Lever Action Rifles
Ö Loading – The bullets are held in a long tube magazine, which is that long tube just underneath the barrel. Most models will have two ways of filling that. The easiest, if available, is to either unscrew or push the release tab at the muzzle end of the magazine, releasing a very long compression spring rod. Just pull it out and then slip in the blanks one at a time, primer end first. Most rifles can take at least a dozen, some can take over two dozen, especially since blanks are usually shorter than real bullets. Return the compression rod and you are ready to go.
The other way to load is to feed in the rounds, “head” end first, through a spring trap door that is on the right side of the frame. Each new round you put in pushes that last one the rest of the way in, so you might need to save one round as a tool to do the final push for you without actually trying to insert it all the way in. The metal door can snap at your skin if you try to do it with just your thumb.
Ö Operating – Don’t crank the thing as fast as you can the way they do in the movies. Gently work it down and up before you need to fire. Bringing the lever down kicks out the previous (spent) round and opens up the chamber, pulls the hammer back, and allows a part called the elevator to grab the next round in line. Bringing the lever up moves the blank up the elevator and into the chamber in its firing position. When ready, just aim (left elbow pointing to the floor, right arm parallel to the floor and elbow pointing off to the right) and squeeze the trigger. For the next shot, work the action calmly, make a mental note of where the discharged spent cartridge has gone, and wait for your cue to fire.
Ö Troubleshooting – Several things can go wrong, and most are not fixable by the actor onstage. Lever-actions are complicated beasties, and any small deviation from normal can throw them off.
* Stovepiping – this is where the round being brought up from the magazine gets tossed out of alignment and starts to move sideways into the chamber, quickly jamming the works. It only happens during the upswing of the lever. Very rarely the actor can gently move the lever back down again and the jammed blank will release and fall out of the gun. Most of the time the gun will be simply not usable. It will have to be taken offstage and with any luck you can see the jammed round and dig it out with a knife or screwdriver.
* Failure to eject prior round. When a blank is fired, the brass often expands slightly. If it expands too much, the cartridge stays jammed in the barrel. Unfortunately, it’s easy to miss the fact that the brass didn’t eject and then the next upswing of the lever brings in a new blank that it tries to force into the space occupied by the spent round, further jamming it in the barrel. Again, take the gun offstage and hope you can reach the jam without disassembling the rifle.
* Ejected round drops into elevator. Normally the spent round gets thrown out of the gun, high and to the right. There are times where it gets removed from the chamber, but then gets deflected by the housing shroud and simply drops back into the elevator, jamming the gun with the lever in the fully open position. Trying to force the lever can often crush the brass casing of the spent round and jam it into the works. When this happens, you’ll be lucky to even see the round, let alone successfully remove it. Turn the rifle upside-down, give it one last gentle try with the lever action, but be ready to take it to a gunsmith for disassembly.
FYI – Lever-actions were never worn over the shoulder from a strap the way military rifles and other sporting rifles are. It was assumed that someone would either carry it in a saddle holster, or simply hold it in one hand (they are certainly light enough). The center section is relatively weak, even on real guns, so straps must never be attached to these kind of rifles. You would be inviting permanent damage to the frame.
Bolt Action Rifles
Ö Loading – The magazine is located right in front of the trigger, and sometimes simply drops out like a clip from a semi-auto pistol, but on other models, especially the WWI Mausers, it is fixed and cannot be easily removed. If it is a removable clip, then loading is simply a matter of finding the release button or lever that allows the clip to drop down (usually right in front of the trigger guard), stacking the rounds one after the other into the clip (they will naturally stagger slightly as they are pushed in) and then pushing the filled clip into the rifle. The gun will not yet fire because there is no round in the firing chamber, only in the magazine.
If the magazine is fixed, then the blanks will have to be loaded individually directly into the gun. [Originally, the soldiers had preloaded “stripper clips” that could drop in a stack of bullets right into the clip, but you will probably only have loose blanks.] Pull the bolt (the big lever on the right side of the gun) up and then back toward you. This exposes the magazine. Simply start pushing the blanks flat and straight down until you get usually five or six of them in there. Be careful here, because in order to close the gun you will push the bolt forward and down, and that action can also drive the first round right into the firing chamber. At this point the gun is fully loaded and ready to fire if you touch the trigger. If you want to close the bolt but without pushing a round into the chamber, simply push down the top blank as you slide the carriage forward, clearing the first round. As soon as it clears the primer, you can then remove your finger and continue to push the action forward to the closed position, with the first round resting underneath the chamber, still in the magazine.
Ö Operating – Pulling the bolt up and back (towards you) kicks out the last (spent) round, and pushing the bolt forward and down brings the next (live) one into the chamber in its firing position, and automatically pulls the firing pin back. When ready, just aim (left elbow pointing to the floor, right elbow parallel to the floor and pointing off to the right) and pull the trigger. Note that this kind of firearm has no hammer, and that means that there is nothing you can do to “un-cock” the gun once you have worked the action. You can freeze it with a safety, but that really isn’t safe. The only way to make the gun safe again is to both remove the magazine (if you can) and completely unload it by working the action several times until all of the blanks have been removed, then work it a few more times just to be sure. Pull the bolt up and back one last time and look in the magazine and the chamber to make sure that it is completely unloaded.
By the way, bolt-actions usually do have a safety switch, located at the very back of the carriage assembly. It’s that toggle switch that’s right near your nose as you aim. On some models, when the toggle is pointing to the left, the gun is ready to fire; when pointing up, the bolt will move but the trigger is safe; when pointing to the right, everything is locked down and cannot move. But on other models, it’s the exact opposite. So you’ll need to experiment a few times while the gun is unloaded.
Ö Troubleshooting –
* Tip jamming. The blanks for bolt-action rifles tend to be long enough and tapered so that stovepiping is usually not an issue, but they are still just a bit shorter than a comparable bullet should be, so the tip of the blank sometimes slides a little off track when the bolt is pushed forward. The weak brass can jam into the walls of the chamber, and you’ll need to pull the bolt back again and dig out that jammed round with a screwdriver or knife.
* Failure to eject prior round. When a blank is fired, the brass often expands slightly. If it expands too much, the cartridge stays jammed in the barrel. Again, take the gun offstage and dig out the spent round.
* Bolt-action will not go forward. The usual cause is that the rifle has simply run out of bullets. When the last cartridge has been ejected, the spring-loaded plate in the magazine (that normally lifts up the rounds) rises up and gets pushed in the way of the bolt-action carriage. It is designed to do this. In the heat of battle it can be impossible to distinguish your own gunshots from those of others, and a gun that won’t close is a good clue that you need to reload. In order to close the carriage when empty, push the plate down with the fingers of your left hand as you push the bolt forward.
Semi and Fully Automatic Rifles
Semi-auto’s are by their nature extremely unreliable, and fully automatic rifles are even worse. Always have a back-up sound ready. [Better yet, use taped sound.] No one in this country makes firing theatrical versions of assault weapons. Even with all of the legal hoops one has to jump through to convert the real ones to fire blanks, it is still far cheaper to re-work them for stage rather than try to build something from scratch. So if you want to fire an assault rifle for stage use, you need to rent real assault rifles. Not only is this still very expensive, but each type of automatic gun will have its own specific instructions and drawbacks, made worse by having been modified to handle blanks. The following is given as a short guide: you’ll need to get specifics for the gun you are renting from the provider.
Ö Loading – The blanks are housed in a large clip that fits into the frame of the rifle, in most cases forward of the trigger guard, so you have to load the clip first, then load the gun. There is either a release catch underneath the frame right behind the clip, or a release button near the left side of the trigger. Drop out the clip and feed in the blanks from the top. Look at the top of the clip and you’ll see that the opening is tapered, and that there is a plate inside. Push on that plate to feel how it is pushed up against the tapered opening by a rectangular spring that runs the length of the clip. You’re going to fill the clip by taking one blank, laying it flat but offset against the plate, pushing it down and then sliding it in until the thin part of the taper holds the blank on its own. Continue with each successive round: push then slide, push then slide, push then slide. As the clip fills and the spring compresses, it will get harder to do, but you should be able to get at least twelve blanks in the clip, more on larger banana clips. Then return the clip into the gun by sliding this clip up back into the frame.
Ö Operating – Although the clip is loaded, the first round needs to be “chambered-up”, or actually entered into the chamber in the firing position. There will be a knob or slide or bolt either on the top of the frame (on Tommy Guns and Uzi’s, for example) or on the right side (M-16, Garands, etc.). Grab it and gently but firmly work it once toward you and then back to its normal position. Don’t let the carriage simply snap back into place; they do that in the movies, but you can’t afford the repair bill. The rifle is now cocked; if you squeeze the trigger now the gun will fire, unload the spent blank, load the next round and re-cock the gun, all automatically.
Firing – If the weapon is semi-automatic, then each pull of the trigger will fire one round and automatically load the next. If it is an automatic, this process continues uninterrupted until the trigger is released (although almost all assault weapons also have a switch that converts the gun to semi-auto mode). In a Tommy Gun, it takes less than four seconds to empty the fifty round drum magazine. The twenty round clip of the AK-47 empties in only a second and a half. Since these blanks are nearly two dollars a piece, teach your actors to use short bursts, or they’ll eat up your entire annual props budget in the first week. [M-16’s are usually modified so that they will fire in 3 shot bursts with each trigger squeeze, but that’s still five to eight bucks with each pull.]
Unloading – First remove the clip, but then remember that you may still have one live round in the chamber ready to fire. To remove this one, gently work the action of the rifle back and forth two or three times. The blank should pop out up and to the right of the gun.
Ö Troubleshooting – The blanks for automatic weapons have wax false-bullet heads. They need the tapered shape so the blank will guide into the chamber, but problems can still occur. NOTE: Always remove the clip before inspecting or working on the rifle.
* Stovepiping – this is where the round being brought up from the clip gets tossed out of alignment and starts to move sideways into the chamber, quickly jamming the works. The actor can try to release the stuck cartridge by working the action, but he’s just as likely to make matters even worse by forcing the jam. Most of the time the gun is simply not usable. It will have to be taken offstage where you can dig out the jammed round with a knife or screwdriver.
* Failure to eject prior round. When a blank is fired, the brass often expands slightly. If it expands too much, the cartridge stays jammed in the chamber. Unfortunately, the rest of the gun doesn’t know that, and it busily brings in a new blank that it tries to force into the space occupied by the spent round, further jamming it in the barrel. The actor’s reaction is to keep working the action back and forth, which does nothing but make the matter worse. The gun will have to be taken offstage and the rounds removed.
* Occasionally the first round can’t be chambered up at all. Unless there is mechanical damage or some bit of debris getting in the way, it could be that the clip has simply not been inserted all the way into the frame. Make sure that it locks into place before working the action.
Shotguns
Anything that fires pellets instead of a bullet is a shotgun, and there are as many different styles in terms of look and operation as there are rifle styles. The two most common for stage are break-open and pump action.
The break-open is either a double-barreled or single-barreled shotgun in which the gun hinges open at the breach to allow the shotshell to be loaded. A lever or toggle is usually on top of the breach or along the left side, which releases the barrel and allows it to swivel down and expose the breach. The shells are then manually inserted into the barrel or barrels. It is not necessary to use the lever in order to close the gun, but on the other hand don’t swing up the barrel while only holding the stock with one arm the way they do in the old westerns. The area of the stock near the breach and trigger is not only the thinnest part, but is also completely hollow, and therefore can crack and break if the gun is rudely treated. Use both hands to firmly but gently close the gun.
For the same reason, break-open shotguns must never be carried with a shoulder strap. It puts far too much stress on the center hinge and latch. Instead, shotguns are “cradle-carried”, that is to say, barrel draped over the crook of the left arm and the right hand holding the butt stock.
Break-opens were for many years the bird hunter’s preferred weapon, and they have a sport rather than a military look. Rarely manufactured or purchased now, there was a time when every farmhouse would have one as a general defense, hunting, and “varmint” gun. You don’t have to be a marksman to do a lot of damage with a shotgun. Those who are proficient in hunting birds or skeet shooting learn that one “aims” a rifle, but you “sight” a shotgun. Aiming requires the shooter to visually line up the eye with the front sight, rear sight, and target. Sighting involves a looser focus, using the single bead at the end of the barrel as a targeting guide but focusing on an area just ahead of the moving target.
Pump action shotguns are the ones used by modern criminals and police, and now also by hunters. These modern single-action firearms can fire several rounds in quick succession. The mechanism is very similar to the lever-action rifle described earlier, but a sliding lever instead of a swinging lever is used, giving the back-and-forth pumping action between each shot. As with the lever-action, the spent shells are ejected out of the right side of the gun. Pulling the slide ejects the spent round; pushing the slide loads up the next.
Most shotguns for stage are not block-barreled, so safety is a concern since debris can come flying out of the muzzle. Break-opens are nearly foolproof to operate, while the pump-actions can jam and stovepipe just as lever-action rifles can. By the way, break-open shotguns are never used with straps – it puts to much strain on the hinge and locking lever. There were some companies that actually built their shotguns with strap loops on them – a pity since using a strap does so much damage.
Actors tend to be more abusive than normal when handling shotguns, mainly because they want to mimic what they see in movies. With break-opens they want to swing the barrels closed one-handed; with pump action they work the slide as hard as they can. Both will break the guns.