Gun errors in books and movies

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
 
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Smoke said:
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
Click to expand...

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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
fishcreekrim said:
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.
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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]
 
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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.
 
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.
 
NYlakesider said:
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.
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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
 
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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.
 
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Hamster65 said:
What really chaps my hide in movies, is seeing (and hearing) single action only guns such as 1911's, Glocks, AR's and various machine guns, keep clicking (like hammer strikes on a double action) after they run out of ammo.

Just recently, I re-watched and episode that showed a person firing a 1911 and after they fired the last shot in the magazine, the slide did not lock back and I heard about 3 or 4 additional clicks because they kept pulling the trigger.
In fact, the only thing the got right was the number of rounds it holds.
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I think there was an episode of The Sopranos where Christopher was shooting someone with a semi-auto, and when he ran out of ammo, the slide didn't lock back and he kept clicking the trigger. I cringed when I saw that goof-up in an otherwise outstanding series.
 
Smoke said:
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
Click to expand...



In my limited time of military service; the only people that I was aware of keeping their issue arm with them in their private lives were General Officers, and I believe it was theirs to keep. I did know a few West Point men who carried a private property 1911a1, after the Army had transitioned to the M9.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I have a friend who is a serious WW2 buff and collector. If we go see a WW2 movie together more than once I had to tell him, "Richard, those are not real Germans, and that is not real blood, they are actors, this is a movie".
 
Just watch Mysteries at the Museum on the travel channel.

German WWII soldiers shooting M1 carbines and Flintlocks

In fact soldiers in almost any war are often shown with flintlocks

Removing a bullet in surgery and showing a complete cartridge held in the forceps.
 
Chromedhearts said:
In my limited time of military service; the only people that I was aware of keeping their issue arm with them in their private lives were General Officers, and I believe it was theirs to keep. I did know a few West Point men who carried a private property 1911a1, after the Army had transitioned to the M9.
Click to expand...

The military doesn't give weapons away. I've seen general officers carrying weapons that they owned but never keeping an issue weapon.
 
Cardboard_killer said:
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...
Click to expand...

Ïn "Copland", the only Stallone flick I've liked, his character is deaf in his right ear, which prevents him from being a big city cop. Late in the movie one of the bad guys deliberately fires a Glock inches from his good ear while he's down, temporarily deafening him completely. Interesting twist.

Margaret Truman Daniel--yes that Margaret Truman--wrote a number of spy novels. She invariably referred to semi-auto pistols as revolvers, and imagined one made entirely of translucent plastic to avoid detection. I assume the barrel, slide rails, springs and ammo were plastic as well. Kind of like Wonder Woman's invisible airplane.
 
WR Moore said:
.............

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.........
Click to expand...

Sorry to call you on this, but you are just wrong. The main charge on the battleship guns was not black powder for WWII era guns, but rather smokeless powder. They did use some black powder in them, but that was just an igniter charge to make sure the powder lit up properly. For one thing, black powder doesn't have the energy to shoot a 2700 lb AP round at 2500 ft/sec. So in a sense they did use black powder, but it was just an initiator charge, not the main propellant charge.

Here is a link to a page on the 16"/50 guns as used on the Iowa Class battleships if you are interested. <<<LINK>>>
 
muddocktor said:
Sorry to call you on this, but you are just wrong. The main charge on the battleship guns was not black powder for WWII era guns, but rather smokeless powder. They did use some black powder in them, but that was just an igniter charge to make sure the powder lit up properly. For one thing, black powder doesn't have the energy to shoot a 2700 lb AP round at 2500 ft/sec. So in a sense they did use black powder, but it was just an initiator charge, not the main propellant charge.

Here is a link to a page on the 16"/50 guns as used on the Iowa Class battleships if you are interested. <<<LINK>>>
Click to expand...


Can't speak for the Navy but I was a 13 Bravo in the army in the mid-to-late 80s we were shooting powder from the late 50s early 60s that was nitrocellulose
 
My pet peeve is the unmistakable clicking/cocking sound that comes before the introduction of a gun into any scene, like the audience is so dumb we would not recognize a gun.
 
roguegamma said:
In the movie "Slumdog Millionaire" what appears to be a Python, or possibly a Diamondback, is referred to as a "Colt .45"
Click to expand...

Just read a novel set in modern times wherein the author mentions several times that the local female deputy sheriff toted a Colt King Cobra in ".45 caliber".
 
amazingflapjack said:
Saw one the other night where they found a Claymore on some dude and everybody was uptight because They (claymores-c-4) were so "unstable."
Click to expand...

In all fairness, while C4 is very stable I remember being trained to insert the blasting cap into a Claymore Mine with my non-dominant hand.

The reason they told me to do it that way was in case the blasting cap blew up I'd still have my dominant hand.

IIRC that was actually printed in the SMCT.

So that may be where the writers got that idea of Claymores being "unstable"
 
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