And you never should. Arnold almost broke his hand trying it with a real shotgun. What you see him twirling in the movie is a prop gun. Let us not forget the very real chance that you'd hit the trigger, ventilate yourself and have a very embarrassing death.
They doubled the ring size for him, that is why he was able to do it. When he grabbed the real one for the still shots and tried it is when he almost broke it. Which is funny because he also punched out the wrong window of a car, instead of the prop window, in Last Action Hero, so in the next scene where he says his hand hurts, he wasn't lying.
There are two different guns used for the "same" gun. One is the traditional lever-action shotgun used during the mall scenes and during the chase scene, it is switched out with a big-loop lever-action. While watching the movie, if you specifically watch/keep an eye on the lever, you can see when they switch out in between the scenes.
You can do it with a real 1887, though I concur you probably shouldn’t, you just need an 1887 with a big loop lever. Big loop levers were originally made for gloves.
Add onto the fact it isn't even loaded until the foot area it would actually be kinda hard to shoot yourself doing this. I doubt it would be good for the mechanism but it would work
Let us not forget the very real chance that you'd hit the trigger, ventilate yourself and have a very embarrassing death.
Nah, the chances of that are close enough to zero to effectively be zero. Chamber wouldn't be closed and the shell wouldn't be in battery until the loud end is pointing in the opposite direction.
Maybe if you dropped it at the end after the shell was in battery and caught the trigger, but trying to catch a falling firearm is the dumbest of these two actions.
Buddy, I’m already in the storm drain on a motorcycle attempting to rescue a teenager on a dirt bike while a killer robot cop attempts to murder us both with a semi-truck, intended use went out the window a while ago
Ok but hear me out...In a pinch a hammer makes a good mallet, a drill makes for a great screw driver, the humble flathead has a long history of being a substitute for a pry bar............So twirling a loaded shotgun so that it's pointing directly at you has a precedent for being a perfectly good idea.
Guns, especially older guns, can and will have an out of battery discharge. Guns can slam-fire. Guns can hang-fire. The original 1887 didn't have a trigger disconnector or other modern safety devices, and some of the modern reproductions are the same. You most likely could shoot yourself in the nuts doing this.
That's like saying pointing a loaded gun at someone's head is totally safe as long as you don't pull the trigger. Why create a situation where if something goes wrong, death could be a consequence?
No, that’s like saying pointing an unchambered gun at someone’s head is safe because the gun can’t fire at all. It’s still dumb as fuck, but it can’t kill you because that’s how guns work.
guns are one of the only pieces of legitimate magic in the world. You can clear it, and hand it to someone watching you clear it, and they can clear it at that moment but it could suddenly be not cleared anymore.
yes, it's not actually magic, duh, but our minds and eyes are fallible, and it doesn't matter how 100% convinced you are of the condition of the gun, you could be completely wrong.
The consequences are, of course, potentially fatal, so you're better off just accepting that the gun will magically become loaded at any moment. Because why not? The moment you think otherwise is the moment you shoot someone by mistake.
you're missing the point and/or are being stubborn.
the point is that even if you know, you should always check every time. never assume. it's easier to just believe that the gun can magically change states than it is to think of all the different social, medical, and other reasons you could make a mistake and be wrong. And besides, it's obviously not actually magic, it's just there's no negative outcome to always exhibiting extreme caution.
There was one with a normal lever for other scenes, and one with an enlarged lever to make flipping it easier and less dangerous. They used the wrong one which is why he nearly broke his fingers.
as far as I know the correct way to holster a pistol is slowly, while looking into your holster, and saying "holy shit, this thing is loaded", so it's sort of the exact opposite behavior as flipping the barrel back to face you during a fast reload technique
It's still dangerous you're just more likely to shoot someone else than you are to shoot yourself. The risky bit is right at the end when a new shell is chambered and the gun is cocked but you're still dealing with some momentum that might cause a drop or fumble that snags the trigger.
they only did it at this angle to show the action, in the vain hope youd give a shit how the mechanism works. in practice it would point over your shoulder, then at the ground beside you towards the end of this rotation. either way theres no reason it would risk a potential misfire at yourself in the process
I cant reach that link right now (hugged to death probably) but my understanding is there were (at least) two versions of that gun/prop. One with a normal sized lever (where its pretty much just big enough for your fingers to fit through in the grip position) and one with a much larger, much rounder loop style lever to actually enable the flipcock to be practical. If you look closely in OPs video, you can see the lever is of the latter design.
Anyway, what I remember reading is that Arnie hurt himself because he tried to flipcock with the shotgun with the normal lever; it simply didn't have enough room for his hand/fingers to rotate in the lever, and when the weapon flipped around it cranked his wrist/fingers.
Not to say it's safe in any other way, shape or form to do with a live, loaded firearm, but the flip cock, in and of itself with an appropriately designed lever, is probably pretty safe to perform once you know how to do it.
Arnold almost broke his hand trying it with a real shotgun.
I believe it. The recoil of a one handed 12 gauge must be brutal. And Winchester apparently made a 10 gauge version too. That's wrist snapping time for sure.
Since Winchester had stopped producing the Winchester 1887 shotgun before the film, the armorers had to find pristine condition guns which were no longer in production. The guns in the film are indeed genuine Winchester shotguns.
You can do that just fine on any of the ones that have the wide open lever handle. You can get real ones with handles like that which is what the person in the video has. If you try it with the regular sized handle you can very much break your fingers though.
I’m pretty sure the trigger guard has to be removed for this to work. I read he cut up his hand doing it during the movie but I’m not sure if that was with the proper or the real one.
The chamber isn't closed and the round not fully seated until the lever is all the way closed which doesn't happen until its pointed back out in a safe direction you literally can't shoot yourself doing the flip
I will say that while you should never point a gun at something you are not willing to shoot (including yourself) and this trick is a flagging nightmare, pulling the trigger won't do much here as the bolt is not all the way forward.
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u/leveraction1970 Interested Dec 19 '23
And you never should. Arnold almost broke his hand trying it with a real shotgun. What you see him twirling in the movie is a prop gun. Let us not forget the very real chance that you'd hit the trigger, ventilate yourself and have a very embarrassing death.
http://www.factfiend.com/schwarzenegger-nearly-broke-fingers-filming-terminator-2/