Bottomless Magazines

[yaddo42]

I tend to go with the "suspension of disbelief" theory of magazine reloads in movies, it can disrupt the flow of the action. Look at all the old westerns where everyone was carrying single action Colt Peacemakers. They have to be emptied and reloaded one round at a time. Really slows things down.

But I do like it when a film acknowledges that magazines do run out, or you have to empty and reload the cylinder on a revolver.

I like how "Pale Rider" got around this problem with Clint's cap and ball revolver, by having him carry many preloaded extra cylinders that he would swap out. Imagine how boring it would be to show him charging and capping each empty chamber to reload everytime. Not to mentions that he would probably be shot down in the middle of the process, so extra cylinders would be a necessity with a gun like that.

The best example I can think of right off of a semi-realistic film depiction of ammo limitations would be the Bruce Willis flick/"Yojimbo" remake - "Last Man Standing".  Carrying two 1911s, 7 shots each, empty the mags, load new ones in, hit the slide releases. There was also the shot of him getting ready for a big fight by loading lots of magazines, so many they covered the table. The only quibble I had was he didn't seem weighted down enough by the weight and bulk of all those magazines.

I can remember in "The WInd And The Lion" where the Englishman emptys his snub-nosed British Bulldog revolver, clicks on an empty chamber when he had a clear shot, looks down, says "Damn.", and is cut down by one of the invaders.