New 50 SW Straightwall, For Long Range Hunting

Say you’re hunting in the high mountain ranges of Indiana, and you want to reach out and knock over an elk. Or maybe you’re in Ohio farmland, glassing fields a mile away, in the next county over, and you see a Booner step out of the treeline. Thanks to a collaboration between Barrett and Federal, you no longer have to pass on that shot because your straightwall cartridge rifle isn’t powerful enough! Today, on April 1, they’ve revealed the new 50 SW cartridge for the long-distance hunter who needs to follow straightwall cartridge restrictions.

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An innovative approach

The new 50 SW is based on a cartridge that Americans know well; it uses the same hard-hitting half-inch bullets that powered the M2 machine gun to World War victory with the .50 BMG cartridge.

Ever since Carlos Hathcock first fitted an M2 machine gun with a scope to make it into a sniper rifle, long-range shooters have seen the potential of the .50 BMG at extreme distances, but it is a bottleneck cartridge that is illegal to use in jurisdictions that require straight-wall cartridges. Necking up the .50 BMG cartridge to accept larger bullets would have resulted in projectiles that were too heavy for accurate long-range shooting, so instead, Federal’s designers shrunk the case to match the base of a .50-cal projectile.

Obviously, this diminished case capacity, which means less muzzle velocity. What to do?

Federal’s engineers solved the problem by lengthening the case, allowing shooters to actually increase the amount of powder behind the bullet, pushing it even faster.

The result? A muzzle velocity of 3,100 fps, compared to the ~3,000 fps speed of most factory .50 BMG loads. Federal’s engineers say this difference will be very noticeable.

“The popular trend in shooting these days is precision, long-range cartridges. No matter how fast your bullets are traveling, we can always find more speed,” says the PR for the new round. “Picking up an extra 100 feet per second might make the difference between getting that trophy for your man cave wall, or going home a failure from yet another deer season.”

There are drawbacks that come with the new cartridge, of course. Now, straight-wall shooters used to open-sight .44 Magnum lever guns must factor in the curvature of the earth, humidity and the Coriolis effect on their bullet. To counter this, Federal says it is releasing a new app specifically aimed at helping hunters dial in their long-range shots when using this cartridge.

The custom built rifle

The overall length of the new 50 SW cartridge is 8 inches, up from 5.45 inches for .50 BMG. This meant Federal had to partner with a riflemaker for an all-new bolt-action platform built around the load. That’s where Barrett comes in.

Well-known for their .50-caliber sniper rifles, it was easy work for Barrett to extend the receiver and magazine of their M107A1 rifle to accommodate the new extra-long cartridge. The new rifle made for the 50 SW round is called the M107A50SW. See it in the photo below, with components enlarged to handle the new round.

“We’re really proud of this new rifle,” says Barrett’s spokesperson. “For years, we’ve supplied our .50-caliber rifles to military customers, but now, the uniform we’re interested in most is classic hunter’s orange. We know that hundreds of thousands of customers across Pennsylvania, Michigan and other places with straight-wall cartridges will see the advantage of fifty-hitting power, and move to our new platform.”

There will be some adjustments, for sure. To reduce recoil to a level manageable for most shooters, Barrett had to make the new M107A50SW weigh 45 pounds. Combined with a muzzle brake, that is said to reduce recoil to a barely-noticeable 38 lb-ft kick.

“We’re really interested in exploring the possibilities of this new platform,” Barrett says. “With the two hottest trends in hunting being straight-walled cartridges and long-range shooting, combining them both only makes sense, and we’re proud to be the first to do it.”

Expect the 50 SW cartridge to debut on April 1, 2026. April Fools!