Man’s gotta have style.
Here’s another thing about guns in entertainment that’s obvious to gun owners / users, but almost never comes up in entertainment.
Ammunition - both the ubiquity of FMJ, and the myth of the hollowpoint.
If you see rounds being loaded into a gun, it’s almost always FMJ, which are a subpar choice for killing most humans, but time and again you’ll see expert assassins loading them into their pistols, which are already a poor choice for killing a human fast.
But, on the contrary, in entertainment (movies, tv, and especially video games) Hollow Points can become literal magic bullets that kill effortlessly, although for games it’s sometimes balanced against penetration.
Still a pet peeve though.
And of course, the preponderance of pistols as super-weapons in entertainment is a whole thread of it’s own.
The first episode of The Walking Dead accurately depicted what happens if you fire a handgun inside an armored vehicle.
Science fiction plays pretty loose with suspension of disbelief already, but one thing they’ve done forever is depict nifty looking ray guns that have no apparent way to sight them. Apparently in the future humanity has advanced enough to all be expert point shooters.
At the age of 49 or 50 (in the last year or so) I finally decided to exercise our natural rights in addition to simply defending them with words, so I’ve found myself at the range a bit. I’m experienced with firearms thanks to my military service, so I’m not a nervous Nellie, and I’ve fired the big shit like 0.50 calibre machine guns (for qualification, never at an enemy).
Sometimes people in adjacent lanes are firing shit that nearly makes me jump out of my skin. I’m wearing ear protection, of course, but this stuff is felt as much as heard. I have no idea what they’re firing, but it feels big.
My “journey” (in GenZ parlance) has been 0.22LR, 9.0mm, and 5.56mm rounds. I suppose the 5.56mm might offer a lot of percussion, but nothing like a 0.50 calibre machine gun. I’m about to try some subsonic 0.300 AACs before month’s end, and I’m not sure what to expect.
I don’t go to the range often enough to understand the etiquette, though. I’d love to know what the hell these percussive folks are firing, but am hesitant to ask.
Anyway, for realism, recoil is a factor. At seven meters shooting a human-sized target with double-taps is fine, but if you’re trying to actually put two rounds within a few millimeters, it’s incredibly hard. At seven meters (self defense range) I can get where I need to within 25mm with the first shot, but recoil is a bitch.
I just got a new revolver for gophers–a Taurus Judge chambered in .410 shotgun shells. The other pistol I have is a 5" 9mm, which, while I wearing hearing protection, is sort of “pop-pop.” I let off a round of .410 to see the pattern without hearing pro. Mistake, Deaf for 90 seconds. It’s a heavy gun, so the recoil is not that bad. No gophers yet.
If it’s semi-auto, then my first guess would be 7.62X51 (.308). I shoot both 5.56 (from an AR) and .308 (from a FAL) in my backyard, and the latter is considerably louder & “boomy-er”.
Yeah, this doesn’t really bother me. But you’re right they are loud.
Many years ago while qualifying (rifle qual), in a rapid fire segment I quickly realized I’d forgotten my ear protection. I was a young PFC then and was worried that I’d get in trouble or yelled at if I stopped to cover my tears and then have to do a do-over (if that was even an option; I had no idea then), so I shot my 10 rounds as best I could. If it was a slow fire segment then no problem, but this was a timed rapid fire segment: 1 minute to squeeze off 10 rounds at the target 250 yards away.
My ears were ringing for a long time afterwards. I never made that mistake again. Pain is an effective teacher.
With a 25mm you shouldn’t need a follow-up. 
Stranger
Many of the recent tactical style rifles may be equipped with screw-on muzzle brake devices. These devices help reduce recoil by directing gasses coming out of the barrel (usually) sideways and upwards, and prevent it from projecting down into the ground when firing prone. This is a benefit to the shooter, but it can be very annoying when you are next to them at the range. Especially if the firing line has a roof over it.
One of my carry pistols is a Kel-Tec PF9 (Pistol Flat 9mm), the thinnest, lightest 9mm when introduced. It weighs 12 ounces. Although it does have a snappy recoil it is very manageable. I have shot at least 50 rounds in practice.
That’s not very many rounds at all. You need to be very familiar with a self defense carry pistol. 50 rounds is barely getting to know her on a first date.
In the pilot episode of The Walking Dead, Rick crawls into a tank to escape a herd of zombies in Atlanta. He comes across the corpse of a soldier who animates and shoots him in the head with his .357 revolver and winces in pain at the loud rapport in such an enclosed environment. It’s one of the few times I’ve seen a character in any medium react to loud gunfire.
Edit: And I see someone got a shot off about that episode before I could.
In the movie Baby Driver, a villain uses a gunshot beside a character’s ear to intentionally deafen them.
The Disney+ show Hawkeye features a main character who is going deaf. When asked about the cause of this we see flashbacks of various deafening noises around him over the years. Not sure if any of these were conventional guns but at least there is one show out there that acknowledges that a character who should be deaf is at least halfway there.
There’s a sneaky one in Andor. At one point two characters are having what they think is a quiet conversation about another character coming back to town (despite great potential risk). A snitch overhears the conversation from halfway down the block. Why? Because the characters who are talking both work in heavy industry and are both kinda deaf so the conversation is louder than they think it is.
I’m always amazed at how Bond (James Bond) doesn’t print in those skin tight tuxes.
You are right. I just meant that I can fire it 50 times in a row and my hand survives the sharp recoil. I wore my Ruger P95 out after about 15,000 rounds and had to send it back to have the barrel link replaced.
The Ruger P95, like all “P-Series” Ruger pistols, is a Browning-style linkless barrel design.
Stranger
Books get it wrong, also. One of the worst was a Stephen King book that has kids fending off evil. One of the kids takes a .410 shotgun into the tunnel with him and blows the Evil Ones away with this mighty weapon, propelling them backwards, etc. For those who may not know, a .410 is the smallest caliber shotgun made, and has very little recoil. It’s possible to hunt with it, and even to shoot skeet with it, but as a weapon of choice, it’s a poor one.
Remember when Terminator was riding the motorcycle in the concrete river (?) and he was blasting the locks off of gates with a shotgun? That’s impossible, right?
Unless you are using slugs and are inhumanly accurate from a moving motorcycle:
Stranger
He is a Terminator.
