He's afraid of what you may shoot with the damn thing. Doesn't want to lose any young 2nd amendment supporting creators if he can help it. Not sure if you have the thumbs for it
I'm not a gunsmith, engineer, or even a want-a-bee of any of this but it's awesome to see progression of something awesome as as your work. Thank You for sharing
Dear Mr. Serbu. Love your channel, and still think it would be cool if you came up with your own chamber/cartridge design utilizing an improved cartridge/chamber using perhaps paper patches? Old meets new, you can use all of us worshipers to make dies, on your patents, I.e. utube schematics and ad revenue from all of us downloading the drwaings. Something subsonic, and lead, with a paper jacket... We could make paper jacket cutters too!
The strange things that you’re had to address with changes over time and the repetition of shots are very educational to hear. You must be very open to discuss these things because I suspect any other manufacturer would not disclose any of this. It’s one more reason I think highly of you and appreciate your channel. It’s like talking to a friend. The shark muzzle brake must be pretty effective to take that energy from the barrel and actually on the original design fatigue the metal, granted 50 BMG is a lot of energy, but redirecting it means it has to push against something…🤷♂️so I guess that means there’s a lot of hot gas going through those ports. I still think you’ve got a pretty good gig going , congratulations on being in business for this long! I’m sure it’s a lot of work but hopefully it doesn’t feel like it.
This was great, don't spare the details :) Please share the experience so the next generation learns. It was great seeing you talk materials. It is amazing how much of that could be ordered from a McMaster Catalog (material wise). I would also be curious to heard about the heat treats and hardness tolerances. There are probably only a few of us that watch that have VMCs that fully understand the fixturing issues and the wins with the continuous 4th axis machining.
Hi Mark! Original and still current owner of BFG-50 #128 Totally unaltered, totally Thanks for a great gun....and it us still one of my favorites! unchanged...and still have under 100 rounds through her!
@@markserbu I'm just wondering if you or, if you know of anyone who has, made a disassembly and reassembly video of this marvelous creation ??? Totally Fascinated by it !!!
Mark, thank you for sharing your wisdom and modifications you've done over the years. As a fellow gun nut, I super appreciate the geeking out on the details. You rock!
From a retired machinist stand point, there's always more than one way to make a part. Over time changes are made to save time and as you mentioned, make the assembly easier & quicker. I hate to say this, but time is money. Saving time allows more production.
Nice job, sir. If I'd have designed it, I would have put the loading/ejection port on the left, as well as the BTW handle. This would allow the shooter to use the support hand to operate the bolt and load without having to re-aquire the shooting position. And drilled some holes in the bottom of the barrel shroud to drain water in case of shooting in rain. Really wish you'd have set it up with an external box magazine and iron sights, offset to the scope mount. Please take these as suggestions, not criticisms. I understand you were trying hard to keep the price point low. I have a BFG-50 I bought new from you years ago, and found it very well made
luv to see how things morph and become better, I worked for a company as a design engineer for 11 yrs and I would spend way too much time thinking about the failure points, the "what ifs" situations... most of my team mates named me Mr. DoomNgloom because I was right way too often about their design faults... And they really took it personally when I would let them know that such and so forth about their design was faulty or problematic and they went ahead and pushed their product thru anyway. When the fail point became apparent and they had to do revisions and get replacement parts made and installed, I got the stink eye from most of them. A couple of them did offer thanks for the heads up, but that was very rare. After a few years I started to see more and more requests from the newer people to verify their designs. Its amazing how sensitive designers are about their work and get butthurt by a bit of "error proofing" their work....
As a enginer ish i appreciate your attention to detail and how you know your guns that you have designed and built ,dam that in its self is massive ,keep up the great content and work.
As a dev/designer, myself... anytime you talk materials, i appreciate it. I usually work on teams as the "materials science" guy and develop heat treating/process dev and do the assembly instructions writeups (most boring job ever) for building. But yeah... i like when you go into detail on the materials and processes because theres very few people i can dork out with on that subject. Nobody really wants to chat about quenching/tempering temps and material selection/sourcing.
I worked as a cnc operator for CAT for 15 yrs then went on to become the head quality control for a company call APPLIED FUSION for twenty eight years. We were the the first company to make vacuum chambers for vapor dep of silicon chips for Apple , Microsoft and applied materials. It was so long ago that my boss did a credit check on Apple to make sure they could pay lol . I could have purchased Apple stock first gen for I think 1.85 a share .so stupid but I love your geeky vids there so much fun
I appreciate the fact that as improvements were made to facilitate manufacturing, a great many of changes resulted in improved functionality and none had an adverse effect. This is rare today. Nothng worse than working on cheap crap nor better than working on well designed products.
Nice to see the improvements compared to a couple of decades ago. I still have an unfinished receiver from around 2005 that needs to be sent back to be built. One of these days...
The lotion on its skin made me LOL! plus I learned a lot, I love videos like this, I enjoy learning things I wouldn't have thought about if it wasn't put in front of me, thank you for these videos!
It’s always so interesting to get a glimpse through the eyes of an experienced engineer for people like me that are overly educated but minimally experienced.
Hey Mark you've probably tried him but I really think the superior butt pad on the market is made by Kick EEZ. Here is my reasoning one they work really well they are made out of that fancy non-Newtonian sorbathane. So it's firm on your shoulder when you're mounting it but goes squishy under impact and then goes back to firm. The other nice thing about them is that they don't have any voids inside so you can make it whatever shape you want it to be and it's going to be perfect. No need for a parts bin full of packmire things where somebody sanded just a little bit too far and hit one of the little cells. The other nice thing about the sorbathing is you can get nicer finishes on it than rubber depending on whether you wet sand it or oil sanded or whatever it really helps to have it ice cold. And the final thing is unlike rubber it doesn't break down over time at least that I can tell I have cookies butt pads from the 80s and they're still as nice as new. And I won't throw away a packmeyer or a limb saver or whatever until it's old and nasty but I wouldn't spend money on a new one. Since I like to make weird stuff if I happen to be in a gun store and they have a gunsmiths take off been full of weird stock bits I will often take a minute to shuffle through and see if there's any kick EEZ pads in there. Sooner or later I'll have some project that will need one just the size that I find in the bin.
Not in the trade, but in the trades. I am attention to detail oriented, so this was interesting! I really hope to buy the semi auto at some point in the future. Awesome craftsmanship from a true American working day in and day out to make the best product possible!
Thanks. I've got a materials list for my machinist uncle. Just kidding. With his shop rate, I could buy 4 of yours just to pay him to make 1. Great content Mark!
I think it's great to see the evolution and how the changes came about. I really want to see the new 50A, hopefully I can get near the top of the buy list, (hint)
I just love the running commentary and side jokes. It's also fascinating to hear the thought process behind the engineering decisions. Keep these videos coming. I don't mind the length and it's great to laugh and learn something, too.
Software dev manager here. I feel the same about many of my past builds. I try to convince myself that humility is a key to success when you transition from engineering do-er to engineering manager.
I want my time back!!!..lol.. i could legit listen to you talk gun stuff for hours bro.. the knowledge you have accumulated over the years is invaluable and I dream of coming to work for you just to soak in as much as I could.. never really worked on guns but thoroughly enjoy the ones I own and im the guy my friends call when they buy a new gun because there is something about learning about a new gun taking it apart for the first time cleaning it and trying to reassemble it so it functions that is really satisfying..
Mark you say the video is too long but I think it should be longer and in greater detail. I love your work and I wish I could afford to buy one of your guns. Unfortunately my health has prevented me from working and there’s absolutely no way I can afford any guns at all. I’m just happy to own the few shotguns and one pistol that I have. But keep up the great work!!!! I love your videos and I love to see you and Richard on Edwin’s channel. Man y’all do some crazy shit lol!!!😅😅 Gotta love it!!!!! That seven barrel shotgun that Richard built is outrageous and I’d love to see it in more than just two videos.I know you had to have a hand in that design. Don’t get me wrong I know Richard is genius but I’m betting that you two discussed how to put that monstrosity together. I love it. Tell Edward to fire off some dragon’s breath rounds at night next time and shoot more oxygen tanks with it. That dude is nuts!!! I watch every single one of his videos and yours too
I love these vids. Being able to listen to a Mark-Friggin-Serbu talk for 30 minutes about his designs, lessons learned, manufacturing tips, etc, etc. You can’t buy this kind of knowledge for any amount of money. 🤙👍🤙👍
About the length of the video... This stuff is not a quick "yt shorts" subject. Id ALWAYS watch the detailed vids, and i appreciate the level of detail and time you took to make it. Thank you.
@31:07 - That is the kind of muzzle brake that was on the gun you sent up to us. I think it was engraved with "Have A Nice Day" on the front of the brake or something close.
I wish I'd have taken shop class or something back in high school, to get into this line of work. But I was stupid back then. I'm hoping to get a lathe or mill eventually and dabble in some hobby machining.
Mark, just make a threading guide for the pistol grip. Something that slips over the back and has a hole with the OD of the tap. Indexes on two surfaces and hugs the outside of the TG.
