Movie Guns X

Better late than never, right? And happy Father's Day! I know that I missed last weeks movie guns post, and for that I am deeply sorry. This week I decided to ramp it up with over 30 - some pictures in order to make it up to you.

So what movie is in the works for this week? None other than:



This title page from the Michael Mann film Heat shows a BG with a Colt M4A3 firing on auto. Michael Mann is a stickler for firearm accuracy, and this movie is no exception. Featuring oodles of gun porn that a gun geek can only dream of, Heat contains one of the most exciting shootouts in movie history.

The pictures in this post will roughly follow in the order that they appear in the film. I was certain that I knew the make and model of every gun in the movie, but I did some research with a few of them and changed my mind. Let's start with this frame of a FN FAL Para held by Michael Cheritto (Tom Sizemore) during the beginning heist of an armored car:


On his vest is a Ruger P90 and multiple spare magazines, which if you look closely you can see that they are empty:


Trejo (Danny Trejo) runs a spike strip across the road while carrying a Chinese Type 56 rifle with underfolding stock:


Waingro (Kevin Gage) has a blued Star Megastar, in what looks like .45 ACP, which he uses to kill an armored car guard:


I'd love to have one of those in 10mm.

Chris Shiherlis (Val Kilmer) has a Colt M4A1 which he uses to gun down another guard when he draws a revolver from an ankle holster:


I couldn't get a pic of the revolver, nor could I get a good shot of the Colt Commando that McCauley (Robert DeNiro) has during the robbery. Some of them are wearing body armor with hard plates, and all of the rifles are slung with bungee cords that are configured like a large number eight. They put an arm through each loop on the eight, and there is another bungee cord that runs down from this and attaches to the rifle with a snap hook. There are better slings these days, but those look like they worked just fine considering they used them later on during another robbery.

The second gunfight happens during a money drop. Two bad guys try to take out the main cast of bad guys (McCauley, Cheritto, and Chris) by staging a phony money drop which goes bad. One of the bad guys has a Steyr TMP:


But he gets shot by Chris with a Heckler & Koch G3 who does a needless judo roll from his position on a roof:


And then he is finished off by McCauley who is firing a H&K USP through the windshield of the car:


The bad guy in the truck is also shot by Chris, but Cheritto finishes him off with some judicious use of a Benelli M3 Super 90:



These scenes are just teasers. The main event is the legendary shootout during a bank robbery in the middle of downtown Los Angeles. This is the same scene that was allegedly viewed by the scumbags in the North Hollywood shootout before they went on their shooting spree, only nobody told them that a shootout like this is fiction.

We start inside the bank with a shot of McCauley's vest holding eight magazines and a Sig P220, and Chris in the light suit with his finger on the trigger and the selector on semi. Looking closely at another frame shows McCauley has his selector on auto with his finger firmly on the trigger. Safety violator.



Of note is that they flex-cuff one of the guards but leave his pistol in his holster. Very strange.

Cheritto carries a IMI Galil with a folding stock:


Outside of the bank, and seconds before he ignites the firefight, Chris shows the level of training and realism that is injected into Michael Mann's gunfight scenes with this frame showing proper sight alignment and sight picture:


Here he is missing the cops at about thirty feet distance with automatic rifle fire from a Colt Commando:


Later he does an excellent reload with the Colt, and unleashes some suppressing fire:




McCauley is also firing a Colt Commando as can be seen here with him shooting through the windshield again. In the really real world all of the passengers would be very deaf from the report of three rifles going off within the confines of the car:


Here he is laying down suppressing fire:


Unfortunately, there are no shots of Cheritto shooting it out with the Galil, but the cops answer back with some firepower of their own, like this frame of two cops carrying an M16A1 and a Mossberg 500:



Before the firefight, the cop with the shotgun racks a shell into the chamber one-handed (not likely unless he had just fired the gun which unlocks the slide), in front of a crowd of people, with his finger on the trigger, and only about 50 feet from the BG's. Bad tactics.

Detective Hanna ( Al Pacino) is shooting back with a FN FNC:




In the last frame, he takes cover behind a car while he reloads, but when he goes to chamber a round he ejects a live cartridge. You can see it as the goldish line just off of his chin. In one scene in first person view, Hanna is firing the rifle at nothing. Ooops. But he did have some good advice for the other cops before the shootout when he says "get clean shots...watch your background."

There is, of course, the token Berretta 92F which is in pretty much every movie ever made:


And I have no idea what would make the holes in this police car besides steel rounds from a 30mm auto-cannon. Obviously, the 5.56mm NATO is the round that is fired in all of the BG's rifles, but there is no way they would make holes like this. Ted Kennedy would have a fit



Later, Hanna and another detective are in an elevator getting ready to raid an apartment. Hanna has a Colt Officers model that he pulls out for a brass check:



I have heard that this method of checking to see if there is a live round in the chamber was popular back in the day, but where I come from anything that is not the actual finger that you manipulate the trigger with is a foreign object; to include your thumb. Recently a Federal Flight Deck Officer showed the US government why their requirement for putting foreign objects in trigger guards is a bad idea.

Anyways, the other detective loads some peculiar blue, low-brass slugs into the Mossberg 500 that he is using, and then does another dramatic racking of the slide in the hallway of the apartment complex mere feet from the door they're about to breach. You can clearly hear that the gun is empty:



Later on, McCauley goes back to kill Waingro for tipping the cops off about the bank heist. He realises that the cops are in the hotel because he sees this Ithaca 37 shorty behind the desk, which I had originally thought was a Remington 870:


McCauley does the dangerous brass check with a Sig P220 while in the elevator on his way up to Waingro:



Before this scene, he uses the Sig to kill a money laundering investor by shooting him three times, at which point the slide is locked back, but when the camera pans back to McCauley, the slide is in battery.

Waingro is armed with another Star Megastar; this one in stainless steel. Notice the finger on trigger, safety off, and hammer back. Rule number three!



Towards the end, I caught this frame of a SWAT officer with an unknown make 1911 in a thigh holster; probably a Kimber. Next to him are two fellow SWAT officers with H&K MP5's:



The last picture I have is from the title screne again. This is a Colt M4A3 ejecting real fired brass and not blanks like during the film:


All of the Colts used in the movie had the A1 sights, but this picure clearly shows the A3 detachable carry handle.

If you haven't treated yourself to the movie Heat, you need to. It's pretty long, but it has a great cast and lots of action. Not to mention a great story line. The gun handling is good, despite the chicken wing stance of Val Kilmer or fingers in triggers, and you can tell that someone addressed it because they will have their finger straight in other scenes. Al Pacino uses a good stance and grip, and he keeps the gun locked in front of his view as he is scanning for the threat at the end.

Well, I hope I delivered on making up for a week of no movie guns. Enjoy!

Update: As noted in comments, the Mossberg shotgun is actually a Model 590, which is identified by the deadly "barrel shroud" that makes NY Senator McCarthy stink in her slacks. Good eye. I don't know how I missed that one.

Update: My readership has reminded to that I have some errors on this page, and that for correctness sake I should fix them. Sorry it took so long.

First up, the picture of the title screen shows what I now believe to be a Colt Commando Model 933. I had originally labeled it a Colt M4A3 due to the A3 carrying handle. The weapon is a flat top full auto sporting a 11 1/2" barrel sans bayonet lug, and includes the case deflector that dings up perfectly good brass, as well as a forward assist.

Contrary to popular belief, this was the last picture I copied from the movie, not the first, and I almost didn't include it because I didn't even notice it until I was just about done loading the pictures to Photobucket. It was more of an after thought. Further, I didn't assume every AR pattern rifle was the same as this one; indeed, I noted at the bottom that it was peculiar that this rifle was pictured on the title page with the A3 carrying handle, while all the others in the body of the film had an A1.

Next, the AR rifles used during the armored car heist are not Colt M4A1's like I originally thought. They have all of the makings of the Colt Model 654, except for the 16" barrel, which would make it a civilian model, or a franken gun. I suspect the latter. Wikipedia has it fitting the R6003 model. Who knows.

I concur with Professional Adventurer in that the H&K rifle that Chris uses to shoot at the truck is a G3, which is the basis of the series of those particular rifles, but I have to give a hat tip to GM45 in that the rifle is a semi-auto type, which would make it a HK91A2 Model. Good eye.

GM45 has noted that the handguards on the M16A1 are of the A2 variety, and that the lower receiver is actually a civilian type AR-15/SP1. That would make this a franken gun, and from what I gather from some of the posts on IMFDB, of which GM45 is a heavy contributor, many of the AR type rifles on film are pieced together from many different parts.

Last, I again concur with GM45; the model rifle that Chris and McCauley use during the bank shootout are Colt Model 733s. I had them ID'd as Colt Commandos, which they are, but that is the series and not the model. Sometimes I take the short route, and I'm glad I am held to a higher standard by my readers. I thank you for that.

I will be updating more of the Movie Guns posts, as I can.