Here’s a story that you may prompt you to dismiss it as some tall tale if it wasn’t told by from the person involved. It was about customer support… for firearms. You see, Barrett, the maker of firearms best known for the M-107A anti-material sniper rifle, has live customer support. OK. That part isn’t quite surprising. Perhaps, the military’s armorers would need to call it to find what’s up with some functionality or fault. No big deal, but there was a peculiar case where a Marine called in regarding a M-107A.50 BMG rifle had a fault that needs urgent attention because, he was in the middle of a firefight in Afghanistan. Like, seriously.
According to Range365, who picked up the story from tribunist.com, Marine vet Don Cook attended the call. Cook recalled the event and noted that it was probably one of the biggest highlights in his life “to be able to help a Marine unit in a firefight.” You can hear Cook recounting the call yourself in the National Geographic documentary Snipers Inc. at 9:12 mark in the video below. From the call, Cook determined that the malfunction was caused by a bent receiver which he then advised the Marine on how to bend the piece back in place using what the soldier had at his disposal at that point in time and in that case, the improvised tool was the bolt carrier. Like, who have thought a bolt carrier works good as a hammer, right?
Anyways, It did the trick. The fix took something like 30-45 seconds and the Marine was back in action. Now, that is one hell of a story and like I have said, if one did not hear from the horse’s mouth, one may think it is a fake news. There you have it. Another bizarre event to add the many we have heard and seen.
Note: video below is region lock. So, you won’t be able to watch it less you are in stateside.
Illustration by Mikeshouts.
