Movie Guns IX

As promised, here is this week's movie guns post on Blood Diamond. This movie had some very accurate gunplay as far as realism goes, and Leonardo DiCaprio handles himself quite well. There is no shortage of interesting weapons in this film, with a great deal of them being some sort of AK varient. There are some H&K G3's, M16 A1's, an RPK, as well as an FN FAL or two, but I didn't capture a picture of them as there were no good ones.

I did, however, catch some pictures of some uncommon weapons in the US like this Sterling L2A3 / Mk.4:


And this revolver of unknown make:



At the beginning of the movie, Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio) stepps out of a plane with a Glock 26 sporting a Pierce Grip extension, extended slide release, and riding in a leather small of the back holster. I'm a big fan of the Glock 26 in this configuration, although I'm not into the SOB holsters as my back is already jacked up.


He unloads the Glock before handing it over to a RUF Catain with a Smith & Wesson 686:


Archer also carries this black tanto folder of uknown make. It's not a Smith & Wesson, Emerson, Cold Steel, Kershaw, Gerber, SOG, Boker, KABAR, or many others that I have looked up. It's not an auto, and the giveaway is the serations.



Archer later acquires an H&K USP Compact 9mm to replace the Glock 26 that he gave to the RUF Captain. He uses it to get out of trouble more than once, and quite believeably so. Here it is in a nylon holster:


Here it is being aimed out of the window of an SUV. I thought this was a cool picture with the USP's reflection in the window:


And here is Archer gunning down his former Colonel who is wielding a fullsize H&K USP:


Here is the muzzle of a FN High Power that a RUF Captain is pointing at Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou). Earlier he had a 1911, but I couldn't get a good picture.


Some of the bigger weapons seen in this film are general purpose machine guns like this DShKM 12.7 (.50 caliber) Heavy Machine Gun mounted in the truck. Interesting to see all of the AK toting RUF guys so close to the muzzle of this weapon. They would definitely need earplugs if this thing was firing live rounds.


Here is one of the many RPG-7's that is used in the movie:



Toward the end of the movie, Archer, who is a former mercenary, quietly kills a sentry at night with his knife and takes his AK-47. He uses the AK very effectively during a big firefight by firing it on semi-auto with well aimed shots:


Both eyes are open and he is looking over the sights.


The last picture I have is of Archer holding a Colt Commando with a light, Aimpoint scope, and custom paint job. He flinches every time he fires it, and at one point activates the light:


When Archer takes the Colt off of the body of a mecenary that he had just killed, he takes a few extra magazines for it and his USP. That attention to detail doesn't normally happen in films.

This is a great movie with a lot of action. The content is rather upsetting, but the gunplay is realstic. Somehow I can't see DiCaprio being a gun guy, but he pulls it off in this film.

Enjoy.

Update: Commentor Taylor notes that the unknown revolver is actually a French MLE 73. Thanks for finding that one. My weak spot is definitely revolvers.

Yet another reason why carry "permits" are a bad idea.

This thread at The High Road is about a gentleman's experience during a traffic stop where he was disarmed by a LEO.

This sort of thing is a minor reason why flagging a citizen with a ridiculous card saying "he has a gun," while entering him or her into a state database that can be browsed by the public, or just outright exploited to the whims of some dickhead journalist, is such stupid policy.

I don't understand why we think we're winning the fight for gun rights when we are asking our government to ensure that we're "authorized" to exercise them. When are we gonna learn?

A great point

At Sharp as a Marble. Background checks for firearms purchases is the wrong time to stop a violent felon.

Whew! What a week

Sorry for the light blogging. My work load has increased five fold, and it is about to get much worse. I will be traveling a lot soon, which I anticipate will give me plenty of blogging time as much of the day-to-day things that I normally do will be far away. I also have some great books to get into, such as:

The Gun Digest Book of the 1911 Volume 1 - Patrick Sweeney
The Book of the AR-15 Volume 2 - Patrick Sweeney (I already read Vol 1; excellent!)
Moment of Truth in Iraq - Michael Yon

I also have some others. I don't think I will get through all of them in the next week or so, but certainly within the next few months. I have always been a very fast reader, to the point where I had difficulty in school because I was always so far ahead. These days it takes me a year or more to read a book because I have no time.

I have been spending some time in good ol' "Gun Free" DC, and I am reminded of why I do not belong there. I grew up with miles of trees and fields around me, so venturing through a city full of intricate people makes me feel like a fish out of water. I could never live there, and I'm so thankful to cross the river and get back into Virginia where I get my rights back. The main problem that I have is that I'm used to driving directly to a location and parking my car, which is not easy in DC if you are unfamiliar with where the parking garages are. Last week I paid what I believe to be a drug dealer to watch my car. I didn't have a choice. If you don't pay attention to where you're going, you can easily end up in a bad area where you may never return.

Talking with other folks who grew up in Bumkinville, Virginia, I came to the conclusion that people from DC who may end up down here can end up in the same predicament. Driving down the wrong road down here can lead you into places where you would swear Deliverance was filmed.

I recall a night during my teenage years where a bunch of us were hanging out at a local McDonalds on the side of the highway. A Cadillac with DC plates and three nefarious looking individuals pulled up, obviously drunk, and while one of them was finishing up his beer while pissing into traffic, the other was asking us if we knew where to score some drugs. A friend of mine with a fast car said "follow me." My friend led them about an hour out into the depths of the county where only those who have lived there for years dare to go, and then stopped cold in the road. As the three were looking around trying to figure out where they were, my friend dropped it into first and took off in a hail of tire smoke, leaving the old Cadillac in the dust.

That's probably the last time they drove down south.

I am planning some more shooting tests soon which I will document with pictures. I plan on using my shiny new Chrony to get some accurate velocities. Hopefully I will get the time this weekend to chrony my handgun loads.

Stay tuned

Movie Guns VIII.5

I was out of town last week so I bring you a better-late-than-never movie guns today staring the movie Pulp Fiction. If you have not seen this movie by now than you need to stop what your doing, grab your keys, and get your ass to the video store and rent a copy.

Pulp Fiction has a few guns and shooting scenes in it, but it is not a "gun movie." There are, however, some interesting handguns, some which I just can't identify. Here are some of the ones that I can get a make on.

The two gangsters in the movie, Jules and Vincent who are played by Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta respectively, both have chrome pistols.


Jules carries a Star B model 9mm which is based on the 1911 design. The gun noticeably lacks a grip safety, and Jules thumb cocks the pistol with his finger on the trigger:

I see that far to often. Here is a closeup with the gun in the face of "Ringo" the coffee shop robber:

Here is the gun at the beginning of the movie which shows the external extractor:


Intersting part about that scene in that it is filmed twice. This picture was taken from the beginning where Jules guns a man down until the pistol reaches slide lock. The scene is shown again from a different perspective later on, and Jules doesn't empty the gun in that shot. The reason it matters is that Jules and Vincent are confronted almost immediately afterwords by a crazed gunman and they have several rounds each left in their guns..


Vincent uses what appears to be an Auto Ordnance 1911 in .45 ACP. The muzzle sports a much larger barrel than the 9mm that Jules uses:


Here Hollywood shows us why you should always keep your booger hook off the bang switch with Vincent's infamous negligent discharge:


The crazed gunman mentioned above was carrying this weeks unknown gun:


It's definitely not a Colt Python, nor is it a Rossi, although it is very close. The ribbed barrel is different than any revolver that I have ever seen and is what sets it apart from the Python. I believe it to be a Smith & Wesson in .357 Magnum, but I don't know what model.

We also have a Remington 870 shotgun that the pawnbroker (NOT this Pawnbroker, who no doubt knows his way around a shotgun - ed) uses to capture Marsellus (Ving Rhames) and Butch (Bruce Willis). The pawnbroker racks a shell into the chamber as hard as he can, like he's trying to prove something, and those of us who actually shoot shotguns can audibly tell that the gun is empty despite the dramatic sound of the action.


Here is the same shotgun in Marsellus' hands in one of the most disturbing scenes ever put onto film:


Marsellus also racks the shotguns action and you can clearly hear that the gun is empty. Another question is why did the shotgun need to be cycled in the first place? It's as if Hollywood believes that one must prime the gun the moment before firing. Idiots.

Butch saves Marsellus from profound buggery with this katana of unknown make:


Here Marsellus draws his Smith & Wesson 5903 from a shoulder holster:



There are other guns that are found in this film like this suppressed Mac 10 that Butch kills Vincent with:



Notice the flinch from Bruce Willis, which is pretty much standard from all of the actors who fire a gun in this movie.

The last two guns I have for you are the two revolvers used by the coffee shop robbers. The one that Yolonda is holding looks like a S&W model 40:


The one that "Ringo" is holding is also a S&W, but I don't know what model:


Notice the terrible grip that they have on those guns. They have both pointer fingers in the trigger guard. Yikes!

That's all I've got. I should be back on track with another movie guns this weekend.

Update: The huge revolver that the crazed gunman has been identified as a Dan Wesson 15 by Robb Allen of Sharp as a Marble, who owns one of these beasts. I note that his has the bevel at the muzzle, and that the ribbing on others that I have Googled matches perfectly.

Thanks for the ID! I've been looking for that one for awhile with no luck.

Virginia puts "Only One" away

I had commented about this case some time ago. This now former cop got the maximum sentence of 45 years. He plans on appealing.

A good response

I received this in a VCDL Alert:

Nicely written statement on why many carry a gun, by a VCDL member named Steve. He is reacting to the item in last week's VA-Alert where the Lynchburg News Advance said "Holstered Guns Still Wrong in Restaurants" <http://tinyurl.com/47ya99>.

Steve writes:
--
"Do you know what gets me about things like this? Our side can't seem to articulate why we carry in the first place. There is a line in this editorial that illustrates this. They think we carry because we fear criminal activity.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I tell my friends this all the time. The reason I carry is not because I think there will be a need to use it. If I ever think there is a realistic chance that I'll need a gun, I would leave that place. If there was no choice, I certainly wouldn't bring a handgun. I would bring a rifle and friends with more rifles. A handgun is carried at every moment I don't think I'll need a gun, just in case I am wrong. Violence and criminal activity is unpredictable and comes when you don't expect it. That's why I carry a gun. If I could predict when it would be "needed", I would only carry a handgun to back-up my rifle.

Why can't we get this through to them!"

Well put!

Michael Bane's rant

On the subject of short barreled rifles and shotguns, suppressors, and the like. A good read.

Even more "Gun Free" shootings!

This one's way outside of my AO, but I thought it was worthy of a post.

Eight people shot in NYC? Really? Cos' I thought they had effective gun laws and stuff!

Weird!

Muggings and stabbings and shootings, OH MY!

Where, you may ask? Why, in "Gun Free" DC no doubt! Yup, those effective gun laws sure do make people safe!

Notice how Pat Collins says that all this happened in "places not known for violence." Oh, but "police and community leaders are growing concerned." So what actually makes them concerned? Has anyone just tried talking to these criminals, or maybe just try to "get them?" And I thought that if you just gave them what they wanted, then you wouldn't get hurt.

Maybe the "community leaders" should get their head out of their ass and try...Oh, I don't know....imprisoning these thugs for life, right after they give every DC citizen back their right to self defense.

CSI in all its hysterical glory

I'm home folks, and I just finished up an episode of CSI Miami called "Going Ballistic" that made me shake my head with all of the BS.

The story line is trying to follow the real life story of Efraim E. Diveroli who was a defense contractor in Miami who's company, AEY, had a contract with the US Army to sell ammunition to Afghanistan, but was busted for selling the wrong kind of ammo.

The first bit of ridiculousness was right at the beginning where a gunman on a rooftop cuts loose with a Glock 18, killing a new CSI. The gunman managed to place about 10 rounds into her chest at about 100 feet on full auto before the gun Kaboomed. Don't start flaming Glocks just yet.

Next we find out that a contractor has sold pistol ammo containing "black powder" to the DoD. This ammo is corroded to the point where a round rolls off Calleigh's desk, hits the floor, and discharges into the ceiling which blows a 4 bulb fluorescent light down onto the desk which starts a fire. And that's not all! Before the fire, Calleigh had cleaned the corrosion off the case head of one of the rounds where she had discovered that the ammo was produced in 1969. How did she know that? Why, it was stamped right onto the case head! Convenient! There was no possibility that the case was produced in 1969, and then loaded up later, nor was there any mention that ammo doesn't really go bad. This ammo is what caused the Glock KaBoom.

Lastly, the contractor was involved in trafficking the new terror ammo that the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership is going to go nuts over. It's called "Fused Alloy" ammo. Apparently this super deadly ammo is pre-fragmented, and bonded with heat. When the conspicuously pointed bullet strikes something like body armor, it punches right through, but when it hits something hot like living tissue, the heat melts the bond causing it to come un-glued and fragment into dozens of pieces. The best line from the episode goes something like "so no matter where you hit someone, they're dead!" Great stuff.

That's not all. Right now I'm watching a CSI New York episode called "Hostage." So far we have a victim with two bullets in his body that are in the same wound channel. The theory is that both rounds came from the same gun, and that the gun must have such low recoil that it can place two rounds into the same hole, and guess what gun they name? The Kriss Super V!

DHS informs NYPD about the weapon, which CSI says doesn't match the caliber in the weapon that a suspected hostage taker is holding, which happens to be a .45 ACP caliber 1911. This is profound because the Kriss Super V is only offered in .45 ACP.

Anyways, I pick CSI apart all of the time because they are so clueless about firearms.

That's all I've got, see ya'll in the morning.

Update: As a reader pointed out in comments, the "fused alloy" bullets do not take into account the heat from being fired out of the gun. That is a good point, so I looked up the episode in Wikipedia, and sure enough, they noticed this as well as some other stuff.

Good catch!

On Travel

I'm going to be on travel for a few days so blogging will probably be light.

Menace to society

This scumbag was caught trying to sell cyanide to white supremacists.

This is the stuff that I fear the most. Some may whine about the dangers of firearms to society and the threat of militant looking weapons with scary accoutrements, but firearms are a poor way to conduct mass killing.

Chemical or biological weapons are not at all hard to get ahold of, or make, and it may not be haji sneaking across the border with stuff like this. It could be guys like this meth head trying to trade 100 lbs. of chemical for a pound of drugs.

Gun control

Because one more strong gun law would stop people like this guy from killing with firearms.

Sarcasm aside, this is probably the most bizaar story I've heard in awhile. Here's some...um...pieces from the story:

He said that on or about Feb. 19, his father told him that God instructed him that his son needed to get a sex change and become his wife, according to the affidavit obtained by the Journal. Shortly after that, he was raped, Jeremiah Berry said.

Jeremiah Berry said he shot his father in the back of the head and then stabbed him 199 times with a knife and dismembered him with an ax, according to the affidavit. Jeremiah Berry said he removed the head, the hands and the feet and skinned the body, feeding the flesh to coyotes.

For the next two days, Jeremiah Berry carried the body out of the canyon in five-gallon buckets, the affidavit said. The two buckets containing his father's head, hands and feet, he put in a storage room at a local dog kennel.

Whoa!

Marksmanship Training

I grew up in the midst of the greatest shooting range on earth. As a child, I had vast amounts of land to roam while honing my marksmanship skills, and it started at my parents house in Virginia.

When I was a teenager, it was no big deal to get up before sunrise, grab a rifle or two, and head out of the house on foot for a days worth of hunting; all the while my parents had no clue of my whereabouts, nor did they have a method of contacting me because people didn't own cellphones. I can remember one night, my friend and I had been hunting past sundown when we were stopped by a game warden in the dark while crossing a road. Here were two 13 year olds wandering around in the dark with 12 gauge shotguns, and all the game warden had to say was to get home safely.

These days, the land that I had once roamed about endlessly has turned into a sea of vinyl. The shear number of houses that are going up on a weekly basis makes me sick. The money hungry developers are not going to be satisfied until there isn't a tree left in this state. I can still shoot in my parents backyard, but it will not be long until the DC suburbia that is flowing South finishes off that too.

This shed is a testament to the large volume of shooting that my family has collectively done for the last 20 years.



I did a post about it a couple of months ago that can be read here.

This Sunday, my brother Seth and I spent a few hours shooting .22 caliber rifles at paper targets and clay pigeons. There is no finer way to keep your marksmanship sharp than to shoot at random targets at various ranges offhand with a small caliber rifle. We would throw several clay targets like a frisbee out into the grass and take offhand shots at ranges of 30 to 60 yards. The clay targets are challenging to hit like this because you only had the edge to aim at, and the grass partially obscures what little you can see.


Here is my brother Seth taking aim with his Ruger 10/22:


Here is another picture of Seth with one on those dreadful oversized magazines attached to the underside of his rifle:


He has to keep that scary looking magazine locked up just to keep it from wandering the streets at night looking for drugs.

Here is a video clip of Seth blasting the clay targets:


What a great time! You can see the mist shoot up from the ground with every shot because mother nature sucks and it never stops raining. I feel like I live in Seattle. Here is a picture of me with an old Marlin Glenfield model 25:


I've owned this rifle since I was a kid, and I will pass it on to my kids after they learn to shoot it. I plan on moving in the future to find a place where my family and I can shoot without worrying about hitting a house.

Talk about a fun way to spend an afternoon, and .22 caliber rounds are affordable too. I hope to spend many more days like this in the future.

Movie Guns VIII

I'm a big fan of Michael Mann movies. He takes the extra time to give a measure of realism to his gun handling and gunfight scenes, as can be seen in movies like Collateral, Heat, and this weeks Movie Guns: Miami Vice.

The general premice of the movie was OK, but the guns that were featured in this film were good-to-go. The end of the movie has an epic gunfight with automatic weapons, some of them with cool optics. Let's get started.

Early on, Rico uses a H&K 69 to open a warehouse door so they could steal some drugs:


Inside the warehouse, one of the BG's had left his Mossberg 500 with underfolding stock on a table:



Later on, Sonny and Rico visit with some high end drug dealers, and when the BG's move in with weapons drawn, Sonny pulls a M67 fragmentation grenade:


That makes everyone hold very still. You can see the grenade in Sonny's hand when they leave, and one of the BG's is holding a H&K MP7A1:


Afterwords, Sonny and Rico re-arm with more firepower, as seen here where Sonny is holding a compact 1911 of unknown make, and then preps his Sig SG551 carbine:





When Rico's girlfriend gets kidnapped, Sonny, Rico, and Gina find her location and move in to take out the BG's and get her back. Here is Gina who sports a H&K G36C:


She shoots one of the BG's in the face with the G36, and Rico kills a BG with the Sig P220 that he carries throughout the whole movie:


At the end of the scene, Rico accidentally drops his Sig on the floor of the trailer, but he doesn't notice it and leaves.

Pretty good gun handling from Jammie Foxx. Gina, played by Elizabeth Rodriguez, flinches badly with every shot, especially at the end of the movie. Here, Lieutenant Castillo is holding a Colt M4 with Aimpoint optic:


The end of the movie is where the big firefight goes down between the cops and the BG's. Everyone is armed with something bad-ass, like this BG with a Barrett M82A1:


The BG decides to load the rifle, but first has to seat the last round in the magazine for dramatic effect before jamming in the magazine into the weapon.


Two SWAT snipers take out two BG snipers; one with a Remington 700 wearing a Leupold LR/T scope:


The other has a Remington 700 with Nightforce scope, seated in a Choate tactical stock:



They might want to reconsider their choice of ammunition!

The BG's respond by opening up with a couple of H&K G3A3's, a few H&K MP5's, and a few short barrel AR-15's with CMore Scout optics:




One of the BG's has a fearless expression while firing a AR-15 on full auto, and going frame by frame shows that he doesn't even begin to flinch through a half of a magazine burst. Good job.

The cops fire back with various automatic weapons, as well as shotguns like Rico's Benelli M4:


..and this Remington 870 tactical wielded by Switek, who is played by Domenick Lombardozzi. Notice the horrible cheek weld, and that he's not even trying to look down the sights:


Here is Isabella's S&W 99 that she grabbed from a BG:



Overall, a pretty great job of weapon authenticity and accuracy during fight scenes. The BS moment arrives at the very end of the final shootout where the South American druglord's righthand man, Yero, is hip firing a H&K G3A3 on full auto at Rico, who has emptied his Benelli M4. Yero of course misses with every shot at close range, in part because Rico does the super tactical barrel roll, and then Rico draws a H&K 69 40mm grenade launcher stoked with canister shot, from concealment, and blows Yero away.

Yeah, sure.

Still a great movie for the action scenes.

Update: An anonymous commenter notes that Sonny's 1911 is a SVI Tiki Model. Great research!

Update: Two anonymous commenters note that the tactical looking shotgun that I labeled a Remington 870 is a FN Tactical Police, and that Sonny uses a SG 552 instead of the longer barreled SG551. Thanks for picking those up!