The DemolitionRanch dude is one crazy mo’ fo’. But this attempt to shoot through a telephone pole with an AR-style rifle spitting out 7.62 ammo isn’t up to his usual standard of nutso. In fact, it’s boring. Literally. If he hadn’t sped-up the video we’d be looking at a Nutn’ Fancy-length saga. Or not. Anyway, TTAG’s readers are au fait with the best in high-powered weaponry, including belt-fed and crew-served weapons. So, what would be your first choice for quickly and efficiently taking down a telephone pole. [Safety Nazi note: try not to shoot at targets near objects – like cinder blocks – prone to fragmentation.]
Top Shot used a Gatling gun.
Personally, I’d vote for chainsaw.
Yep, right tool for the job.
M134 minigun. An mg42 would make an acceptable substitute.
Bingo.
I second the minigun.
I bet a Mk19 with HEDP 40mm could get through even faster than a minigun. Otherwise a M2 or a semi-auto .50 cal. A 12 gauge semi auto with Breneke AP slugs would cut roughly .72 cal holes.
Ditto on the minigun.
Miniguns are by definition a “mini” version of something. That would be the Vulcan, same design only 20mm cannon. Methinks that would do the job best of all! Especially if you can get hold of a few hundred HE rounds!
Quad .50 FTW!
Usually I see people doing this type of thing on YouTube with a 45-70
Ma Deuce .50BMG. Or an 8″ self-propelled howitzer (one shot).
+1 on the M2….
+1
My thoughts too – except that a bi or quad mount would be that much better. Apparently, they were used on a number of occasions during WWII to take down trees containing German snipers. Not playing fair, of course. But, effective.
They were apparently also very useful during the Korean War, to stop human-wave attacks by the ChiComs.
4X 500 rounds (700 grains each) per minute = 2000 rpm out to about a mile.
The venerable M2, or other .50 caliber magazine fed, bolt action or semi-auto rifle.
M60 worked well for this kind of thing. Short bursts are your friend. Not to mention walking your rounds to the target.
As proven here:
Don’t know why, but the video links aren’t showing up in my browser. 1) If this is a repeat of the two earlier videos, sorry, I couldn’t see yours. 2) The YouTube link originally listed this as an M60, but it’s obviously a Gatling gun.
Sorry. Thompson .45 and M60.
Yeah, a good tripod-mounted M60 is a fairly efficient way to get this done. Lock it down with the T&E, use downward pressure to remove the slack, then just wiggle it side-to-side as you shoot; doesn’t take long at all.
CJ, strangely enough, the last few times I did this (on trees) I was in Minnesota (that military range complex near Little Falls, I think it was called Camp Ripley?). They had a GREAT machinegun range there, and they generally left us Air Force folks alone when we came to quality our Air Base Ground Defense/Security troops.
Mk 19. Or is that cheating?
Don’t feel bad. I was going to say a Carl Gustav.
I don’t generally cut down telephone poles. The need just hasn’t come up.
M79 or M203 should do it with one shot with HEDP.
Anzio 20mm?
Obviously a .45 acp. Those instantly vaporize anything the come within two feet of.
My first choice would be a chainsaw.
Yep. Don’t use a gun to cut down poles and don’t use a chainsaw to hunt wild hogs. There’s a tool for every job.
Lacking a chainsaw, I would opt for a D-10 Caterpillar bulldozer.
I’d use a fun little piece. The American-180.
When you say little, you really mean little…
I doubt the .22lr would even go through a telephone pole
It doesn’t have to go all the way through; all it has to do is remove wood chips, same as an ax or hatchet.
I’d use a Radom P64 to shoot down a Pole.
Doh!
Hi ohhhhh!
I saw this on full 30 a few days ago. I thought it would take at least 10 mags.
What’s boring about it? Though not as ridiculous as some of his other vids, I still found it entertaining. I guess there’s always a troll out there who is unhappy with everything!
20 pound Parrott Rifle.
Det cord.
^ This! – is what they taught my buddy in Combat Engineer school.
Agreed, 3-4 turns around the pole should do the job admirably. If that fails, a GAU 8A Avenger 30mm gatling gun from a Warthog.
“…a GAU 8A Avenger 30mm gatling gun from a Warthog.”
We Have A WINNER!
The Goodies start at 0:32 seconds…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMMGywAxBmg
(Drops Microphone)
Brrrrrrrrrrrrt
This video has better sound i think.
I recall reading about this being the problem with testing the Warthog’s gun. The first range they tried to use supported the targets with telephone poles but a single round from the GAU8 would uproot and/or demolish them.
So, to make a short story long, that was going to be my vote. Sort of thing.
Phrased wrong. Correct would be *IN* a Warthog. Not near as fun by itself, they’re a team!
Preference leans towards skipping a firearm and moving in to something rdx based.
NAA mini revolver (22 mag) with 1000 bricks of ammo and several weeks, or so, of spare time!
Lacking that, maybe several sticks of TNT.
Gunr, that would make a nice vacation…
🙂
.950 jdj
Can’t go wrong with Ma Deuce.
Mossberg JM 930 with 00 buckshot
Or the SRM Arms 1216.
Something like this was done a LONG time ago… http://www.magnoliabox.com/art/286111/hiram-maxim-demonstrating-the-power-of-his-gun-to-chinese
Everyone knows that Matt is a doctor, right?
His Vet Ranch vids are all sorts of awesome.
Oh, yeah…
The ones of dogs with a face and mouth full of porcupine quills…
yeouch.
How about a Flak 37?
Are they gonna have a couple of them 88’s at the Festival. I’ve got one foot in the grave, and the other on a banana peel, but I just might get up enough strength to make it there, if I could put a couple rounds in a surplussed tank.
Dam! that would be fun, say good buy to Tannerite.
The M203 with HE rounds always came through for me out to 400 yards, but the M2HB would do it as well way out to 4 times the range of the M203. However, when we Combat Engineers really wanted to breach a target, the CEV with its 165mm HE gun would breach much more than a telephone pole! But since we are on the one-upmanship ramp, and since I was in the ADM platoon (atomic demolition munitions), we did have both a 20 kiloton and a 55 kiloton device at our disposal—capable of taking out all the telephone poles over a several mile area all at the same time (could take out a complete dam on a reservoir). Ours were old school—atomic (fission) not nuclear (fusion), so you flyboys could obviously do it better and from a longer distance, but we had to do it up close and personal.
Of course, the LAW with its 60 mm rocket could be fun as well. Do not forget about the MAW and the HAW (bigger brothers to the LAW) for a fun time.
I did take out a 4-1/2″ pine tree once with a single shot from a .308 WIN—I was a bit surprised that it would do that, but about 2 seconds after the shot, the tree came toppling over.
I’m going to go a different route and say 40mm bangstick 🙂
When I was at CST, we gunned down a small dead tree considerably thinner than a telephone pole during a range day, and it took at least an hour of 30-some gunsmiths banging away with an arsenal of ARs, AKs, .50 BMG rifles, black powder rifles and muskets, every type of pistol imaginable, you get the idea, to actually take it down. Really, the only firearm remotely practical, excluding anything firing shells instead of bullets, is one of the electric Gatlings, I’m not sure that even an M2 or other high caliber MG would do it in anything close to a timely manner. I personally put a few dozen rounds from an AR50 into the tree that day, and it hardly seemed to faze it.
Hmmm…If I was gonna do the telephone pole chop with something that is reasonably accessible to shooters, it would probably be with a Barrett .50 BMG rifle. If I could use anything I wanted, it would be an M40A1 106mm recoilless rifle with a HEPT round. When I was in Vietnam, the company commander used to take the occassional target practice shot with a 106 at trees about 800m away. The HEPT round would hit the tree and explode, and the tree trunk above that point would jump about five feet in the air and then fall down. Awesome!
GAU-8 Avenger is the only proper answer.
Gotta get me one o’ those someday. 🙂
Well here in OK someone is selling a Cheiftain MK 6, main battle tank with 120mm gun on Armslist. I think that should do it. http://www.armslist.com/posts/4616205/oklahoma-city-oklahoma-nfa-firearms-for-sale–fully-operational-main-battle-tank-with-120mm-live-cannon
I can tell you that ramming one with the corner of a M113 at 30 or so MPH is not enough to knock it down. Busted it pretty well though (and rattled me fairly well also – luckily only suffered a split lip).
I like all of the suggestions!