This, precisely. Entertainment TV shows and movies are not documentaries, and regularly have things work differently than they do IRL: cars don’t routinely burst into massive flames when they are in collisions, people don’t usually keep fighting after being shot, computers aren’t capable of adding additional resolution to an image, etc.
How guns are treated in entertainment is no different – and, as this thread demonstrates, when anything is treated unrealistically, it often bothers the subset of the audience who has knowledge in that area, and can take them out of the usual “suspension of disbelief” when they see it.
The only time most TV shows or films will treat something like this “realistically” is if it’s integral to the story that they’re telling.
Recoil! I got the opportunity to shoot an MP5, a shotgun, and a pistol in Vegas. The shotgun left a bruise on my shoulder and I was holding it properly and everything. The MP5 climbs, which worked out for me because apparently I have a tendency to shoot low and to the left naturally.
Also I own a few guns, all .22s, and while you think they are a “small” calibre they are still loud as SHIT. I have fired them in the range and outdoors and always wear ear protection. I cringe at the scenes of people firing guns in a small enclosed area and they don’t even flinch.
I wonder what movie has the most egregious use of bottomless clips (magazines?) on submachine guns? The first time it really stood out to me was the shooting in “Where Eagles Dare”, but every movie does it. Even those really long clips just go “briip”, and they’re empty on auto mode, aiui.
Magazine; a clip just holds ammunition, a magazine has a feeding mechanism (a spring).
This is how long 100 rounds in a dual drum mag in a Glock 18 lasts.
Stranger
According to Mr. Google, that was filmed in a flood control channel in Los Angeles called the Bull Creek Spillway.
I looked up the scene on youtube. There’s only one “flash” so you could make the argument that he was using a slug (in slow-mo it looks like they set off an explosive charge in the lock). While the chain clearly breaks, the gate itself does not move. However, when they cut to the Terminator driving through the gate, the gate has somehow mysteriously opened a fraction of a second later.
In real life, the lock probably wouldn’t open even with a direct hit from a slug (it’s probably more likely to just be jammed shut permanently), and even if the lock did fall open, the gate would still be closed, so Mr. T800 would just crash his motorcycle into the gate. The gate would go flying open from the impact, and Mr. T800 and his motorcycle would go sliding across the pavement.
One thing that was bandied about a bit in the thread about the Rust incident was the matter of “realism” – as pointed out here, movie “realism” is not necessarily the same thing as real realism. But as with everything in entertainment you always have you fair representation of comment-section dwellers nitpicking how “hey, anyone can see that’s not how that works!” Dude, the man is firing an M-60 one-handed, don’t complain that that is not how the ejected cases/links should look.
Was gonna say, probably a brake on a shorter-than-standard barrel and firing a large or hot cartridge. I too have had Balthisar’s experience of almost jumping out of my goggles at the report of some Suburban Forces operator’s latest toy.
For a brief period, I was part of a regular (weekly) skeet group. It was always funny when somebody would accidently grab a high velocity brass shell out of their bag instead of the lead wing & clay shells normally used in skeet. Even guys who shot 100+ shells a week would react to the MUCH louder noise.
ETA: And we were ALL wearing hearing protection.
That is awesome. A lot of rounds.