[VIDEO] Firearms Fundamentals

SamR

Joined Mar 19, 2019
5,494
That particular revolver cannot be fired by a "hammer slip" unless the trigger is pulled with the hammer in the fully cocked position. It cannot "fire" on its own. It was a vast improvement over the ball and cap revolvers which savvy users keep the hammer on an empty chamber in the cylinder for the hammer to rest on to prevent "hammer firing" if the hammer was to be struck while on a live capped chamber. There is a teat on the cylinder between each chamber of the cylinder for the hammer to "latch" onto to prevent this but it is notorious for the hammer slipping off of as the teats get worn from usage and can then "hammer fire". Such is not the case with the Colt SAA revolver. The hammer will only go part way down to the "safety" (also called half cock) position if a hammer slip occurs and cannot fire unless the hammer is fully pulled back to the "cock" position and the trigger pulled. If the hammer slips in the fully cocked position it will not fall until the trigger is pulled. There is also the indexing of the cylinder with the hammer pull and trigger pressures which I will not go into. He may not remember pulling the trigger but he indeed did do so. But that's his story and he seems to be sticking to it even if it is absurd. I don't think he will want to go into court in front of a jury with that testimony. We shall see... Who knows, as arrogant as he is he just might.
 

BobTPH

Joined Jun 5, 2013
11,553
My best guess is because with any gun disabled such as removing the firing pin it can't fire the blanks this gun was supposed to shoot during the filming
Why? Look at what they do with special effects. Surely they can make it appear that the disabled prop gun actually fired.
 

Reloadron

Joined Jan 15, 2015
7,892
Why? Look at what they do with special effects. Surely they can make it appear that the disabled prop gun actually fired.
I don't know why more special effects aren't used. Alec Baldwin was also a producer on this film. Real guns firing blanks have been used as far as I can remember. I also agree that as good as movies have become using special effects it would be a more viable solution as to general safety to use special effects but then too I am not a producer or movie maker. I don't know.

SamR's post certainly would lead us to believe it's very doable. Whay it was not done in the Rust movie I have no idea. Guess it's something for the writers, producers and directors to explain.

Ron
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
32,908
Why? Look at what they do with special effects. Surely they can make it appear that the disabled prop gun actually fired.
Yes. And it's getting better. Furthermore, movie makers have never been very concerned with making gunfire and bullet impacts look particularly real anyway. They would much rather have someone shooting a tree result in huge showers of sparks. But, even so, special effects are not cheap compared to simple practical effects.
 

joeyd999

Joined Jun 6, 2011
6,331
Yes. And it's getting better. Furthermore, movie makers have never been very concerned with making gunfire and bullet impacts look particularly real anyway. They would much rather have someone shooting a tree result in huge showers of sparks. But, even so, special effects are not cheap compared to simple practical effects.
Or when a 9mm "blows" someone backwards.
 

SamR

Joined Mar 19, 2019
5,494
At least they finally got rid of the "Ricochet" sound every time they fired. Or the tiny little sparks ala A-Team for when the non-existent imaginary bullet strikes a surface but at least they were all such bad shots no one ever got hurt. There has always been a certain bit of absurdity in Hollyweird concerning firearms.
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
32,908
Oh, the sparks are still used a LOT.

I was on a plane sitting next to a gal that was a producer of indy films and I talked to her about some of the absurdities in movies that have been around so long that they are cliches, such as a guy with a revolver standing there and getting off a dozen or more shots nonstop, or someone getting shot and they go flying across the room, or the asinine "image enhancement" that is invoked all the time, or the person running down the alley with a car chasing them, tires squealing, and the person is able to stay ahead of the car they entire time while the car's engine is racing at full throttle behind them. The list, of course, goes on and on.

The conversation started out about the dozens of shots without reloading because that seemed, to me, to be a matter of poor editing and lack of attention to simple details, as opposed to complete ignorance of the laws of physics. She said that the part of it is that audiences, in general, don't notice and don't care. I wasn't surprised by that. But she went on to say that audiences have expectations of how things work that is largely based entirely on all of the movies and shows they have seen before. So they expect someone to go flying when they get hit by a bullet and if the person responds accurately, audiences don't buy it. We've seen how juries have been influenced by unrealistic expectations of what forensic science can and can't do based on what they see on TV.
 

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
16,333
Unrealistic expectations? We see this all the time in TV/movies on everything they show.
"an image enhancer that can bitmap"

The reality.

Yes, there are 'AI' enhancers but be careful using one on 'evidence'.
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/25/enhance-is-now-a-thing-but-dont-believe-what-you-see/
“ENHANCE” IS NOW A THING, BUT DON’T BELIEVE WHAT YOU SEE
It remains a universal truth that when working with low-resolution imagery, or black and white footage, it’s not possible to accurately fill in data that isn’t there. It just so happens that with the help of neural networks, we can make excellent guesses that may seem real to a casual observer. The limitations of this technology come up more often then you might think, too. Colorization, for example, can be very effective on things like city streets and trees, but performs very poorly on others, such as clothing. Leaves are usually some shade of green, while roads are generally grey. A hat, however, could be any color; while a rough idea of shade can be gleaned from a black and white image, the exact hue is lost forever. In these cases, neural networks can only take a stab in the dark.

Due to these reasons, it’s important not to consider footage “enhanced ” in this way as historically relevant. Nothing generated by such an algorithm can be definitively trusted to have basis in truth.
https://www.intelligentliving.co/pulse-ai-photos-sharper/
The AI tool cannot identify people who were once on the photo. “It won’t turn an out-of-focus, unrecognizable photo from a security camera into a crystal-clear image of a real person. Rather, it is capable of generating new faces that don’t exist, but look plausibly real,” the researchers clarified.
1674243646629.png1674243793577.png

Shannon-Nyquist still rules.
 
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strantor

Joined Oct 3, 2010
6,875
"We are pleased with the decision to dismiss the case against Alec Baldwin and we encourage a proper investigation into the facts and circumstances of this tragic accident," Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro, the attorneys for Baldwin, said in a statement.
Is he saying a proper investigation wasn't conducted? If so, how were charges dropped?
 
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