood loss would be more realistic when it comes to wounds, if the mechanics for treating wounds was also realisitic, ie no magical cures from 2 blood back to 12k and instant bleeding reversal, then this could be considered. Otherwise its to easy for people to live through injuries that should kill them.

Disagree. The relevant mechanic is "Disabling a target", not "killing a target". A loss in blood pressure can incapacitate people. So can a crowbar to the head. A gut wound does not incapacitate people, i.e. does not keep them from killing you a couple times over. Blood bags are almost an entirely out-of-combat affair due to the logistics and time they require to apply. They're an acceptable break from reality, because you do not want to spend a week ingame recuperating from your hemorrhagic shock.

Let's get realistic. You would never survive a .50 cal gun shot when there is zero medical attentiOn. You know, cause of the Z in dayz

Nor an AK74 torso hit, nor a makarov torso hit. So should we make all guns instakill by that logic? Go away.

Here's what a .50 BMG does to someone.

That's varmint hunting (You know, 1ft, 3lb rabbits and gophers) with a 30-30. A massively oversized projectile for the application.

The Hague Conventions prohibit expanding bullets. But only for international conflicts. And only in war. Neither apply in Chernarus.

Despite the ban on military use, hollow-point bullets are one of the most common types of civilian and

police

ammunition

...

My bad, the Hague Conventions on Land Warfare, not the Geneva Conventions. Nevertheless, no military would be caught dead with "war crime ammo". I could list more reasons why the suggestion you could get HP .50cal ammo in even pre-Zombie peacetime Chernarus is beyond retarded.

[redman (DayZ) 1]

Alpha. It's fine.

/endtroll

[Virfortis 111]

snipped

Yes, I read your post an its entirety, and it amounts to nothing because it's hypothetical. Sorry if that bursts your bubble.

Hypothetically, on paper, in reality, seriously, common sensacally (no that's not a word, but I'm rolling with it) you're right. A sniper rifle is a tactical weapon and makes sense in application. There are likewise counters to the weapon, and the main complaint of its overabuse is due to duplicating. While intelligent (which, for all our faults, mine included, let's meet there) for sure, it fails to take basic game mechanics into play. Specifically, something I like to call the "Un-Rarity" effect, or basic economics if you prefer.

Your statement is that by default, snipers have the following disadvantages:

Rarity: The sniper rifle and its ammunition is, on paper, rare.

Tunnel Vision: Easy to flank, easier to sneak up on if done properly.

Shot-Leading: The longer the shot, the more skill required.

You also go on to talk about tactical significance, support weapons, etc.

On paper, in argument, and in theory, you are absolutely right. However, fundamentally and realistically, nothing could be further from the truth.

Consider purple drops in WoW. Just how rare is it exactly? By the time you have one, odds are a few million others have one. In the smaller picture, they are indeed rare, but in the larger picture, when only one is enough to "slay the dragon overlord" then why was it so difficult? While the odds of getting the item is rare, it is still an infinite resource. This is why farming in games is a standard. They're not rare, they just have a low spawn rate. Hoarding and farming (to say nothing of duping, glitching, and hacking in weapons) inflates the amount of guns. If there were only a few guns per server, and those guns only respawned when the previous ones were gone (I.E. hidden in corpse) then you would have a point. To do that though, would mean to give up the HIVE.

As for tactics, I call game mechanics. A sniper can fire once, relog, and join another server unobstructed. The maps, likewise, do not change. There are set piece locations in a concept meant to be dynamic, and sniper locations are indeed set piece. This sounds like it would make it even easier to hunt them, but consider that the average sniper can carry way too much (something we both agree on, weight is screwed) and they are able to move solo indefinitely. They can almost instantly pack up and move elsewhere. There's not enough sniper in the sniper to make sniping true sniping. Now, I will say that with enough time, yes one can circumvent a sniper. However, they can find you much quicker than you can possibly find them because of distance, and the second you have any hint of a tactical advantage? Alt-F4. Yes this is a fallacy of the game, but it is still a fallacy nonetheless. Game mechanics also turns the concept of tactics into child's play. Chess is tactical, laying on a hill or crawling around is simple common sense. The game caters to snipers because they can easily play "Where's Waldo" without being on a time limit. You, however, are.

Last one I'm going to tackle: Compare the gameplay of a sniper versus the gameplay of a survivor. Consider the thought process of a survivor. Things I can think of off the top of my head:

Survivor:

Zombie aggro range

Enemy positions

Corners

Spawn locations

LoS vs. Mobility

Escape Plan

Safety Locations

Enterable Buildings

Sniper (disregarding tactical defensive/support snipers)

Enemy position

Movement

See the problem? Again, another fallacy of the game (cry Alpha if you want) but still a fallacy nonetheless. For all our talk about not wanting safe zones and hating risk-free gameplay, we're quick to applaud a weapon that are used in zombie-free zones and are risk free until the first shot. Furthermore, skill? Sniping in DayZ is like an open book test with no time limit. The only way to fail is to be stupid. You're saying that being a sniper takes skill, and I agree in reality, but in a long range situation where nobody knows you're there until you shoot, it's easy to sit there and calculate as long as you want. Again, I call for zombies in the woods. Occasional, one or two maybe, and make them fairly deaf/blind, but they need to at least be a couple in the woods near hot zone cities. Why? To interrupt the sniper, or to pick off the lone sniper.

While sniping may have a tactical advantage and be relatively counterable on paper, the pros are severely outweighed by the cons in application. This is not due to broad generalizations other than a kill-based mentality (walk around fire gun) and a general lack of will to survive combined with the negligence of the sanctity of life. Yes, that's morality, I agree. However, if we were to go balls out with all of this? DayZ would quickly become boring, not that I would hate having to scrounge for the last bit of food and water just to make it to the next day.

Edited August 22, 2012 by Virfortis

[Thasik 79]

Hope I'm not that only one that just tries to have fun playing a zombie-apocalypse simulator. All this talk about organ damage and applying pressure to teammates' wounds. Hot damn this may be a simulator but now people are talking like this is meant to TRAIN people for the REAL zombie apocalypse.

Anyway solution is simple:

Make AS50/M107 unstoreable in tents/vehicles (in fact I think tents and vehicle storage should be removed altogether but that's another discussion)

Make AS50/M107 take up backpack slot

And possibly make carrying the these weapons cause slower speeds/ADS/reaction time.

Edited August 22, 2012 by Thasik

[BigCountry 26]

And possibly make carrying the these weapons cause slower speeds/ADS/reaction time.

Definitely slower run speed. The fact you can hump an elephant gun just as fast as somemone running with an AK is crazy lol

These guns weigh a LOT.

[xximrtwoixx 104]

"Ballistic Tip™" and "Hollow Point" are the exact same thing. Look it up. One is a brand name, one is a generic term. Also, look up what Hand-Loaded means while you're at it - The .50 cal V-Max isn't available as a cartridge, only as a bullet for hand-loading.

Actually they aren't the same thing at all, true HP ammo has a hollow cavity to maximize expansion, this results in a measurable increase in MOA, especially at extended ranges. Ballistic tip/Pollymer/Lead Core/Open Tip etc are expanding bullets that either have the cavity filled with soft matterial or are of a lighter density and not fully jacketed. This allows them to expand but also reduces the increase in MOA one experiances when using HP ammo. Also I said A-Max not V-max, and here you go http://www.midwayusa.com/product/813470/hornady-match-ammunition-50-bmg-750-grain-a-max-boat-tail-box-of-10. Civilian ammo is always better than MilSpec ammo in terms of MOA, it is built to a higher tollerance. Milspec .50 ammo could encompass a variaty of cartridges other than HP, and also include "hand loads" as most sniper elements are outfitted with ammo outside of normal mil spec to decrease MOA. Never the less being shot with one in a shtf scenario would mean the end of your life, as would most gun shot wounds, but really anything over .308 would likely end you within minutes.

Disagree. The relevant mechanic is "Disabling a target", not "killing a target". A loss in blood pressure can incapacitate people. So can a crowbar to the head. A gut wound does not incapacitate people, i.e. does not keep them from killing you a couple times over. Blood bags are almost an entirely out-of-combat affair due to the logistics and time they require to apply. They're an acceptable break from reality, because you do not want to spend a week ingame recuperating from your hemorrhagic shock.

I agree disabling a target is the name of the game, Knockdown power. Thats why big fast expanding bullets are the king of big game hunting cartridges. And yes being gut shot with a small caliber weapon or being stabbed would allow you to fight back as long as you didn't go into shock or become preoccupied with trying to hold your blood/guts in. Being shot with a .50 or even a 308 in the gut would not allow for this IMO, especially if you were shot from range. There is simply to much to overcome (Finding target, your gun, pain, shock, knowledge of your imminent death) and to short of a window before KO/Death.

I have used blood bags in combat, and had them used on me. Time for effect is the same as a bandage this is why you keep one in your inventory and use it before bandage when your friend gets shot. Insta Kill has to exist to represent that people aren't recoving from injuries. The current med system allows people to be completely cured of internal/external blood loss and back to 100% health in a matter of seconds. I agree you don't want to have to "heal up" but if your critically injured you should not be able to be instantly cured either, I think bandages should only lessen the amount of blood loss for this reason thus requiring mutliple bandage applications and multiple blood bags to keep someone alive after injury. This would allow for less instant blood damage because it would mean to keep them alive would be harder, while getting them back to "healthy" would remain easy.

That's varmint hunting (You know, 1ft, 3lb rabbits and gophers) with a 30-30. A massively oversized projectile for the application.

Agree poster is dumb if he really believed those were people, but it does make me think....

Round made for big game v small game and round made for vehicles v humans... no similarties

My bad, the Hague Conventions on Land Warfare, not the Geneva Conventions. Nevertheless, no military would be caught dead with "war crime ammo". I could list more reasons why the suggestion you could get HP .50cal ammo in even pre-Zombie peacetime Chernarus is beyond retarded.

Could get explosive, incindiary, Armor Piercing, Tracer, Ball, Match Grade M1022, or XM1022. There are alot of options, but I agree civilian .50 bmg would be rather rare, a rifle runs in the 8-14k range and if you used the link above you can see the cost of ammo. Regardless it would still wreck someone 1 shot.

On paper, in argument, and in theory, you are absolutely right. However, fundamentally and realistically, nothing could be further from the truth.

Agree on the loot farming, with out actual scarcity via hard caps nothing is ever rare just harder to obtain. Couple this with what people will actually take off of a dead body/tent/car and you have an ever increasing amount of "good" weapons. This can only be fixed by throwing out the fixed rate loot spawn system, I've posted about changing to a dynamic rate that caps when possession rates get to spawn rates. Make the servers query the hive to get loot spawn rates and you have fixed rates everywhere. Rocket could use this to tortue everyone, and it would amplify the have's v have nots even more, but thats fine IMO.

The rest of your arguments focus on glitches or design flaws that are going to be fixed in the initial release of stand alone, (AltF4 and Hopping) I think getting rid of weapons based on this would be throwing the baby out with the bath water. Range is an advantage in combat, thus snipers will always have an advantage, add to this the truly open setting and you have the ability to kill people, not pvp that would imply competition. As you noted there is an easy defense, the sniper's major consideration, player movement. It is easy to avoid the majority of lone snipers out for kill counts, simply avoid major traffic areas. I think this is fairly authentic, as major areas of oppertunity would be the most dangerous locations, see watering hole...

[Dabs 12]

Actually they aren't the same thing at all

Yes they are the exact same thing. A "Ballistic Tip™" bullet is a Nosler Trademark on an expanding hollow point bullet where the hollow point is plugged with a plastic plug to increase aerodynamics and thus accuracy. There's other brands that do something similiar, and the terminal ballistics are indistinguishable from unplugged HP.

Milspec .50 ammo could encompass a variaty of cartridges other than HP, and also include "hand loads" as most sniper elements are outfitted with ammo outside of normal mil spec to decrease MOA.

Army snipers don't hand load, that's something for hobbyists wanting to save money on their hunting ammo. The canadian army snipers that did that record in afghanistan had special match ammo (regular FMJ with tighter tolerances) and found that at distances over 2000m the regular BMG ammo was more accurate as it was loaded hotter, and their record 2400something meters shot was performed with a BMG round.

I agree disabling a target is the name of the game, Knockdown power.

Guns do not have knockdown power. What they do have is the ability to damage a vital organ (heart, spine, brain) to disable an opponent within seconds.

Thats why big fast expanding bullets are the king of big game hunting cartridges.

No, .308 HP ammo is king because it allows you to do that with great accuracy at ranges of 500m.

And yes being gut shot with a small caliber weapon or being stabbed would allow you to fight back as long as you didn't go into shock or become preoccupied with trying to hold your blood/guts in. Being shot with a .50 or even a 308 in the gut would not allow for this IMO, especially if you were shot from range.

Hunters carefully line up their shots on an immobile target and will not fire until they are fairly sure they're going to hit the heart cavity. And they will tell you that if you do not hit that, you not only have failed as a good hunter, but you can now look for the deer that you injured, which ran off, and finish it off.

Bigger rounds with a bigger bore and more energy give you more leeway for near misses - bone and bullet fragments cause additional damage in the immediate vicinity of the wound channel, so a near miss to the heart with a .308 can still damage it and/or the arteries enough for it to die within seconds. Deforming ammunition tries to further capitalize on this. A gut wound however will have the deer run around for 100s of meters, maybe hours, before it collapses. A .50 cal isn't a magical death ray. It's holes are slightly bigger, but it's still of utmost important where that hole is, what organs exactly you made holes in.

I have used blood bags in combat, and had them used on me. Time for effect is the same as a bandage this is why you keep one in your inventory and use it before bandage when your friend gets shot. Insta Kill has to exist to represent that people aren't recoving from injuries. The current med system allows people to be completely cured of internal/external blood loss and back to 100% health in a matter of seconds. I agree you don't want to have to "heal up" but if your critically injured you should not be able to be instantly cured either, I think bandages should only lessen the amount of blood loss for this reason thus requiring mutliple bandage applications and multiple blood bags to keep someone alive after injury. This would allow for less instant blood damage because it would mean to keep them alive would be harder, while getting them back to "healthy" would remain easy.

I am still in favor of a more detailed, more realistic medical simulation. None of that is an argument why a particular type of gun should be a magical death ray however.

Round made for big game v small game and round made for vehicles v humans... no similarties

Cube-Square law. Things do not just scale up.

Could get explosive, incindiary, Armor Piercing, Tracer, Ball, Match Grade M1022, or XM1022. There are alot of options, but I agree civilian .50 bmg would be rather rare, a rifle runs in the 8-14k range and if you used the link above you can see the cost of ammo.

Oh, I'm all for more variety with bullets. For example, AK47/74 hollow point ammo would be easily available in Chernarus, as modified single shot AKs with a scope are a popular, cheap choice for hunters in the eastern bloc.

Regardless it would still wreck someone 1 shot.

A 9mm makarov at 300m carries enough energy to penetrate the skull and damage the brain. It can wreck someone in 1 shot. A hit to an extremity with a .50 cal may or may not destroy that extremity, depending on whether bone was it. A grazing hit with a .50 cal would do virtually nothing except give a cool looking scar. So what's this with the 1 shot wreckage? It's important where you hit? Right.

For extra emphasis, here's the top 3 things of what's really important whether a gun will "wreck" someone:

SHOT PLACEMENT!

SHOT PLACEMENT!

SHOT PLACEMENT!

Edited August 23, 2012 by Dabs

[Titanic3 16]

So much fail in this thread. If you've never fired a .50 against a human or seen first hand what it does to a human...do not post in this thread. I don't care if the .50 hits JUST the arm, try to see if you can survive having your arm ripped off without a hospital nearby or any medical supplies (you could try to make a pillow to rest your head on before you die with the bandages though).

[Dabs 12]

So much fail in this thread. If you've never fired a .50 against a human or seen first hand what it does to a human...do not post in this thread. I don't care if the .50 hits JUST the arm, try to see if you can survive having your arm ripped off without a hospital nearby or any medical supplies (you could try to make a pillow to rest your head on before you die with the bandages though).

Spare me your ignorance. It is interesting how your entire knowledge is clearly from video games, yet want to forbid people who own and have fired high energy rifles from speaking out. This has to epitomize the hypocrisy and stupidity in this discussion.

To set the record straight: In the unlikely case of a .50 BMG striking not just the arm, but also the bone, a tourniquet is the way to go. The arm's likely gone of course. You may survive without any special equipment even, just applying pressure with your (still attached hand). And even without any intervention whatsoever, survivability is higher than if the arm had been removed with a blade: Bullets cause considerable blunt force trauma to the tissue surrounding the wound canal, and the the artery would swell almost immediately shut, well before a lethal amount of blood loss had occurred.

[MGreenwald 49]

damnit.. now i gotta find that "usless shit i've read" paper and add the OPs post to it...

[MGreenwald 49]

Spare me your ignorance. It is interesting how your entire knowledge is clearly from video games, yet want to forbid people who own and have fired high energy rifles from speaking out. This has to epitomize the hypocrisy and stupidity in this discussion.

To set the record straight: In the unlikely case of a .50 BMG striking not just the arm, but also the bone, a tourniquet is the way to go. The arm's likely gone of course. You may survive without any special equipment even, just applying pressure with your (still attached hand). And even without any intervention whatsoever, survivability is higher than if the arm had been removed with a blade: Bullets cause considerable blunt force trauma to the tissue surrounding the wound canal, and the the artery would swell almost immediately shut, well before a lethal amount of blood loss had occurred.

My Brother in law is a Sniper for the Marine Core.. He's described to me the difference of a 30-06 bullet compaired to a .50 cal round hitting a body... The 50 cal demolishes everything and anything, alot more ripped flesh and/or body parts than the 30-06 round causes.

[ZTrainz 21]

To Dabs and the OP: Just because you read a study or quote some "expert" with letters after his name doesn't mean you (or the expert) are right. I know from experience that accurately modeling and predicting real-world events, either mathematically or experimentally, is exceedingly difficult for even the brightest minds. Go back to the first page and read dpactual's post.

Army snipers don't hand load, that's something for hobbyists wanting to save money on their hunting ammo.

Hunters carefully line up their shots on an immobile target and will not fire until they are fairly sure they're going to hit the heart cavity. And they will tell you that if you do not hit that, you not only have failed as a good hunter, but you can now look for the deer that you injured, which ran off, and finish it off.

A gut wound however will have the deer run around for 100s of meters, maybe hours, before it collapses. A .50 cal isn't a magical death ray. It's holes are slightly bigger, but it's still of utmost important where that hole is, what organs exactly you made holes in.

Just because Army snipers don't use custom loads doesn't mean that better snipers don't.

You've never been hunting have you?

I've personally shot a deer with a .30-06, straight through the center of the abdominal cavity. It went about 75 yards and keeled over in less than a minute. The entire abdominal cavity was bloody mush - easy to gut but messy. And before you get all righteous on me, everyone misses eventually. I missed and got lucky. I've also heart-shot deer with lesser weapons that went several hundred yards and lived in excess of an hour.

Spare me your ignorance. It is interesting how your entire knowledge is clearly from video games, yet want to forbid people who own and have fired high energy rifles from speaking out. This has to epitomize the hypocrisy and stupidity in this discussion.

To set the record straight: In the unlikely case of a .50 BMG striking not just the arm, but also the bone, a tourniquet is the way to go. The arm's likely gone of course. You may survive without any special equipment even, just applying pressure with your (still attached hand). And even without any intervention whatsoever, survivability is higher than if the arm had been removed with a blade: Bullets cause considerable blunt force trauma to the tissue surrounding the wound canal, and the the artery would swell almost immediately shut, well before a lethal amount of blood loss had occurred.

You have yet to cite any of your personal experience with terminal ballistics on actual living tissue and yet you cry hypocrisy? Get your hands on a .50, shoot a bunch of pigs and then maybe I'll consider you qualified enough to listen to.

Because of sass to the CO. Edit: I was also wearing full chem warfare gear + gas mask.

I have to admit, this made me smile because I guessed it before you posted (although in my version it was a Sergeant, not the CO). It definitely gives me insight into your character or more accurately, lack thereof.

These aren't hand loads they are A-Max, http://www.hornady.c...gr-A-MAX-Match/.

He's right. Hornady doesn't even make the V-Max in .50. Furthermore, a lot of guys reload just because they think they can do better than the commercially available loads. I do agree that Mr. Two is wrong about the ballistic tips. Ballistic tips are there for accuracy and are more likely to provide faster expansion if they have any post-impact effect at all.

Dabs, I like your concept about modeling organs and basing a damage system off of that. It won't happen in a video game though, not for the foreseeable future. Why? Time, money and the fact that many gamers won't accept dying within minutes of a single 9mm round hitting them in the leg (think femoral artery). By the way, how do we account for "miracles" (situations that our vast scientific knowledge can't explain)? With 4.6 million DayZ murders, certainly a miracle recovery would have happened by now. Or on the other side, what about the the deaths that have a million to one chance of occuring (like a fragment of a 9mm round that inflicted a non-fatal would days ago traveling through the circulatory system and lodging in the heart or brain)? What about individual anatomical differences such as situs inversus? All of these factors and many more can determine if a given gunshot kills it's victim and how fast death comes. As someone else said, how far do you want to go with this authenticity?

This has been said before but at the end of the day any game (or simulation) system is going to be a rough approximation of reality, at best. Viable damage systems in FPS games are so far away from reality right now that real-world terminal ballistics has absolutely no place in the discussion. You could also make snipers much less effective if you had hit detection that factored in things like spin drift, multiple wind vectors, elevation and humidity. Unfortunately that kind of system probably won't be in a retail release either. The complexity required to get it right is just too expensive.

Does Arma approximate reality better than any other shooter out there? Yes. Does it come anywhere close to reality? NO!

Because the game systems are so inadequate (and will continue to be so), I think the best way to view sniper rifles is from the game balance point of view. I agree, they need some minor adjustments and some of the suggestions in this thread are viable.

[xximrtwoixx 104]

Yes they are the exact same thing. A "Ballistic Tip™" bullet is a Nosler Trademark on an expanding hollow point bullet where the hollow point is plugged with a plastic plug to increase aerodynamics and thus accuracy. There's other brands that do something similiar, and the terminal ballistics are indistinguishable from unplugged HP.

Have you used both to take an animal? They aren't the same, tipped ammo does not get you the expansion that standard HP does, they claim it does but its BS IMO. It will decrease MOA, and thats probably better in most cases than pure expansion but IMO it doesn't measure up. I've shot hundreds/thousands of squirrels/rabits/coyotes/coons and have tried using both, IMO HP ammo gives better results. I guess that is a seperate debate though also.

Army snipers don't hand load, that's something for hobbyists wanting to save money on their hunting ammo. The canadian army snipers that did that record in afghanistan had special match ammo (regular FMJ with tighter tolerances) and found that at distances over 2000m the regular BMG ammo was more accurate as it was loaded hotter, and their record 2400something meters shot was performed with a BMG round.

There were quotes around it for a reason, match ammo and hand loads are trying to accomplish the same thing, match ammo is simply the mass production version of hand loading, quality is held over quantity. You want to make each bullet exactly the same, grains to powder and jacket/casing. The tollerances are way down from standard ammo to remove outliers that cause inaccuracy. Hand loads are better, but match loads are trying to do the same thing.

Also .50 BMG is the name of the round there are alot of variants of .50 BMG, the M designator distinguishes each type of round in the military. I have no idea about the "record" or if it was with standard Ball ammo. Was it a one shot kill? I think that may have some significance for this discussion though and you seem like the person to ask.

Guns do not have knockdown power. What they do have is the ability to damage a vital organ (heart, spine, brain) to disable an opponent within seconds.

Guns do have "knockdown power" when you shoot something energy is exchanged and with almost all large calibers enough energy is exchanged to knock a target over. When I shoot a coyote with .308 it knocks it down, sometimes it will make it flip over. When I shoot it with a .22 Mag it doesn't....

These same big fast rounds also do enough damage that the target does not get back up after being shot, to me thats knock down power, you put the target down and it stops doing what it was doing and does not get up to start doing it again. Yes shot placement is a part of this, but the cartridge/bullet also plays a major factor.

No, .308 HP ammo is king because it allows you to do that with great accuracy at ranges of 500m.

Really the .30-06 is the king of hunting rifles it shoots flatter and there are more options for bullets.

Hunters carefully line up their shots on an immobile target and will not fire until they are fairly sure they're going to hit the heart cavity. And they will tell you that if you do not hit that, you not only have failed as a good hunter, but you can now look for the deer that you injured, which ran off, and finish it off.

Bigger rounds with a bigger bore and more energy give you more leeway for near misses - bone and bullet fragments cause additional damage in the immediate vicinity of the wound channel, so a near miss to the heart with a .308 can still damage it and/or the arteries enough for it to die within seconds. Deforming ammunition tries to further capitalize on this. A gut wound however will have the deer run around for 100s of meters, maybe hours, before it collapses. A .50 cal isn't a magical death ray. It's holes are slightly bigger, but it's still of utmost important where that hole is, what organs exactly you made holes in.

The kill box is larger than the heart, it also includes the lungs/diaphram and major arteries, it is the entire chest cavity really. If you fail to shoot a deer within this zone or hit the shoulder it can be viewed as unethical, and it also results in spoilage or reduced harvest. This isn't unique to deer though it applies to all animals. Further i've always been taught and from what little hunting tv I've watched no one tracks down and "finishes" off game, you give it time to bleed out if you screwed up and the animal managed to get out of sight before going down. (This tells me your not a hunter I think) Also there is alot to consider when taking an animal there are usually obstructions that limit firing angles and the animals are often quartering (not giving you a broad side) and that further makes a "perfect" shot a ghost rookies chase, or people that don't really want to take an animal's life. A hunter much like a sniper has the ability to choose a location in an attempt to mitigate as many factors as possible though. This is the true skill IMO, the major reason people pass on a shot is because they know it would result in spoilage, reduced harvest, or may result in a loss of the animal. A sniper does not have to factor in any of these, so setting up a shot is much easier. Because people walk on two feet we are not afforded the protection of shoulder blades over our vital areas like animals.Thus a center mass hit on a human will almost always have a devestating effect. I've never shot a person or been shot, but if I didn't have to think about missing a shoulder (its a good roast) then life would be alot easier I imagine.

I have screwed up when deer hunting, more when I'm squirel/rabit/coyote hunting. I've never lost a deer that I shot though, and even when I gut shot one it didn't make it more than 200 yards, they cover ground so fast even injured, it was less than a minute before it was down. That was with a .50 bp smoke tube that doesn't generate near the energy a .50 bmg would. The hours scenario you describe or the 100's of meteres only comes in when you use to small of a caliber for your target, you miss badly, the deer is lucky (through and through w/no bone), or you were bow hunting and suck which is a different story.

I am still in favor of a more detailed, more realistic medical simulation. None of that is an argument why a particular type of gun should be a magical death ray however.

So people should be able to be shot in the head, (won't always kill you immediatley) then recieve treatment and be completely fine again? This is very un-authentic IMO, the odds are that person would never recover back to fighting shape IRL and that is what needs to be simulated with certain wound locations or damage values. If your not going to get back in the fight then you may as well be insta dead. If Rocket wanted to put in complete loss of limbs at a certain damage value fine, but w/out that then a certain number of limb hits will have to kill you.

Cube-Square law. Things do not just scale up.

I fail to see how that applies here, I guess you mean because people are bigger than prarie dogs and the relative size of the round to size of the target isn't the same?

Say thats a .30-06 shooting prarie dogs, that round should be used against animals in the 200+ pound range a prarie dog is maybe 2-5 pounds.

A .50BMG could be used to hunt elephants in the ton range, and is being used on people in the 200 pound range? I think application can be compared if not exact results, I'm not saying your going to explode like a prarie dog, but I doubt your getting up. Also vid is a good example of when a temporary wound cavity from a supersonic round is larger than the tissue it is passing through. This would be plausible/likely if a person was shot with a .50 bmg, we are to small a meat bag to contain that temporary energy dump.

Oh, I'm all for more variety with bullets. For example, AK47/74 hollow point ammo would be easily available in Chernarus, as modified single shot AKs with a scope are a popular, cheap choice for hunters in the eastern bloc.

I'm for this too, I would really like to see more civilian weapons/loads and I think different types of ammo would add to tactical play if they were accompanied by bod armour. I think chernarus is the location only due to circumstance though, its what was there so they used it, I hope there is a different location used (Preferably the states) for the stand alone.

A 9mm makarov at 300m carries enough energy to penetrate the skull and damage the brain. It can wreck someone in 1 shot. A hit to an extremity with a .50 cal may or may not destroy that extremity, depending on whether bone was it. A grazing hit with a .50 cal would do virtually nothing except give a cool looking scar. So what's this with the 1 shot wreckage? It's important where you hit? Right.

Handguns do kill in one shot to the head even after the nerf for the most part. But I would like to see their damage returned closer to where it was prior to the nerf.

It is important where you hit, but thinking that you'd only get a scar is bs, there isn't enough skin to contain the temporary cavity in an extremity even if the bullet missed bone. A through and through wouldn't be two holes with a .50 the way it would be with say a .22lr, it would rip the skin/meat apart leaving an open wound across that extremity that likley exposes bone and tears major arteries.

Further I don't see death through extremity hit as a legitimate defense or reason they should be removed/changed, your being hunted when your shot with a .50 or any sniper in game, your usually not actually fighting your simply being killed. A shot is delivered and 95% of the time your being struck center mass, shoulders/chest/abdomen/pelvic region. A shot to any of these locations would kill you with any of the sniper rifles IG. Adding all of the content necessary to accuratley model being hit in an extremity and having appropriate effects would take up resources that could be used to add more Z's or add wind that makes shooting over range an actual chalenge.