Question on guns (film related)

[BTM]

So, how many of you have seen this in a movie: hero is making a heroic stand, blasting away with his gun (sometimes one in each hand), he ejects the clip(s), slaps in some new ones and then fires away without pause.

Wait a sec... wouldn't you have to pull back the breech (that's what you call it right, breech?) in order to chamber another round?  Unless I suppose, the good guy is keeping careful count of his shots and leaves one bullet left before reloading.

Course, a friend of mine who knows guns a bit better than I do, says that some guns are autoloaders, so you could just slam in another clip and keep going.  

I know there's a lot of military guys here, so can anyone fill me in?

[akiratubo]

First off, they're called "magazines".  "Clips" are simple metal strips used to load magazines.

The thing he's pulling back to chamber a round would be a "charging handle" for an auto rifle, a "bolt" for a bolt-action rifle, or the "slide" for a pistol.  The "breech" is the rear part of the barrel, where the cartridge goes in.

To answer your question, if there was still a round chambered the hero wouldn't have to cycle the action when reloading.  If he ran out, most automatic firearms lock the action open after the last round has fired.  He'd just have to hit the bolt release (rifle) or slingshot the slide (pistol) to get going again.  A bolt-action rifle has to be cycled every time, of course, and a revolver is always ready to go as soon as it's loaded.  An open bolt firearm (like a Mac 10) doesn't require complete cycling.  The charging handle just needs to be pulled back.  If the trigger wasn't pulled on an empty chamber, the bolt will already be back, in which case the hero can just shove in a new mag and start shooting.  However, unless he was being very careful, he probably held it down too long (on a full auto, 'cause everyone carries around full auto weapons, you know) or pulled it one too many times (for a semi-auto) and would need to pull the bolt back.

Your friend was probably talking about open-bolt firearms.  For a gun to automatically chamber a round, it would have to have an external power source.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolt_action
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas-operated_reloading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recoil_operation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_bolt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_bolt

[The Burgomaster]

Not to mention that in real life the hero would experience recoil every time he pulled the trigger and would not be able to hold a weapon steady enough in each hand to pick off dozens of enemies with precision accuracy.  But I guess action movies would be pretty dull if these scenes were filmed realistically.

[BTM]

Thanks for the info guys.

If anyone's curious, two scenes I'm thinking of in particular are Talahassee's last stand in Zombieland, and Hit Girl from Kickass.  Dunno what weapons either were carrying.  Kickass I'd give a pass to, as it's a comic book movie, and Zombieland, well, Tallahassee falls under "Rule of Cool" so he can do the dual weilding thing. 

:)

[Flick James]

Spot on, akiraturbo, and he beat me to it.

Zombieland features a scene at the end where Woody Harrelson has a bunch of magazines lined up, standing up, and he fires until the guns are presumably empty, drops the magazines out, brings the guns down to load the magazines that are standing up, and then continues to fire. I'm pretty certain that the slides are still forward when he does this, which drives me nuts. Because, just as akiraturbo mentioned, the only way this is possible is if he still had a round in the chamber prior to ejecting and inserting the new magazines. This would assume that he was keeping track of how many rounds had been fired, which is a ridiculous notion given the circumstances of the scene. Then again, maybe the character was just that cool-headed.

[Flangepart]

The hero needs a +9 for coordination and focus to pull that off. If he can, he's the hero.
Many semiautos do have a slide hold-open, so the insertion of a new mag will cause it to chamber the top round, and you're on your way. But yeah, if the slide is closed, they need to rack it to chamber the first round.

Also, as Akiratubo noted, clips are not magazines.
An M-1 Garand uses clips. That's why the eight rounds are exposed, as the enbloc clip just holds them together. A magazine protects the cartridges except for the top round, and that allows for large, dependable stacks of rounds to use.
A machine gun belt is a really long clip, when you think about it. be it disintigreating link or cloth belt (Old school) it exposes the cartridges, which is why MG guys are always focused on keeping them clean, unless you have a semi-ridged bag like you seen under an M240 or M243. That or the drum mag used on the German MG-34.

And on that note...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzmVJ1rXD9U
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[Flick James]

The hero needs a +9 for coordination and focus to pull that off. If he can, he's the hero.
Many semiautos do have a slide hold-open, so the insertion of a new mag will cause it to chamber the top round, and you're on your way. But yeah, if the slide is closed, they need to rack it to chamber the first round.

Also, as Akiratubo noted, clips are not magazines.
An M-1 Garand uses clips. That's why the eight rounds are exposed, as the enbloc clip just holds them together. A magazine protects the cartridges except for the top round, and that allows for large, dependable stacks of rounds to use.
A machine gun belt is a really long clip, when you think about it. be it disintigreating link or cloth belt (Old school) it exposes the cartridges, which is why MG guys are always focused on keeping them clean, unless you have a semi-ridged bag like you seen under an M240 or M243. That or the drum mag used on the German MG-34.

And on that note... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzmVJ1rXD9U

On a related note, I was puzzled by something I saw in Gran Torino. Clint Eastwood's character owns and old M1 Garand, and actually the eight-round "bundle," for lack of a better word. I was wondering when I watched that film, do those still exist? The eight-round bundles, that is. It got me to wondering if the character just had a bunch left over from the old days or if somebody still actually makes them, or if he made them himself.

[Flangepart]

Flick: I have an Enblock 'Bundle' bought at a gun show. I loaded it with 30.06 hoping to get to shoot an M-1, but now it's just a historical piece, but yeah a gun show will have them.


Oh, and never mess with an old lady in a wheelchair with an MP-40...no, really...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB7iz1HTh9U&feature=related
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[alandhopewell]

     This bugs me....



     There were revolvers made to use silencers, but generally not the ones you see on tv.

[Flick James]

Human heads work really well as silencers.

[akiratubo]

On a related note, I was puzzled by something I saw in Gran Torino. Clint Eastwood's character owns and old M1 Garand, and actually the eight-round "bundle," for lack of a better word. I was wondering when I watched that film, do those still exist?

En bloc clips?  Yeah, you can still get them.

http://www.cheaperthandirt.com/MAG2450-1.html

[alandhopewell]

     Of course, there was Rambo, firing the M-60 with the ammo belt wrapped around his neck....

[Menard]

If you feel the need to go around in life, and forum posts, pointing out the distinction between clips and magazines, you seriously need to get laid...

...just sayin' 

[Jim H]

One small note: a number of high quality pistols (like the H&K USP) will automatically release the slide if you slam the magazine in with a bit of force.  It's intended to absolutely minimize reload time.

[joejoe]

the old soviet Nagant revolver can be used with a silence because of the gas seal system of the cylinder to the forcing cone.

the revolver is over a hundred years old and is still in use over there