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Shooting a Wet Pistol

13K views 70 replies 38 participants last post by  Danny304 
#1 ·
Watched a pretty grim movie yesterday called 'No Country For Old Men' in which a guy escapes some baddies by swimming down a river with a 1911 stuck behind his back in the waistband. He gets out of the water and is attacked by one of the baddies' dogs, so he draws the pistol, removes the mag, racks the slide to clear, puts the mag back in and fires at the dog. Notwithstanding the fact that he didn't reload, does anybody think the gun would not have fired without all that, assuming recently-made factory ammo? Plus, what made the difference between the round in the chamber and the ones in the mag? They were all under water at the same time. I'm quite sure the pistol would have fired normally. By the time he stood up out of the water and drew the gun, the barrel would have been clear of water. I've heard of factory ammo being soaked in water overnight and still firing normally, and I know the Seals and others come up out of the water firing. So I think this whole rigamarole was done to enhance the tension of the dog attack scene, which in real life would've been; draw, fire, continue on with the business of the day.
 
#5 · (Edited)
I guess a downward shake to expel any water is less dramatic (and maybe in reality not needed just extra cautious), I have at training put guns in deep puddles and the only ones I've ever had issues with was Glocks w/o the marine firing pin spring cups. Even then the Glock would fire 3-5x's until firing pin experienced too light primer strikes to fire, if it fired past 5 rounds it would usually get through the whole magazine. 1911 firing pins shape and room inside the firing pin channel makes them very resistant to hydro lock up
 
#7 ·
I agree that the scene was done that way to increase tension. Like 6285108 said a hard downward shake would've been sufficient.
 
#10 ·
Shooting a gun in water/wet is more about the sear/hammer/firing pin and less about water in the barrel. On most guns, racking the slide will cause small parts to move in the slide and could cause water to drain faster from critical areas.

I have seen the movie, but do not recall the scene. It could have been cleared for other reasons. Over all the movie had some good scenes and some that were so fake I took note.
 
#11 ·
#12 ·
I found a 9mm 124 grain Golden Saber in my washing machine. Obviously I left a round in my shirt pocket and it went through at least one wash, possibly many cycles before I found it.

I saved it in a baggie for my next trip to the gun range. I was curious as to whether this would ignite or not.

It fired just fine, and the brass was shiney too! :D
 
#16 ·
I guess about the only thing that can be said is that the character (played very well by Josh Brolin, BTW) apparently decided he had only one chance to get a shot off and kill that dog, and he didn't want to risk a misfire or jam so he took the extra seconds to clear the weapon and reload it first. Makes perfect tactical sense if you look at it that way. Had he tried to fire first and the weapon malfed he'd have had a face full of pit bull before he could get it back up and running again.
 
#20 ·
No, it doesn't make sense. Again, all the ammo in the pistol was subjected to exactly the the same wet conditions. The round in the chamber could not be any wetter than the top round in the magazine. He could have drawn and fired, or experienced a FTF and racked the slide and fired again well before he did the other bit. But, what the heck, it's only a movie - and a very chilling one. That Anton character was probably the strangest dude I've ever seen in a movie. The movie did me good, though. I resolved to try to not be as easy to kill as most of his victims.
 
#17 ·
Real quick question/observation.
I watch some shooting programs on the Sportsman Channel like
"Guns&Ammo TV", "Handguns", "Tac TV". I always see the shooters after they load a new mag rack the slide. Me, I usually just press the slide lock down releasing the slide and chambering the new round. Any thoughts on this?
 
#29 ·
As my instructor explained to me, racking the slide is a gross motor skill and easier to do with adrenaline pumping while pressing the slide lock down is a fine motor skill.

I practice both, although I have only ever used the slide stop method during the night match when I had a flashlight in my other hand.
 
#19 ·
I used to do a lot of cannoeing.

Our pistols would end up in the water all of the time. We did not worry about the water too much. Now mud on the other hand was something that we were carefull about. :dope:
 
#30 ·
JHC, guys! It was an actor following a script! Don't try to insert logic into that equation! :D You think Jack Bauer was really good enough with his HK to always prevail in the face of multiple professional operators armed with machine guns?? Whaddaya think Jack was thinking about tactically?? The answer, of course, was "nothing!" ;)
 
#27 ·
It was common in SE Asia, or any extremely wet environment to pull the bolt (slide) back a bit to break the seal and let water drain out of a barrel with a chambered round on an M16. People may still do this out of habit, or from something they heard over the years. Who knows what the diretor was thinking, other than enhance the drama.
 
#28 · (Edited)
Guns and movies

Action movies are entertaining, but being a bit more gun savy then the average movie watcher, we "firearms guys" pick up on a lot of errors in gun fights.......shooting a revolver 10 times without a reload, using a sub machine gun and spraying an area for 30 seconds with a 20 round mag, when it would only take less than 5 seconds of sustained fire....suppressed semi auto weapons that have no noise, guys that get shot and fly about four feet backwards from the impact..... It's all Hollywood, but it can be entertaining if it is not too "over the top."

The worst thing is the poor tactics always shown by good guys chasing bad guy, war movies and mobster movies where the bad guys always stand out in the open to fire, and always get put down with one shot....etc. The problem is many people are so innundated with Hollywood special effects and drama, some think it only takes one shot to stop a bad guy, and they think the BG will be on the ground and dead! Ofentimes Hollywood effects are bad for the unknowing gun owner!
 
#44 ·
It may be an interesting experiment.



But I would not recommend doing it while your head is also under water in the immediate vicinity.

Just sayin. :dope:
 
#48 ·
Interesting question. When I saw this post, I thought to myself that the answer is a no brainer but then I realized that most people in this forum probably don't perform SCUBA insertions. The answer is the weapon should perform fine after being submerged. I can't count how many times we've gone weapons hot coming out of the water.
 
#50 · (Edited)
1. Drama vs practicality = drama wins for Hollywood - dropping the mag, racking the slide and reloading was for drama.
2. It would have been quieter and just as easy to drown the dog. Not wanting to sound cruel or anything, but dogs are not very good swimmers compared to humans and lose any advantage they have in terms of ability to lunge and bite once their paws leave the ground. You wouldn't give up your position to the bad guys that way, so would be much more likely to escape. FWIW, if you are ever at a lake, river or the beach and a dog attacks you when you are near the water, try and get to the water to neutralize the dog's advantages on land. You don't have to drown the dog, but you can dunk it a couple of times to get the message across.
 
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