Most people realize that movie props and costumes are big ticket items for collectors. What most people don't realize is that there is also a brisk trade in model firearms.
I don't mean little bitty guns, but machines that are specifically made to closely resemble the real thing but which cannot be made to chamber or fire live ammunition.
One of the online companies that offer these replicas can be found here. These models fire dummy ammo that is powered by a 7mm cap, and if what I'm reading off the Internet is true they are very popular in Japan.
One of the products you can buy is a replica Thompson submachine gun that will actually fire full auto.
(Please click on all pictures to see if there is a larger image available.)
You can see a video of the fake gun in action here. Pretty neat.
Of course, I don't really need to spend more than $1,000 USD for a replica when I have actual weapons crying out for ammo like hungry little birds shivering in the nest. (peep! peep!) Another thing to consider is how much wear and tear I put on my guns since I use them in the self defense course. A thousand bucks means two more handguns. Toys need not apply.
I'm not a collector myself, but I can see the appeal if someone has a hole in their display case and they can't find or afford the gun that it would take to fill that blank spot. The closest I got to replica envy was when I looked over this website and saw that they had some Man From U.N.C.L.E. guns for sale.
The page where the U.N.C.L.E. replicas are described is here, and they do look pretty sharp. Still, more than three hundred bucks for the model gun! I would only buy one if I was a fanatic obsessed with the show (not yet!), or if dropping several hundred bucks on a glorified toy was no big deal because I had struck it rich (alas, probably not ever).
The props used in the show were surplus Walther P38 handguns that could be picked up for a very small amount of cash back in the 1960's. Gunsmiths and prop artists heavily modified the guns to produce the distinctive weapons featured in the show. I have heard that a bit more than $1,000 USD were spent on each working gun, an amount that is probably close to $10,000 USD today if adjusted for inflation.
Wouldn't it be nice to be rich enough to actually purchase a working model? That would be pretty cool!
Comments (5)
I was a big fan of the Man From U.N.C.L.E. during its original run. I was dreadfully excited about catching reruns when it showed up on cable, and then dreadfully embarassed when I watched one episode. I've seen better scenery on model railroads, and THRUSH's exotic firearms turned out to be M1 carbines with obsolete surplus infra-red sights.
Posted by triticale | March 31, 2007 7:38 PM
Posted on March 31, 2007 19:38
That Thompson is pretty cool, even if it only shoots blanks.
Posted by AlanDP | March 31, 2007 11:06 PM
Posted on March 31, 2007 23:06
A long, long time ago I remember that they used to sell fake guns. I don't remember exactly what the term was, something like "counterfeit guns" maybe. Anyway, they were exactly like the real things they imitated except that they were a smaller caliber so, as you say, they could not use the real ammunition.
I kind of got the impression that they weren't really targeting replica collectors with them, because in a couple of cases it came out that there was obscure ammunition you could buy, in a smaller caliber, that would work with them. My memory is that what they were doing was to try to bypass certain laws on the books at the time about who they could sell to and how, especially because these things were being sold mailorder.
Posted by Steven Den Beste | March 31, 2007 11:55 PM
Posted on March 31, 2007 23:55
Thinking about that Tommy, I find myself wondering how an automatic weapon can run in full auto mode using blank ammunition. Of course, it can, since I've seen it in the movies, but my first reaction was that for weapons using recoil there wouldn't be enough recoil, and for weapons tapping pressurized gas from the barrel there wouldn't be enough of that, either, because in both cases there wouldn't be a bullet temporarily blocking the barrel.
Seems to me there are two possibilities: either the blank bullets have a larger powder charge, or the guns are modified so that the barrel is much more narrow inside so that the gas doesn't escape as easily. Or is there a third alternative?
Posted by Steven Den Beste | April 1, 2007 12:53 AM
Posted on April 1, 2007 00:53
Seems to me there are two possibilities: either the blank bullets have a larger powder charge, or the guns are modified so that the barrel is much more narrow inside so that the gas doesn't escape as easily. Or is there a third alternative?
That is pretty good, Steven!
Actually, there are two other factors to consider: mass and tension.
Most autoloading handguns have a slightly larger area at the back of the barrel which is shaped like a cartridge. This is the chamber, and a round fits snugly inside this shape until it is fired.
The cartridge is held there by a big block of metal that pushes up against the back of the round. In most rifles and artillery peices this is known as the "breech block". In autoloading handguns the breech block is built into the slide, so people tend to just call it that.
So what holds the breech block in place? That is the job of a spring called the "recoil spring".
The breech block (or slide) can be made lighter so it takes less explosive force inside the chamber to shove it back. It can even be made light enough so that a cap alone could get it to move, though this would be extremely dangerous if someone modified an actual gun in this way and then tried to fire standard ammo through it.
The tension in the recoil spring can then be lessened a little bit because it only has to push a lighter breech block back into position. However, the problem is that a spring which is too light won't make even the lighter breech go all the way forward so the gun is ready to fire. (This is known as "going into battery". An example: "The spring is so light that the slide won't go into battery unless I push it with my thumb after every shot.")
You also need to keep the spring tension high enough so the gun will cycle at a high rate of speed.
I'm sure that Bob can explain all this better than I can. If he writes a post at his own blog about making prop guns work with blank ammo, he'll get a link from me here.
That should be enough of an incentive to make him ignore his law studies for an hour or so. Right?
James
Posted by James R. Rummel | April 1, 2007 1:28 AM
Posted on April 1, 2007 01:28