Topics
Firearms
About
The National's Armoury can be called on to provide firearms of all sizes and periods, from rifles to revolvers and arquebuses to AK-47s. Sometimes these will just be carried by an actor, but on occasions when they need to be fired, a range of techniques can be used to make sure that the effect is both impressive and safe.
People featured in this video include:
Paul Wanklin, Senior Armourer
Transcript
Paul Wanklin: Here in the armoury we deal with firearms. We have a stock of about 400. We use everything from prop-type guns, which can be dropped, thrown around on stage and will not break. We use deactivated versions of the same firearm, as you can see [Paul lifts the gun and cocks it]. Working parts are totally deactivated, so you would never be able to fire a bullet, even with major work done on it.
If we wanted to use a pistol on stage we would primarily use blank firers which have top discharge [Paul points to the top of the pistol highlighting an empty crevice]. Nothing comes off the muzzle so it's fine for an actor to use it on stage, like so [Paul turns to the wall and fires the pistol]. We always use period weapons; this is a Colt revolver, made famous by Clint Eastwood in the cowboy movies. More James Bond, like this, is a silenced weapon ... it is a replica gun powered by compressed gas.
For the larger firearms we would use a rifle with a nitro-powered blank [Paul loads the rifle by inserting a bullet] which gives it a nice bang and a big muzzle flash [Paul cocks the gun, turns to the wall and fires the rifle]. Nice and large but not very much visual effect; for the larger visual effects, even up to the shotgun size, we prefer to use black powder or the good old fashioned gunpowder, which gives us an effect like so [Paul turns to the wall and fires the rifle creating a louder bang, bright light and a little smoke].
