# Why are the rifles high-powered, not the bullets?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-rifles-high-powered-not-the-bullets/131408>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 8, 2002, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-rifles-high-powered-not-the-bullets/131408 "2002-10-08T18:34:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Milton\_De\_La\_Warre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e480ec/32.png) [@Milton\_De\_La\_Warre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Milton_De_La_Warre)\
**Post date:** [October 10, 2002, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-rifles-high-powered-not-the-bullets/131408/21 "2002-10-10T11:43:21Z")

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A good point Red Dragon; the .50AE is a whole lot different from the .50BMG round (used in the M2 Browning Machine Gun and some specialized heavy target rifles). The .50AE makes for a huge, heavy, and almost unmanageable handgun. The .50BMG round is much bigger and heavier, and is way more powerful; trying to design a .50BMG Desert Eagle or .50BMG revolver would make for a handgun that would almost demand its own tripod.

But this is a digression. The point is that in response to the OP’s question 2 :" Couldn’t a handgun be made that fires the same bullet as a high-powered rifle, resulting in the same muzzle velocity and therefore the same “power” (energy)?" The answer is no, not really. The closest you could come would be to have a very cut-down rifle (essentially a rifle reciever with a pistol grip and short-short barrel) that in the eyes of some would pass for a “handgun”, but even then, it wouls still get less MV and thus “energy” than the full rifle. A true handgun redesigned for rifel rounds --a mammoth revolver or an even more ridiculously engarged autoloader than the Desert Eagles— would be unuseable.

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