by I first learned about the Raufuss Mk 211 .50 BMG cartridge in Stephen Hunter’s Night of Thunder. The book starts out with Bob Lee Swagger’s daughter Nikki pondering the meaning of a scrap of paper with the markings “k 2:11”. She is 24 and a new crime reporter for the Bristol TN/VA Courier-Herald. She had stumbled across it while on a story about meth. Unfortunately, it marked her as an assassin’s target as she was thought to know too much.
Lawrence Person just did an interesting post about this round at his BattleSwarm blog. He has assembled a series of videos showing just what the Raufuss Mk 211 will do to cars, engine blocks, glass, and ballistic gelatin.
He notes:
What happens when this round reaches out and touches something?
Bad things for the recipient. Let’s take a look.
It is worth a look.
