Sulok-pattern beam rifle

Beam Rifle redirects here. For the Halo 4 version, see Type-27 beam rifle.

"As soon as the first guy goes down with blood and steam whistling out through the neat new hole in their head, you know you’re in for a long, miserable game of ‘where the foxtrot did that come from.'"

- Unknown UNSC serviceman

The Type-50 Sniper Rifle System, otherwise known as the Particle Beam Rifle or simply Beam Rifle, is a Covenant long-range weapon and the counterpart of the UNSC SRS99 series sniper rifles. It is also the successor to the earlier Type-27 Special Application Sniper Rifle.

Design details
The Type-50 SRS is a battery-powered directed energy weapon that fires hydrogen gas in a beam of accelerated particles at its targets. The weapon is extremely well suited for its role: it produces negligible sounds and muzzle signature while firing and has very high accuracy and range. The Type-50 SRS also excels at target penetration, maximizing its lethality, as the beam will always pass through a target completely. Although the size of the wounds inflicted on a target are small, the damage done is similar to most directed energy weapons used by the Covenant.

The scope on the weapon is capable of 5 and 10 times magnification. The round section in front of the hand guard and trigger area of the weapon appears to contain the Type-50's "ammunition"; after the weapon has completed its firing sequence, the section rotates presumably to "chamber" another "round".

Advantages
Similarly to the SRS 99 AM sniper rifle series, the Type-50 is excellent at picking off enemies at great distances. Its pulses are very useful at passing through any type of material, armored or non-armored; this makes the particle beam rifle's overpenetration ability much more effective at killing a wide range of enemy infantry. As the beam passes through the body at nearly the speed of light, the particles transfer their kinetic energy to the atoms in the molecules of the target area. Upon impact, the area is rapidly superheated, cauterizing the wound at the same time - a direct hit on skull area of a target will be killed instantly, and body shots depending on the area will be fatal in most cases. A rare non fatal strike to a target can also cause radiation damage, and will require additional treatment, and near misses can produce second or third degree burns to light armored targets. The beam rifle's relative silence, as opposed to the sniper rifle's loud bang, gives it a bit of a stealth advantage; however, this is compensated by the greater visibility of the Type-50's beam. In the context of the Halo games, the particle beam rifle's strength and lethality are weakened for the sake of gameplay.

Disadvantages
While the Type-50 SRS excels at material penetration, in the games, the particle beam rifle does not have much difference then its UNSC counterpart, although in canon it is much stronger. The Type-50 is also unable to perform rapid shots in quick succession - after two shots are fired within a second of each other, the weapon will overheat and will shut down to prevent damage to its internal components, temporarily rendering the weapon useless. The particle beam rifle can only fire 18 shots before the battery is used up and the weapon must be replaced. Like its human counterpart, the particle beam rifle is ineffective at close range combat unless its user is skilled at close range combat with the sniper rifle. The beam of purple light produced from the beam rifle is very easy to see, but somewhat quicker at dissipating compared with the Sniper Rifle, as a sniper's position is more likely to be compromised because of this, requiring the sniper to relocate quickly before being detected.

UNSC remarks

 * “Makes less noise than a Battle Rifle; has less felt recoil than an M6; is at least as accurate as 99 AM of them—it’s big and heavy and the balance is weird but I can’t wait ‘til I get my hands on another one.”
 * “It’s deadly accurate. The scope is a little hard to take though—made me nauseous when I first figured out how to engage it—it’s useful enough and easy to understand. Still hurts my eyes though.”
 * “Maybe with the Elites on our side we’ll finally find out how to reload or recharge these weapons or whatever… I have a feeling we shouldn’t start holding our breath anytime soon though.”
 * “Not as much recoil as the ninety-nine but then again the mechanism is entirely different—don’t worry about the machine; a steady hand, breath control, and patience are the key to success with either one.”
 * “The Type-50 SRS is not completely silent nor is it invisible. Jackals may be superb marksmen and they’re very sneaky, but that doesn’t make them excellent snipers—they’re a little too bloodthirsty for that”.

Trivia

 * The Beam Rifle was originally to be used by Elites in Halo: Combat Evolved with the name of "Gravity Rifle" and instead of it being a purplish blue it was green and black. It was cut from the final game because of time constraints.
 * This weapon has at least two possible firing methods - Hadron particle acceleration, or in a manner similar to Tesla's "death ray". The former is more likely, as a Tesla-type weapon would have to use ammunition (in the form of mercury or tungsten) as well as being capable of destroying anything in a single shot.
 * On the map Ivory Tower, it was originally going to spawn instead of the Sniper Rifle.
 * In the Halo 2 campaign mode on Legendary difficulty, the Beam Rifle can kill you in one hit, no matter where it hits. This can be very frustrating, especially in the levels Outskirts, Metropolis, Delta Halo, Uprising, and The Great Journey, which actually makes Sniper Jackals the most dangerous enemy in the game. Regardless of where you are hit, whether it is in the foot or the head it is fatal in one shot, even though your allies (marines or elites) can survive 2 or 3 hits.
 * Leading up to Halo 2's release, the Beam Rifle was not yet confirmed. Instead, it was only mentioned that there would be a Covenant Sniper Rifle. Many fans believed that the Covenant Carbine was intended to be the original Covenant Sniper Rifle.
 * Before Halo 2's release, the Beam Rifle was much longer, which can still be seen in pre-release screenshots. Its length was about that of the UNSC Sniper Rifle but was shortened about 10-20% for reasons left to Bungie. A possible reason would be that it would have looked awkward in the hands of Jackals.
 * The Beam Rifle has more penetration power than the UNSC Sniper Rifle. This can be seen when pallets are placed upright next to each other, with instant kill enabled. The Sniper Rifle is only capable of destroying one pallet with a single shot, while the Beam Rifle is capable of sniping through sixteen pallets in one shot. However, the gameplay version of the Beam Rifle is still not as strong as canonically shown in the Halo universe, as it is considered an incredibly deadly weapon.
 * It is possible to bounce Beam Rifle's shots off the ground like the UNSC's sniper rifle in Halo 3.

List of appearances

 * Halo 2
 * Halo: Uprising
 * Halo 3
 * Halo Wars
 * Halo 3: ODST
 * Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe
 * Headhunters
 * Halo: Blood Line
 * Halo: Escalation
 * Halo: Mortal Dictata
 * Halo 2 Anniversary