Hi all,
It's been a busy couple weeks - everyone is gearing up for hunting season and it's been pretty go go go. Accordingly, I completely failed to really get any of my usual tasks done, including stopping by here to chat about some guns. To make up for that, I'm going to throw four guns at you rather than two.
As always, buy a gun, get a gimmicky extra!
This week’s theme:
Movie Guns
or, Guns That Are More Commonly Used In Film Than In Real Life
H&K P7
What is it?
Once opon a time, when civilian guns were still mostly metal and wood and chambered in classic thumpy cartridges like .45 or .357, long before Gaston Glock decided to introduce his gun and the era of polymer pistols to the world, Heckler & Koch were THE revolutionary pistol guys to go to. Unfortunately, if you've ever seen or shot a VP70, you'll know what I'm saying when I say that revolutionary sometimes isn't as good as boring old "functional" or "not completely godawful ugly" or "has a survivable trigger pull", not to mention "has the sights on the right way".
Their next try was a little more traditional, and featured many mechanically interesting design ideas commonly not seen again until the late 80s, if not quite as many visually distinct ones. This would be 1978's P7 pistol. With polygonal rifling, a surefire safety system, and a fairly unique gas-delayed blowback operating mechanism, the P7 was originally designed to be marketed to military and police users around the world, and managed to capture some sales to special forces and police response teams both at home and world wide. Due to it's relative uncommonness and general oddness, the P7 actually has a bit of a collector's following these days.
Why is it cool?
- It's pretty different than most other pistols out there in alot of ways, but to speak of the most obvious: To drop the slide, you squeeze the bar on the front of the grip. Similarly, to cock, disengage the safety, and fire it, you need to hold down the aformentioned bar while pulling the trigger - Glock's “safe-action” is conceptually similar, but Mr. Glock moved his bar to the center of the trigger, which is maybe a little more intuitive to most of us. Decocking the pistol involves simply releasing the bar, or dropping it while you try to roll over the hood of your Aston-Martin.
- It's actually really nice to shoot. The bar requires no more force to retain than your normal grip will exert. Essentially, this makes it a truely single action semi-auto pistol, and because it has a fixed barrel, it's mechanically very accurate.
- It's small. Like, Boberg Arms small.
- It looks, feels, and shoots like something a rich Bond villain would have packed in the 80s.
Some notable movies you might have seen this badboy in: Silence of the Lambs, The Bodyguard, True Romance, Armageddon, Eraser, there's too many to list. Basically, if you were evil or spoke with an accent in any kind of action movie from 1980 to the mid 90s, you probably carried one of these. If you were evil AND had an accent, you got a nickel plated one.
What's it worth?
This one is sold!
Uberti 1876 .50 Express
What is it?
Possibly the coolest gun ever invented by the Winchester Corporation, and definitely the coolest that didn't involve John Moses Browning. Basically an upscaled version of the 1873 rifle, the '76 gave cowboys - and in our part of the world, Mounties - some serious stopping power never seen before in a repeating arm. In an era where EVERYTHING was a .45 Something or similar, these guys were still considered “big guns”, and were available in pretty respectably named cartridges such as .45-75 and the .50-95, a.k.a the .50 Express. When you spent more time shooting big game and getting into arguments with bears than shooting it out with rustlers and arguing with poker cheats, this was your go to gun.
While not quite as beefy as the later Browning designed actions, the earlier Winchester actions have a certain clockwork feel that isn't as pronounced in the Browning rifles. If you have never shot one of these, or at least a '73, you're missing out.
Why is it cool?
- It's an 1876 in .50 Express. If you need to ask you might not get it.
- This exact one is especially cool because it comes with dies, brass, and a bullet mold.
- It's part of our history more so than most lever guns, having been the weapon of choice of the Mounties for a time - arguably, they were the biggest user of these rifles.
- Despite being one of the longest guns in the store, it's pretty well balanced and easy to point. Cycling a '76 action after spending your life shooting Marlins or '94s is like cylcling a BL-22 after spending your life shooting pretty much any other rimfire lever gun – surprisingly short and smooth.
Some notable movies you might have seen this in: Heaven's Gate, Rio Grande, Tombstone, and Crossfire Trail to name a few. I'm pretty sure Steve McQueen packed it in a couple more, though they escape me right now. You see these quite often in older cowboy movies due to a particular “Indian Attack” scene that was recycled quite often, in which the natives packed these.
What's it worth?
$2489 plus your appropriate provincial sales taxes. That includes the gun, dies, brass, and a bullet mold.
The product code on this is 686775047213
Auto Ordnance M1 Para (M1A1)
What is it?
A nice, lightweight multipurpose carbine. The M1 carbine was designed in response to the changes that warfare in general underwent during the period leading up to the Second World War. Innovations such as tanks, paratroops, and the mechanization of infantry and equipment meant that frontlines were much more fluid than in previous wars, which in turn meant that support personnel were much more likely to see combat. The weapons available to the U.S. military at the time were either heavy and awkward, or were of insufficient power to be used effectively in many situations. Thus the M1 carbine was born.
Light, easy to carry, and chambered in what could be considered a predecessor to “intermediate” cartridges found in modern assault rifles, the M1 Carbine was an instant hit with most of the troops who carried it. It was also one of the first rifles to feature a selective fire capability, and to be paired with night vision optics. Due to the sheer utility of the design, civilian-oriented M1 production continued on a large scale well after the war ended, and a few companies such as Auto-Ordnance still make them.
Why is it cool?
- Despite this being a non-restricted model, the folding stock allows it to become compact enough to fit into most quad boxes or similar sized containers.
- The .30 Carbine is pretty underrated as a hunting round, but surprisingly effective against most lighter game at shorter ranges. While it might not seem like a tremendous round for this sort of purpose due to it’s status as a small rifle cartridge, it’s considerably more powerful than many pistol rounds which are used for similar purposes.
- M1 carbines are fun and easy to shoot – recoil is pretty negligible, and it handles much like a pistol caliber carbine.
Some notable movies you might have seen this in: In the case of M1 carbines in general, you can take your pick of literally any world war movie ever made. Even narrowing it done to the M1A1 in particular doesn’t shorten the list much – these turn up so often that it seems like some movie armorers thought the whole war was fought with M1 carbines, Tommy guns, some 1911s, and nothing else. Non-war movies which feature these rifles include The Omega Man, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Postman, Desperation, The Shawshank Redemption, Jaws, the older incarnation of The Crazies, The Planet of the Apes, and even the T.V. show Lost, amongst many others I’ve personally never seen such as the promisingly named “In China They Eat Dogs”.
What’s it worth?
$949.99 plus your appropriate provincial sales tax.
The product code on these is 602686313131
Magnum Research Desert Eagle
What is it?
Well, unless you’ve never seen a movie, played a video game, or explored the internet a bit, you are probably already at least a little familiar with these. If you have actually been living under a rock for most of your life and HAVEN’T heard of the Desert Eagle, then here’s the short and skinny of it: It’s a giant pistol (just slightly smaller than your rock) chambered in a large cartridge (also slightly smaller than your rock), and also makes a good club (like a stylish version of... you get the idea). If you’ve never picked one up, it’s a little hard to understand how truly massive these things are – at 4.4 lbs, they are closer in weight to a mountain rifle than they are to most other handguns.
Internally, they’re also quite a bit closer to a semi-automatic rifle than to most other semi-auto pistols. Rather than being driven by one of the many variants of a recoil operated system, or a simple blowback design, the Deagle uses a gas piston system more similar to what’s found in M14 style rifles than to what’s typically found in pistols. It also features a rotating bolt that’s reminiscent of an AR-15. These allow the Desert Eagle to safely fire rounds that operate at pressures that would typically restrict them to revolvers.
Why is it cool?
- As I said, it’s mechanically interesting.
- You either like bling on guns, or you don’t. If you don’t, then you can always strip the gold off the finish and sell it. Either way, Gold Tiger Stripes make great camo if you're trying to hide in a Tolkein-esque dragon's lair, or in certain neighbourhoods in Toronto, Surry, and Prince George.
- “Comically large” comes to mind as a way to describe these – there’s very few of us in Canada for which a pistol is practical, so why not go big?
- Besides that, it's a shiny 24k Gold Tiger Striped Desert Eagle. That kinda says it all right there.
Some notable movies you might have seen it in: Quite a few. The ones that stand out in recent memory would be Deadpool (two less blingy guns), Borat (one of these gold tiger striped babies), RoboCop (where they were less ridiculous and more expected), Crank and Crank 2 (in three different finishes), and the majority of late 90s/early 2000s movies starting Arnie.
What’s it worth?
Well, as you can see, we happen to have two of these things around right now. One is a .44 Magnum, and is going at $3089.99, the other is in the famous .50 Action Express and is going for $3139.99. Appropriate provincial sales taxes do apply.
Product code for the .44 is 761226085539, and the code for the .50 is 761226037927
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