Pretty creepy, Dif…
Not to steer this thread down an X-Files path (not a fan myself), whats the point of the smoking man using a revolving cylander ratcheting-chamber revolver-type sniper rile thingie as opposed to a small compact bolt action rifle ala “Day of the jackel” (the original).
Boris B wrote:
I remember the scene. Michael is test-firing the revolver and comments, “Wow, that’s loud”.
I know Michael was ex-military and should have known all about how loud firearms normally are, but:
Once, I lifted off one side of my hearing protectors (essentially earmuffs) inside an indoor shooting range. At that instant, the guy in the lane next to me fired (either a .40 S&W or a .45 ACP semiautomatic pistol). The BANG was so loud it was physically painful. Trust me, ordinary firearms are loud, and wouldn’t need any special modification to cow everybody in a restaurant.
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Inky:
I think they chose the Knight (I think it was the Revolver-Pistol but I could be wrong) because it looks cool. One of the advantages of the actual weapon is said to be decent rate of fire combined with no ejected cartridges to make noise and/or be left behind as evidence of the operation. I don’t know if that mattered in this situation, as Smoking Man was shot from a different building.
tracer:
Part of the reason Michael might have been surprised at the loudness of the revolver, might have been the size of the room. I don’t know if he would have used earplugs when training with military rifles (my dad didn’t, but he was in the service in the 50s and I thought Michael got out in the 60s, when things might have been different). Anyway, I don’t know how the revolver would compare to a .40 S&W since I didn’t have a good guess what caliber it was … possibly a .38 Special but possibly a .38 S&W or some kind of .32? Perhaps the gunsmith was just messing around, anyway.
The '60’s? Did they re-make The Godfather already?
I don’t remember the exact timeline, but Michael was out of the military in the forties or early fifties. I believe he joined up right after Pearl Harbor, but I’ll have to watch the last scene of Godfather II to be sure.
Rich
Oops. I never was really clear on the temporal setting of the Godfather, and it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it. When I do my remake, I’ll be sure to put in lots of contemporary music to telegraph the setting. So there will be a lot of Chubby Checker in the opening wedding seen, and plenty of Katrina and the Waves in Godfather III.
Micheal Corleone was a Captain in the Marine Corps during WW II.
Yes, it’s possible to Suppress (not silence) a firearm. But not with something the size of a champagne bottle cork like the Men from U.N.C.L.E. had. How large the supressor has to be depends on how powerful the round is. I’ve read that an effective screw on supressor for an M-16 would have to be 18 inches long at least. And if you’re going to be going around, trying to shoot silently, you’d better keep in mind the other sounds besides the ‘blast’, which is all a supressor suppresses anyway.
There’s the sound of the bullet going supersonic (ok, sub sonic ammo takes care of that)
The sound of the shell casing hitting whatever it hits when it’s ejected from the weapon. (bolt action rifle, no problem. Pistol, use your thinking cap)
The sound of the slide racking back and loading another round (see above comment about bolt action)
The ping of the firing pin striking the primer on the round.
Now, I’m not advising anyone reading this to experiment. There are very strict laws concerning suppressors. Once can legally own them by filling out the proper forms and paying the tax to the BATF. And I’m not going to comment that there are kits to temporarily convert a Colt Government Model 45 ACP to 22 Long rifle, or that I strongly suspect that the barrel from a Government Model 45 ACP would most likely fit with no modification into a Colt Officer’s Model 45 ACP, thereby leaving maybe an inch or more of barrel extending past the bushing.
Ranger Jeff
*The Idol of American Youth *
I have been following this thread for a little while and I have finally decided to add my comments. First of all, RJ is right about the BATF restrictions on firearms suppressors, but the tax is actually paid to the IRS. The red tape involves fingerprints, photo identification, and an interview with the senior law enforcement officer (or his designee) of your locale. Now then, the “kits” to convert a Colts Gov’t Model 1911A1 from .45 ACP or .38 Super or 9mm to .22LR are just hardware that replaces some of the key components of the gun: barrel, slide, magazine, and in some cases, some of the smaller parts. The conversion is not “temporary” in the sense that it could be accomplished within a matter of minutes. But why would you consider this conversion if your goal was to make the gun more quiet - the .22LR round is supersonic, while the .45 ACP round is not. It is just as difficult to suppress a .22LR as it is to suppress a .45 ACP. The design of the Colts Officer’s Model includes a ‘flare’ or ‘bell’ at the muzzle end of the barrel; this means that the barrel bushing and ‘lock-up’ is different from a Gov’t Model - I have never considered using a standard 5" Gov’t barrel and Gov’t barrel bushing in an Officer’s Model (instead of the 3.5" barrel and special barrel bushing), but I’ll check and get back to you on that one. To prevent the case from making noise as it is ejected, and to eliminate the sound of the mechanical operation, it is common to install a ‘slide stop’ lever which locks up the slide and essentially makes the gun a ‘single shot’. I would think that the ‘ping’ of the firing pin would be so inconsequential that we can ignore it as a source of recognizable sound. Of course, when you begin to discuss firearms that are intended to fire several rounds in succession in semi-automatic or automatic mode, the rules all change. For a good idea of what a suppressed, fully-automatic platform would actually look like, check out the movie “McQ”, starring John Wayne.
Radar Ralph said:
Thanks for your points on the gov/officers model. And for a look at a suppressed, full-auto platform, do a web search for Heckler & Koch and look at the MP-5 SD2
Ranger Jeff
*The Idol of American Youth *
RJ: Sorry about the mis-statement on my part. What I should have said was, “For a good idea of what a suppressed, fully-automatic platform would actually look and sound like,…etc.” There are lots of pictures of the various weapons available, but the movie gives a fairly accurate depiction of the Ingram MAC-10 in operation.
As I recall, McQ was very accurate in depicting a silenced MAC-10, including the fact that on full auto the clip doesn’t last very long. I’m awfully tired of movies showing guys firing 30 second sustained bursts from their Uzis.
I highly recommend a video entitled: “Deadly Weapons”. It can be found for rent in some gun stores and sporting goods stores. This video is basically a training movie for law enforcement officers, but a lot of firearms misconceptions are discussed. Among the more informative parts of the movie are the use of ‘silenced’ or suppressed firearms, demonstrations to show the real-life performance of various calibers, demonstrations of full-auto weapons, and a realistic approach to self-protection apparel. Running time is about 100 minutes and this movie is entertaining as well as informative.
Since the men from U.N.C.L.E. use non-lethal knockout bullets, they obviously don’t have much in the way of muzzle velocity, since a “non-lethal bullet” travelling at Mach 1 isn’t very non-lethal.
John W. Kennedy
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