Gun errors in books and movies

[STCM(SW)]

The thing I want is all the hand guns with no recoil!
Or rifles also.....

 

[mrchick]

I'm tired of seeing someone presenting a double barrel shotgun that has the sound effect of someone racking a pump shotgun. Same for revolvers that sound like semi-autos.

 

[Big Cholla]

I read for pleasure a considerable amount of books per year. Lately, I have returned to the "Western Cowboy Shootmups". I too take note of many many mistakes about firearms and their usage. But, the errors that I hate worse are in descriptions of horses, horse equipment and horse usage. I bred and raised Morgan horses for 18 years. I rode in competitive long distance trail rides. I trained my horses for the Show Ring and the Trail. I did a little roping off my Morgans often going after wild young Burros.....(It was legal then)..... Many authors insist on either the bad guy(s) or the leading character to be riding a big black stallion. The old timey cowboys and law enforcement officers would never ride a stallion of any color let along a black one. Stallions are near uncontrollable and unreliable around a mare in season or another stallion. The working rider's horse was a gelding. Mares were not in big favor either. Also, the distances the authors have their riders gallop a horse is usually vastly over exaggerated. Some of the western authors who write the best stories are guilty of gross errors in horses or guns. The few authors who know guns and/or horses often can't write a 'readable' story line or dialog. I just read the 'good' writers and ignore their errors. Then I go out to my back pasture and whistle up my 18 hand black stallion and gallop him for a short pleasure ride of 20 miles or so in 2 hours while carrying a load of near 300 lbs. of rider, saddle and equipment. .....

 

[Combat_Diver]

I enjoy Dick Francis and more recently his son Felix. In one novel Felix had his FBI agents flip the safety levers off on their Glocks.

One of the Joe Pickett books by C J Box described Charter Arms guns as cheap junky semi-autos. Did they ever produce a pistol? I don't remember any.

Those are the two that spring immediately to mind. I rarely watch movies, so I can't really go there.

Yes, CA made the Explorer II pistol. AR-7 action which look some what like a C96 Broomhandle. That could be a cheap, junky semi auto.

CD

 

[Milton]

Many authors have the problem of making the reader,who is many times uneducated about guns visualize what is about to take place in the book.So the author takes the liberty of having the individual "snick the safety off" of his Glock. This prepares the mind of the ignorant reader that something is about to take place that he wants to pay attention to.

 

[Old TexMex]

Many authors have the problem of making the reader,who is many times uneducated about guns visualize what is about to take place in the book.So the author takes the liberty of having the individual "snick the safety off" of his Glock. This prepares the mind of the ignorant reader that something is about to take place that he wants to pay attention to.

Or maybe he just has the ignoranity virus.

 

[Golddollar]

Eh, so if a writer in 2019 gives his hero
a newly manufactured S&W revolver and
said hero takes a key from his pocket and
inserts it into the side of his gun to unlock
it, will that be an error?

I'll just say it would not be an inaccuracy and leave it at that so I don't get dinged.

 

[OLDSTER]

The "so-called" TV documentaries about the "Greatest Mob Hits" are about mob hits back in the 1920's thru the 1970's. Mobsters are routinely shooting Glocks and Beretta 92's and smoking filtered cigarettes.

 

[mmaher94087]

I love the sound of brass hitting the floor while shooting a revolver. How many suppressors are totally quiet and how many whistle when used?

 

[federali]

Ink Slingers Know Best

I'll have to follow the writings of contemporary authors (book or screen), ditch all my favorite handguns and get me one of those "high-Caliber" handguns.

By the way, if you happen to know just what a high-caliber gun is, please inform us.

 

[Smoke]

I can't remember if this was "Ironside" or "Perry Mason" but I distinctly remember watching a scene in which Raymond Burr is holding a 1911 in his hand and calling it a Revolver.

I also remember a similar scene in a book called "Split Bamboo" where the main character puts several "clips" for his Chinese "automatic revolver" in his pocket.

I've also seen multiple TV shows where a service member apparently keeps their issue weapon at home

 

[NYlakesider]

I can't remember if this was "Ironside" or "Perry Mason" but I distinctly remember watching a scene in which Raymond Burr is holding a 1911 in his hand and calling it a Revolver.

I also remember a similar scene in a book called "Split Bamboo" where the main character puts several "clips" for his Chinese "automatic revolver" in his pocket.

I've also seen multiple TV shows where a service member apparently keeps their issue weapon at home

My late cousin did. He kept his issue 1911 and ammo at home.

He was most definitely a ''Senior" non com (Master gunnery Sergent) (retired after 34 years served including 3 trips to VN) He was not a "gun person" and only shot when required.

 

[fishcreekrim]

Gunfire next to horses ears, I even wonder if the flagrant misrepresentation of muzzle blast could cause new shooters to not understand the very serious and real hazard associated with muzzle blast.

 

[Protocall_Design]

It's all fictional anyway. I just view all the mistakes as part of the entertainment value!

If I ever get rich, I'm going to hire a Hollywood writer so I can have all the cool stuff mentioned above, like a .45 Colt Python (with safety), and high caliber handguns, and guns that never run out of ammo. And, if I get in a jam with some bad guys OR the law, I'll just have them write a script to get me out of it. No wonder everyone wants to be rich.

 

[Cardboard_killer]

Gunfire next to horses ears, I even wonder if the flagrant misrepresentation of muzzle blast could cause new shooters to not understand the very serious and real hazard associated with muzzle blast.

Gunfire next to anyone's ears! It's a dumb cartoon, but the show Archer does pretty good with gun design and rounds fire, and has constant complaints about tinnitus caused by the gun happy agents. Very bad language, sex and violence if you've not seen it and decide to check it out.

I think this clip is clean language, but it is loud.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tekhh7Iy-sM[/ame]

 

[armorer951]

Love "The Rifleman" intro, where Chuck fires more rounds from the 1892 Winchester lever rifle than the magazine can hold. Does he fire 12 or 13?

YouTube

 

[Wyo]

I spent a fair amount of time talking with Chuck Box concerning the guns his characters were going to be using in one of his upcoming novels. There were a lot of mistakes to correct, but he told me later that it was the first book he ever wrote where he didn't get calls or emails taking him to task over stupid gun mistakes. A lot of authors really would like to get it right, they just don't know anyone they can talk to about it.

 

[RobertJ.]

Like most everyone here, I've caught too many mistakes to recall them all (and that's just in TV and movies, not mentioning the news media), but one of my "favorites" was from a movie my wife was watching, I think it was on Lifetime. Someone dropped a S&W revolver down a flight of stairs, and it fired every time it hit a step. And no, I'm not confusing this with "True Lies", where Jamie Lee Curtis does the same thing with a Mac 10.

 

[Smoke]

My late cousin did. He kept his issue 1911 and ammo at home.

He was most definitely a ''Senior" non com (Master gunnery Sergent) (retired after 34 years served including 3 trips to VN) He was not a "gun person" and only shot when required.

No
He
Didn't.

First of all you don't keep a given weapon your entire career. You get issued a different weapon at every new duty station.

I have no idea what he told you or what was in his home but it was not a USMC issued weapon. And I won't even discuss ammunition which is accounted for To. The. Round. ( and people go to jail when they're caught with it)

You have no idea how closely "sensitive items" are monitored. Ft. Carson put the entire 2nd Brigade Combat Team on lockdown for a day and a half over a missing M9. (Berretta) No one from that entire unit (5000 people) was allowed to leave the post and most of them were confined to the barracks until that weapon was found.

Assuming that your late cousin was even allowed to leave post with an issue weapon his entire chain of command would be risking their careers by allowing him to keep that weapon in his quarters. If the weapon were stolen from his private quarters everyone from him up would have to explain how that weapon got out of the arms room.

Not if but when the IG showed up for a spot inventory the unit armorer and everyone from him up would have to explain why that weapon wasn't in the unit arms room. In either case careers would end. No unit armorer (or commander) would ever put their career on the line for that and no E9 would risk pissing his career away to keep an issue weapon at home.

Based on my actual military experience there is nothing you could tell me that would ever make me believe your story.

ETA I put the question to a friend of mine who retired as an E7 who was also in Supply and she said that in her entire career hell would freeze SOLID before what you're describing ever happened

 

[WR Moore]

On another board a Brit author actually posted and requested help on getting the gun stuff correct. Was kinda fun educating him.

Probably the thing that sticks in my craw most lately was a History Channel thing on WWII naval battles. IIRC, the one item was about the sinking of the Hood. The spectacular sinking was laid to a practice of not using the safety doors on the powder delivery elevators and the nature of the "cordite" powder. Mention was made of a peace time incident in the US Navy that also involved the "cordite" . This was explained by alleged Brit "naval experts".

Now, I can't vouch for the practice of the Royal Navy, but the big guns used by US services burned black powder. My father left me a bunch of tech stuff he used in his work on military guns and I worked with guys who served on Navy gun crews in the 1970s and they were still using black powder. FWIW, the charge on 16" naval rifles was 850 lbs of black powder.

Then there's all those representations of "historical events" using whatever stock footage/uniforms & firearms happen to be available. Really educational to see alleged civil war troops with SMLEs.