Movie guns

Used to be a website, The Muzzle Loading Hide, and the rifle for Disney's Daniel Boone (protrayed by Fess Parker) was discussed. There were two and one was a trapdoor modified to appear like a flintlock.
 
Did you know that in WWI, the British attacked the French? And the Russians attacked the British? And French fighter planes had black crosses on them?
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And how many times have you seen SBD’s used to show Japanese dive bombers attacking Pearl Harbor in old movies. The one airplane that's more responsible for winning the Pacific war than any other plane.
 
Ozzieman,
there is one particular clip that someone put together LONG ago I guess, that had a Douglas Dauntless diving and then it jumps to Pearl Harbor ship exploding. Typical media, messes everything up.

I've seen it many many times and hated it even when I was a kid. As kids we knew our WWII aircraft and had models of everyone of them.

I don't know how this film clip got going. Some smart person needs to find out how this came about.
 
There's an Enfield bolt action in a scene in Zulu.
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Sho' nuff. One whole line of troops had long Lee-Enfields. Not mention all the revolvers I saw were Mk VI Webley & Scotts.
 
Wild Bunch wasn't any better.
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Wild Bunch wasn't that bad. The SAA Colts were good, the 1911s were good, the Luger was good and the Browning water cooled was off only by a year or so. The only real boners were the U.S. Infantry troops armed with 03-A3s and Zamora's troops armed with 1936 Mexican Mausers.
 
uigley Down Under however was really correct! Great to watch reality in action.
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The guns looked really nice and period correct, but NOT SO for Selleck's gun handling.
Even though the Shiloh had the new design two piece firing pin set-up,
I remember cringing every time I saw him work the block without ever bringing the rifle to half cock first.

Dragging the firing pin (held in place by the hammer and it's spring) across the primer of a live round is not really the smart or correct way to do things.

In addition, opening the breech with the hammer down on an empty chamber drags the tip of the firing pin
(which is at a downward angle in the original design)
into and across the rear portion of the chamber and it's rim recess.

Had to vent on that.

I've mentioned this before, but in 'Gunfight at the O.K. Corral', (1957 IIRC) watch for the scene with Burt Lancaster in the jail house.

He is seated and playing with the ladder rear sight on a long barrel Colt SAA.
That gun was the original.

JT
 
JT I read an article after Quigley came out and Mike Venturino stated that he taught Tom Sellek how to handle and shoot that gun. You would have thought he knew better.
 
I've mentioned this before, but in 'Gunfight at the O.K. Corral', (1957 IIRC) watch for the scene with Burt Lancaster in the jail house.

He is seated and playing with the ladder rear sight on a long barrel Colt SAA.
That gun was the original.
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What do you meant by "the"? Most guns used in 57 were originals.
 
I remember cringing every time I saw him work the block without ever bringing the rifle to half cock first.
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A friend who shoots Shiloh Sharps (I am a Highwall man) says that a guy name of Kirk Bryan doesn't half cock either. He owns the company so I guess he can get spare firing pins cheap.


I had an old Gun Digest with an article on western movie guns of the 1950s.
Nearly all were originals, no mass produced originals made at the time, although they proudly showed a fake Walker Colt.

SAAs were easy but not all actors could be bothered to learn how to shoot one, so there were double action revolvers faked up with dummy extractor rod housings, some even with butts remodeled to plow handle shape so they would look better in the holster.

Dummy flint cocks and frizzens were added to Trapdoors to produce "muskets."

Blanks were loaded to suit the scene, blast and smoke for daylight, flash for low light. That sort of stuff faked in post production manipulation now.

There was a chapter on special effects, many done with a big bore air gun firing ball bearings to break windows, capsules like paintballs full of "blood" or even dust for misses.
The prop man even had a barrel for the air gun that would launch a knife with a guard that filled the bore and a 1" blade. The actor to be hit with a "thrown" knife would wear a board under his shirt. Poof - plunk. Got to trust your prop man's aim on that one.
 
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It's not surprising that stunt men and women strived to become actors.
At least then they were less expendable being expected to be in more than one scene.
 
There was a chapter on special effects, many done with a big bore air gun firing ball bearings to break windows, capsules like paintballs full of "blood" or even dust for misses
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I remember seeing a tv show once, must have been over 40 years ago now showing how they did some of that stuff. They showed the blood bullets and the capsules actors kept in their mouth to bite down on when they were shot so blood would leak out of their mouths. They had bullets for shooting stuff like mirrors that left big splotches that looked like jagged holes. They had ropes tied around their waists and when they got shot with a shotgun there would be guys behind a wall snatch the ropes and jerk them backwards into the wall. it was pretty neat the way they did some of it.
 
Trivia: In black and white, chocolate syrup looks like blood.
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Does that mean if they weren't careful they could have put blood in their milkshakes? Sorry, couldn't help myself. :D
 
The special effects guns were "Sweeney Guns" made by Matt Sweeney. Here's paintball historian Dan Bacci showing one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3muvgqTF1xU

I remember seeing a show about 30 years ago that covered firearms special effects and showed how they were able to shoot gel-filled capsules that simulated hits on a windshield, as well as flash-powder filled capsules that sparked when they hit hard objects.
 
Howdy Again

The classic James Stewart western Winchester '73 was made in 1950, before Italian replicas came onto the scene. All of the firearms used are originals. There one brief one shot during the shooting contest of a Winchester Model 1892 with fore stock removed to look like a Henry rifle. In another scene, when actor Charles Drake, as the character Steve Miller, states he has a Henry rifle, he is clearly holding a Model 1873, and when Dutch Henry complains about the lack of power with the old Henry rifles, he too is shooting a '73.

The 1 of 1000 Winchester at the center of the story was a run of the mill Model 1873 that was sent back to Winchester and customized to look like a 1 of 1000 Winchester.

In the climactic gun battle scene where Lin McAdam (James Stewart) and Dutch Henry Brown shoot it out among rugged rock outcroppings, there are many bullet strikes near the actors. I remember an interview with Stewart where he stated that a marksman was shooting real bullets near them, and he was being struck by rock fragments as the bullets hit.
 
I just wish people saw the Walther ppk not as James Bond's gun, but instead what it really is: Austin power's gun.

Edit:// just realized we are in the north corral. Whoops.
 
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