Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Gun/Ammo Question

So, I bought the new-ish Brad Pitt shoot-em-up KillingThem Softly and can unreservedly say that if you like the typical mob violence genre than you'll enjoy this iteration too.

That said, there is a slo-mo scene where the Brad Pitt character shoots the Ray Liotta character at a traffic light with what looks like a typical example of the 1911 framed pistol (exposed hammer, apparent SAO, etc), but the spent shell casings are visibly necked down.  Not having ever owned or fired a 1911 in .38 Special, I'm guessing this is an example of one in cinematic action but thought I'd display my ignorance and put this out there.  Given that this film is adapted from the George V. Higgins novel Coogan's Trade it could very well be some comparatively obscure Euro caliber instead, but if I read the book it was too long ago now to remember.

And just in case people are really bored, is there a consensus on how well a .38 Special round out of an auto loader would perform in the assassination role (as opposed to the alternative 9mm or .45acp)?  Over kill (to include my usual bad pun)?  Kinda iffy?  Too much buck for the bang?  They didn't use one in the film, but how might a suppressor alter the dynamics of such a shot?

2 comments:

eriko said...

https://www.google.com/search?q=.22TCM

.22tcm in maybe a Rock Island Armory 1911

Will Brown said...

Thank you, eriko, that looks to be the very thing.

Also, it appears to be an interesting caliber concept in its own right; a .22/9mm interchangeable barrel that uses the same mags if this write up has the facts straight. I must say though, this has me wondering: "The Rock Island Armory 1911 A2 MM (Mini Magnum) is a “duel use” firearm right out of the box. With a simple swap of a barrel, the powerful .22TCM is converted to a 9x19mm pistol with a magazine capacity of 16+1 using the same magazine."

Let's hope that's a typo and not a suggestion. :)