The .50 BMG Saboted Light-Armor Penetrator - Tracer

or

"SLAP-T"

Some time ago, a friend of mine who owns a .50 BMG sniper rifle gave me a challenge. He knew that I made pens using rifle rounds such as the 30-06, 30-30, and .308, so he gave me a bag of spent .50 BMG rounds to see what kind of pen they would make.

After a good bit of research (and several creative but futile attempts to make a workable pen), I came across a picture of the SLAP-T round. This military round uses a tungsten "dart" encased in a plastic sabot. It has a muzzle velocity of 4,000 feet-per-second and is used against light armor, penetrating 19mm of steel armor at 1500 yards. The "-T" and the red sabot designate that this is the tracer version of the round.

I was able to fabricate a workable sleeve bearing that would accommodate the plastic "sabot" and pen transmission. The final product mimics the real SLAP-T round fairly well. (So well, in fact, that a customer at a gun show was excited about being able to buy a SLAP-T round. He was a bit disappointed to find out it was only a pen.)