Serbu Firearms, Inc., Tampa, Florida

[Eldon-1076]

Ok, that being said this is what is running through the Barrett nest in Tennessee. Im not naming names and Im not bashing anyone. Im just curious what MARK has to say about this sort of thing. Sure Barrett has a long standing with making 50 cal.. no doubt about it has to be one of the best if not the best out there. I like my Serbu..... Great quality in simplicity, very fuctional and NEVER had a problem with it so far. It is only a single shot gun however. So you can amagine the thoughts I had after hearing what a person from Barrett said about other Semi-50 cals ( Again not naming names ) They claim other Semi-50's fall apart or have other problems that they dont find in the Barrett 50's after allot of use.

I guess what im asking since the Serbu semi-50 has not been released yet, will this sort of thing be true to the Serbu? Or is the Master of the Serbu rifle going to make the Barrett people eat thier words??? I for one hope so!

[markserbu]

I guess the obvious question is: WHAT other semi-auto .50 BMG rifles? Is there even one on the market besides their rifle? My gun is gas operated and has a hydraulic buffer. Just note on the video how quiet the action is on the BFG-50A vs. (cough! cough!) all the "other" .50 BMG semi-auto rifles on the market. Obviously a gun that's got 4 pounds of mass moving back and forth in the action is going to cause less stress to the receiver than one which has 13+ pounds. I'm not about making someone eat their words. I'm about making cool stuff, and making enough money from it to buy an airplane that has some sort of gas turbine engine in it.

http://www.serbu.com/images/BFG50A081907.AVI

[50 Shooter]

Well, there are "other" semi auto .50's out there or I could say three but it's actually one. Cornfused? The other 3 of 1 is the Pauza, which never really took off and had issues. Then a few years ago Freshour decided to reproduce the Pauza and seem to be making them but at 9K+ I don't think they're selling to many.

Armalite was thinking of making a copy of the Pauza but never went through with. EDM ARMS decided to make a copy of the Pauza and are still working on the design. I hear that they have a working copy but have yet to see it, other then what they show on their website. It's not going to be cheap either, I'm hearing 9K as a price tag.

I know Knight Ind. was trying to make a semi .50 but gave up on it as they couldn't get the design to work reliably. Plus it was FUGLY as hell and I wouldn't wanna be seen shooting it.

AI has their semi auto .50 BUT it's being made strictly for the military or at least that's what they say. The rumor was that if it did go to civilians it would be somewhere in the 15K price range!!!

[Hawaii five-0]

We have all seen the A.I rifle andI have heard about the Pauza(sp),although I haven't even seen one shot.Are these rifles unattainable?
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Club Serbu member#1201

[markserbu]

I know about all the other guns, it's just that NONE of them are available except for the Barrett. Robert Pauza stops by my booth at SHOT every year. Boy, does he have some stories to tell! Among them is the fact that Freshour hasn't delivered a single rifle. And I talked to Mark Westrom years ago when they were thinking about bringing out THEIR version of Pauza's gun. The main thing that strikes me about that design (which is derived from the WWII Russian PTRS) is that it uses big, heavy, fully machined chunks of metal. Lots of material, lots of machining time. That equates to a heavy gun that's expensive to make. If it works, great. Still too heavy and too expensive. Mark thought they could bring it out at a reasonable price, but the fact that they never did should tell you something. There's an obvious problem with all of the Pauza-type guns that doesn't ever seem to get fixed. And hell no, I'm not saying what it is!! The AI gun looks sexy as hell...I love it. Too bad they can't see fit to let us poor civilians play with 'em. And too bad you need a military budget to afford one! I actually interviewed at Knight's before I started out on my own, and I just happened to be taking the factory tour when they were working on their .50. Reed and I were just walking through the area where they had the exploded view of the gun printed out on the wall and he got a phone call. So I got to stand there and look over that drawing...neat. I really didn't mind the looks of that rifle, and the fact that it was probably Stoner's last design, even if flawed (which is a question...I'm not sure it is) makes it a classic. I'm not sure if they've totally given up on it, and I hope they haven't.

[Eldon-1076]

I don't care what that dude at Barrett said about the guns... Im still going to buy a Serbu 50A when you get them into production. Like I said before with the Single 50. Straight from the crate, Serbu firearms are quality.

It just bothered me when I heard about the statement, I thought you would like to hear about it. Its kinda like someone saying " My dad can beat up your dad " That kind of thing used to get on my nerves bad when I was younger, then I started shooting the children that said those things and made it all better

[armorerdave]

Before I bought my Serbu BFG-50 I asked a few questions. Since I lived in Reno, NV at the time, I went to Action Gun Works - http://www.dierksind.com/ - thinking that they sold to customers OTC. When I went there they were not selling OTC, they were mainly a gunsmith shop; however, it seems by their website that they are doing that now. However, mostly custom work.

Anyway, I had served in the Army and was on leave from a Kosovo deployment and had seen the Barrett in action in country. I talked to their head Gunsmith, and asked if a Barrett was a good weapon to purchase, if it had problems, etc. He told me that the single shot version of almost any .50 cal BMG type was worth purchasing if u wanted to pay the price. They got a little trickier when they went to semi.
Barrett cuts a lot of metal out of the reciever to fit the box magazine and this weakens the reciever considerably. I saw a side by side comparison of the 3 Barrett recievers available at that time (mid 2002), and the difference between the bolt-action, integral magazine bolt-action, and semi auto left me speechless. I was then told that the semi auto Barrett was not worth the then 7K+ asking price because the reciever had to be rewelded after approx. 200-250 rounds, due to the stress from firing. I got to see a cracked reciever before it had been fixed, and was not pleased to know that I would have to pay for repairs, especially after I found out how much those repairs would cost.
I made a few friends in EOD while in Kosovo [they were the units using Barretts for shooting mines, which would detonate them. It was an awesome sight to watch - from a distance ] and I called some of 'em up and got their opinions. The unit armorer told me that the recievers would have to be replaced after approx 200 rounds, because there wasn't a gunsmith in country good enough to reweld them. So the U.S. Army was spending several thousand dollars per gun for new receivers, because believe me, there are a lot of mines in Kosovo and surrounding countries, and those guns were being fired a lot.

I decided this was a poor design on Barretts part, and have since sworn off buying from their company. So whoever at Barrett claims their weapons are better then "everyones elses", is either lieing, or seriously misinformed. I hope for the sake of the Barrett Company, he/she is misinformed. While I will not buy their products, I do support fellow Firearms Manufacturers/Dealers, and hate to see them make fools of themselves.

Hopefully this information is still accurate, as I did the research in Mid 2002, and they could have improved their design. However, in my opinion, they stuck their foot in their mouths by making such a bold statement.

Dave.
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If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If it is broke, shoot it full of holes!

[Florida Ammo Traders]

I have seen, held, stroked the BFG50A. I would have kissed it if Mark had let me. It's a nicely designed rifle.