Bogarting? the gun/wacking it

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Doug.38PR

Moderator
Where did the term Bogarting the gun come from when refering to when people wack the gun open and shot with a snap of their wrist.
I have seen a lot of old movies, including just about all Humphrey Bogart's movies, and cannot think of one movie (Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Big Sleep, To Have and to Have Not, Casablanca, Key Largo, Maltese Falcon, etc.) where he wacks the pistol cylinder open and shut with his wrist.
I remember Alan Ladd doing it with his OP in his brief appearance in the movie My Favorite Brunette with Bob Hope (who tried to imitate lad and couldn't get it to wack open :D )
 
Possibly because "Bogarting" sounds better than "Cagneying" or "Robinsoning" it.

I do remember seeing Bogart flipping the cylinder shut, but can't remember the movie. It was an early one.
 
I took a course from a gunsight graduate who really didn't like revolvers but taught them anyway. He recommended windmilling or slapping them shut.
"They're built to take it!" Maybe he got that jem from a bogart movie.

I've heard the practice of slamming a magazine into place called " cowboying" based, I guess, on the notion that cowboys do things to excess.
{Hold my beer and watch this!}
 
I have heard that if you spend too much time whacking it, you'll go blind! :p Come to think of it, I am already pretty darned nearsighted. :D
 
I never heard until after Easy Rider when they mentioned bogarting a joint. Fried hippie reference, not a gun term per se.
 
One time Bogart made fun of Truman Capote for being a sissy. Capote took one round-house swing and knocked him off his feet. He wanted it clearly understood that he was a homosexual and not a sissy.
 
By whatever name...

Don't.

At least, not to any of my revolvers. I will show you my Truman Capote impersonation - not the friendly one, the one described by MEC.

That particular act is hard on the yoke - the arm that attaches the cylinder to the frame. That 'snap' can bend or twist the yoke and the cylinder won't align right.

MEC, if your story is true about the 'gunsight graduate', don't pay much attention to any other bits of mechanical wisdom he has to offer. He may be a good shooter, but he's full of crap about revolvers.
 
mec

I'm trying hard, but having difficulty picturing Truman Capote knocking anyone on their butt... :) You gotta pic??? If you do, you're gonna be very rich...
 
Truman 'sissyboy' Capote belting Bogy? That has Homo Urban Legend written all over it.

But back to the thread..........
It is not a good idea to slam the cylinder shut like that. You can, and will, spring the crane. Abusing any firearm, especially one that you are going to depend on to save your butt, is, frankly, imprudent.
 
"Truman 'sissyboy' Capote belting Bogy? That has Homo Urban Legend written all over it. "

Don't know about that one, but I have heard that Capote and J. Edgar Hoover got into a slapfight and Capote won.

Now I can see old Jeff Chandler knocking Bogy down. No "sissy" (but gay according to Betty Grable) but I do recall seeing him in a gangster flick slamming open and shut a cylinder. George Raft as well. A bad habit and abusive of the gun. I've known a couple of cops to do it as well.

Is this thread deteriorating into anti-gay jokes and sexual references? I'll Bogart a joint and think on it.

tipoc
 
'MEC, if your story is true about the 'gunsight graduate', don't pay much attention to any other bits of mechanical wisdom he has to offer. He may be a good shooter, but he's full of crap about revolvers".

I know it was one of my first exposures to how narrow and focused the knowledge of some 1911 experts really is. He also said that Ball ammunition is the most effective.


The bogard copote thing may well be an urban legend. I gave up on true facts when I found out Sir John Crapper didn't really invent the ThunderMug and Brassier didn't invent the bra. It is true though that Capote was a scrappy little devil and if he did beat up J-Edgar the old blister probably deserved it. I don't think the thread has any anti-homoerotic content at this point though I may have just po'ed the federal bureau of investigation.
 
I'd never heard the term Bogarting with reference to anything having to do with guns, it was strictly the joint-hogging practice referenced and made famous in Easy Rider. But the practice of slamming the cylinder of a revolver open and/or shut is definitely one to be discouraged. I've found, from personal experience, that I don't hand one of my revolvers over to another person unless I know him and am familiar with his gun-handling habits. A gunsmith friend of mine told me years ago that slamming the cylinder open is harmful to the gun, there's a significant amount of weight swinging unsupported on the pivot point and crane, and it can be bent or sprung after just a few repetitions. Slamming a cylinder shut, on the other hand, while not a good practice, is not as potentially damaging because you are actually closing the gun into a supported position.

I do find that when I shoot revolver in IPSC or IDPA and am trying to do rapid reloads there is a tendency to rapidly open and close the cylinder, but I try to keep some contact between my hand and the cylinder at all time to support it, and no harm has been done over quite a few hundred reloading cycles.
 
Holding back the cylinder latch on a colt and turning the gun 45 degrees in either direction will allow gravity to "Bogart" it. Surely this can't hurt it too much. A Smith or Ruger might be a different story however as their latches work differently.
 
This is a small part of a longer true story that took place in 1982 in Jersey City, N.J. at a pizza joint in the PATH station.

A very drunk man pulled a snubby on me and stuck it in my face telling me I was under citizens arrest. Looking close at the piece I told him "Sir, that gun ain't even loaded." At which point he "Bogarted" the cylinder open and 6 rounds fell out the gun.

So it has done some good, at least once and I probably have no right to be completely against it.

tipoc
 
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