Mystery Gun

B

Bucksnort1

New member
While TV channel surfing recently, I found an old black and white cops and robbers movie. I cannot give you the name but can tell you one of the stars is Edmund O'Brien.

I watched for about one minute, which was long enough to see part of a scene where the cops cornered a bad guy. One cop had a shoulder fired weapon, I think it was a shoulder fired weapon. I will give you the only description I have of this weapon. I'm trying to identify what it is.

The overall size reminded me of a Thompson sub machine gun. I did not notice a drum or stick magazine. For the few seconds I saw the weapon, I probably would have noticed if it had a drum magazine more so than a stick magazine. The cop held the gun with two hands at about belly button level.

Here is the interesting part. I have never seen a Thompson with a silencer, which doesn't mean they don't exist. At first glance of the barrel, it looked like there was a heavy silencer attached to the muzzle (it wasn't a Cutts (sp) Compensator) but then I realized it probably wasn't a silencer but rather a very heavy bull barrel. The entire barrel was in the bull fashion.

Does anyone know what this gun is?
 
Bean bag gun?

It helps a lot if you can narrow down the TV show or the movie, otherwise it sounds a lot like "I saw a red car that I liked. What kind of car was it?"
 
I know the movie but can’t recall the name O’Brien played a “bad” cop who murders a mafia bagman for his loot.

The weapon of which you speak is a Reising Model 50 SMG chambered in 45 acp.


Interesting history to the Reising.
 
The name of the movie was probably "Shield for Murder". 1954

My dad carried a Reising (very briefly--dumped it for a Thompson) during
WWII. Should have bought one when they were under $2000.
 
BillM,

BillM: I think you have nailed the name of the movie. ATKDoktor: the Reising is not the gun I saw. The movie gun had about 14" or so barrel in front of the end of the stock. The bull barrel is roughly 2" in diameter from the muzzle to the stock with no compensator. Just a straight bull barrel. Again, I don't recall what type of magazine it had.
 
BillM - what was your father's dislike about the Reising?
Click to expand...

He was never very specific---just that it was a piece of crap and he dumped it
and picked up a Thompson. He was a Marine, involved in landings on 4 islands
in the South Pacific. Didn't really talk about it at all until the last year before he passed.
 
Buzzcook,

Badda Bing, Badda Boom. You nailed it, mostly. I had the movie wrong. Another member said it was a tear gas gun, which is correct. Sorry, I thought it was a center fire type rifle.
 
The Reising had a bad reputation with the Marines for jamming and general unreliability in the harsh conditions in the Pacific.

If it could be kept very clean and properly lubricated it was fine.

I fired a friend's Reising some years ago. Seemed to be very accurate and was pretty lightweight compared to his Thompson, but it just didn't feel.... sturdy.

It was one of the earliest American forays into large scale stamping of parts.
 
Parts interchangeability was not good, either; a squad cleaning party with everybody's gun apart and reassembled promiscuously would leave you with a dud.

I wish I had bought one of the TVA surplus Reisings when they standardized on Ruger and Remington. A guy here has one and as said, it is a good shooter when kept clean and original.

Center feed magazine seemed to be a liability; they went so far as to make a 12 shot single stack for it.
 
Off Topic But...

BillM:
He was never very specific---just that it was a piece of crap and he dumped it
and picked up a Thompson. He was a Marine, involved in landings on 4 islands
in the South Pacific. Didn't really talk about it at all until the last year before he passed.
Click to expand...

Similar in that my dad had a Resising and also dumped it when they landed on Guadalcanal and grabbed an M2 Carbine. He used that for the remainder of the island hopping through the South Pacific. He said he just couldn't hold it down and didn't like it. He had trained with an 03A3 and I gave him one as a gift. It reverted to me when he passed. Anyway he never cared for the Reising and it was easy to get something else from someone who no longer needed a gun at the time.

Ron
 
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