Handgun Myths/Rumors/ Urban Legends

[1911Tuner]

. There were a few exceptions to the rule such as the Colt 1860 Army where the hammer could be rested between chambers,

Youcan do that with an 1873 SAA, too. Just lower the hammer nose/firing pin so it rests between the case rims. Of course, if the gun is dropped and lands on the hammer the firing pin will be damaged...but it could be done.

 

[OptimusPrime]

How about Hollywood silencers that barely make a "ppphhhhhht..." sound, totally silent.

 

[JoePfeiffer]

Also, the Black Talon bullet was indeed black, due to a (googlegooglegoogle) lubalox coating, which somehow became Teflon when the media reported on it.

sent using CPIP (see RFC 1149)

 

[rcmodel]

if the gun is dropped and lands on the hammer the firing pin will be damaged...

Actually, on a properly fitted Colt SAA, the firing pin cannot reach the rear face of the cylinder even with the hammer down between chambers.

It's just a frog hair too short to reach anything except air with the hammer down between cartridge rims.

The real risk is the cylinder is not locked in place in that position.

So if an outside force turns the cylinder, the firing pin will drag across 1/2 a live primer before the cylinder is locked by the bolt.

rc

 

[jad0110]

That a 5.56 NATO round is the most lethal round, if it wasn't true our military wouldn't use it.

An AR-15 is more dangerous than a wood stock Mini-14.

And to add to it, that AR-15s can blow up tanks! I heard that one on the news once, can't remember where. This one makes my brain hurt, as I know an AR would be lucky to scratch the paint on a tank.

Here's another that just won't die from the much debunked Kellerman study: a gun in the home is 43 times more likely to kill a family than an intruder.

That guns apparently or only useful in the hands of cops or criminals. I guess everyone else must be genetically incapable of operating a firearm. :banghead:

 

[jad0110]

Oh yeah, and one more from the movies:

Guns will blow up a car's gas tank everytime, but won't penetrate the door the good guy is using for "cover".

 

[shafter]

I just thought of a great one. In all your westerns (classic and modern), we see gunslingers loading all six chambers of their revolvers and then holstering them. Nope. The only people who did that would likely wind up severely injured or dead as there was no hammer block or transfer bar type safety on guns of that era. There were a few exceptions to the rule such as the Colt 1860 Army where the hammer could be rested between chambers, but those were VERY expensive pistols to own at the time. Twenty bucks I believe. In those days, a small fortune.

I doubt carrying 5 in the chamber was a widespread practice. Most saw six holes in the cylinder and put a cartridge in each one. I see people doing foolish things with guns frequently and read about them here on THR constantly. Most cowboys and other people of that era weren't "gun people" and Eddie Eagle sure wasn't around to give lessons.

Well I'm not sure that's a myth. Remember there were no four rules of gun safety. There was barely ANY gun safety. You routinely see photos of men leaning over the barrels of repeating rifles, and the accounts of reckless conduct with arms are not difficult to find from that period. There may have been some gunslingers who knew enough to not load the 6th chamber, but I've seen no proof that leaving one empty was widespread, or even that Colt warned people about it. This was before product liability even existed. Lifespans were half what they are today. And if someone died because he dropped his revolver, it would likely be a subject for jokes. Heck how many of these guys were drunk as skunks while carrying?

One incident that springs to mind is Earp dropping his revolver, resulting in a discharge.

There are those "Hammer the Hammer" ads from Iver Johnson that suggest people did know about the problems loading 6 in other revolvers at least by the early 20th century. But in an age when nobody even wore ear protection, how seriously did anyone take the risk?
__________________

Great points there.

 

[BCRider]

What about the "old saw" that the then new .357Magnum bullet would "split a car's engine block and take out the bad guy on the other side"?

I Do not Remember looking for sub-nose revolvers in the bikinis when Charlie's Angels was on TV??

And I wasn't looking for Barbara Eden's belly button that was hidden by her bloomers in "I Dream Of Genie"....

Ah yes... I wonder how many of these otherwise horrid shows were hits due to being watched religiously by pre- and freshly pubescent young boys that were just beginning to understand and embrace " la difference"....

 

[wgaynor]

Funniest one I ever heard was about Hi-Points only being good for boat anchors. Granted, they are the Ford Focus of automobiles, but they do work.

 

[Jim K]

The .357 Magnum breaking an engine block is no myth; I know because I have done it. The old engine blocks and water jackets were fairly thin cast iron and could be broken pretty easily. I once ran some tests using .357 cases loaded with 9mm FMJ bullets and they pretty well tore up engine blocks, valve camshafts and carburetors. With modern aluminum blocks the damage would probably be even greater.

(I never had a bullet go all the way through a block, but the went through the valve covers and the carburetors with no problem. I couldn't find any volunteers to stand behind them, though.)

Jim

 

[lowercase]

That dogs will talk to you if you own a .44 Special Bulldog revolver.

That's why I bought mine!

 

[Rom828]

"You can use smokeless in a black powder gun, just not as much"
The 5.56 round kills due to "hydrostatic shock" from its extreme speed.
"you can bring down an airplane with an AR" from Jesse Jackson
If you know how to do it you can reach out and pull the slide off a Beretta 92, thus disabling the gun.
Col. Cooper said, "you can carry around a 25acp, that's fine. But never load it because if you shoot someone and they find out about it, they will be very angry.
Diane Degette, house representative from Colorado said "let people buy as many high capacity magazines as they want until they are banned. Some day they will shoot them and not have them anymore" (she didn't now you just reload more ammunition into them).
All imported handguns are "Saturday night specials".

 

[1911Tuner]

It's just a frog hair too short to reach anything except air with the hammer down between cartridge rims.

All that I've done it with, the pin will sit below the rear of the case rims, which...while it won't lock the cylinder in place...provides enough resistance that you'd have to work pretty hard to get the cylinder to turn. In the .45 caliber guns, the pin is lightly wedged between two adjacent rims. In .44 Specials...it will actually touch the cylinder...unless I can't believe my lyin' eyes.

So if an outside force turns the cylinder, the firing pin will drag across 1/2 a live primer before the cylinder is locked by the bolt.

I always checked for too-easy cylinder rotation. Once it's in a holster, the chances of that are pretty slim anyway.

 

[Dain Bramage]

That the good guy can be shot in the shoulder with a .45-70, ol' doc digs out the bullet, and the good guy is practicing his fast draw next day. (Gunsmoke)

In the old days of non-arcing, stand alone TV episodes, a shoulder was not an important muskuloskeletal joint with arteries and nerves, but more of a ballistic meat block. Getting shot added dramatic tension, but you wanted all the standard players back to form for the next show. Plus, people were much tougher back then (I mean the 1950's and 60's). How else do you explain bullet-bras and girdles? Okay, maybe only the women were tougher.

 

[CajunBass]

That 38 P+ ammo is the hammer of Thor.

50 cal "sniper rifles" will knock down airplanes with one shot. I'll bet a lot of WW II fighter pilots and bomber gunners will/would have disputed that one.

 

[Jim K]

The trouble with the lies of the anti-gun gang is that they sound funny to us, but the suckers out there believe them.

But it has always bothered me more when I read nonsense about guns from someone like Jeff Cooper who should know better and, I note, never volunteered to be shot with a .25.

Jim

 

[BCRider]

JimK, thanks for that. I'd have thought it was pretty far fetched but I do recall that some varieties of cast iron can be quite brittle. I'm guessing that the old blocks and even some newer ones were made from such metal. Or maybe it's still the case. After all they choose the alloy for the good rigidity, low porosity and other features aside from stopping bullets....

I guess I can see the block cracking but the idea that it would penetrate had me going. A feature lack which you confirmed.

Your results on the carbs and similar is likely why we don't see armoured vests with carbs and throttle bodies hanging from the material.....

 

[YZ]

Just a few

5.7x28 is cop killing ammo.

Laser target designator is a precise aiming device.

Anything issued to Special Forces is the best for me.

Nothing ever stops an AK from firing. Ever.

The Army switched to 9 mm because it did not know better.

 

[CapnMac]

Not a myth--the Teflon "thing" came about because a company in France was going to import a line of handgun ammo called "Arcane." The primary features of those were that the rounds were not cats, but lathe-turned (to a 60-70º cone) from a brass alloy barstock. Since these rounds would have zippy velocities, the engineers came up with coating them in teflon-like coating to go a little easier on the rifling of the pistols that shot them.

Like many small operations with insufficient capital and under-sophisticated business plans, they folded before really opening. But, the ninnyhammers were convinced that the ammo was as common as crackerjacks. Yet, everyplace the press went to get a box, they were thwarted. Except that was right about the time that the Black Talon was being marketed. This was a match made in media heaven. For comparison, Hydra-Shoks were just coming out, too (and with some built to LE spec rounds, not LE only restricted); yet these were not evil CKB that went through vests like they were rice paper.

Myth--all semi-auto copies of FA arms only need 30, 40 seconds with a screwdriver (maybe a file) to be remade as FA again.

Myth--all dropped arms go off; FA arms go off until the scene gets boring.

Myth--all FA are heavy and awkward and knock down whatever hapless sap picks one up--unless they are the righteous Hero, in which case they need not aim at all, and will be crack shots from the hip (which is made easy, as their weapon will never run out of ammo or the barrel get too hot, or the like).

Myth--evil, twisted, snipe spends his entire life to hone his shooting skills (and shoots everything to identical accuracy, from a PPK to a .338 to a 14.7). His scope has the zoom capacity of an 800mm telephoto lens.
But, a housewife can be taught to shoot with one or two-dozen rounds in a single session. After which she'll shoot 1/8 or 1/4MOA, and will be able to easily peg the bad gut in an an arm or leg, so that the PD will take the BG straight to prison.

Myth--LEO regularly shoot people, like once every other shift; this is why every LEO is a crack shot, and expert in all firearms. (There's a bon mot out there that more people were shot in a single Miami Vice episode, than we shot in Miami during a season of the series.)

 

[leadcounsel]

Hollywood nearly always gets it wrong.

Aiming a gun doesn't always result in a 'cocking' noise...

Getting shot doesn't throw a person 10 feet backwards...

 

[beatledog7]

The Cooper .25Auto comments remind me of my favorite gun myth (raises shields): "All guns are always loaded."

This one, while clearly false, is worshipped as Gospel by tons of otherwise rational gun people.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

^ All guns should be treated with the respect due a lethal, loaded weapon.

Even then, you will probably find people lamenting "Honest officer I thought it was unloaded."

I have been at a gun show and at a gun shop when folks brought in guns they had inherited but did not want, and they had been left fully loaded by Granpa or Uncle.

So until I have unloaded them, "All guns are always loaded." And I still don't trust me to know the ins and outs of all guns, so I treat 'em like lethal loaded weapons.

(My Glenfield 99G, I could pull the mag tube, dump all loose rounds in my hand, reinsert the tube, eject 1 round from the chamber, and there would be a 2nd round in the feed lips, and sometimes a 3rd round in the feed way if I was shooting flat nosed .22LR.)

 

[beatledog7]

All guns should be treated with the respect due a lethal, loaded weapon....So until I have unloaded them, "All guns are always loaded."

Yes, but note the "until." If there is a legitimate until, there cannot be an always.

Since there are times when you can accurately say "this gun is now unloaded," then the statement "All guns are always loaded" has to be false.

 

[YZ]

It's not like that. All guns are presumed loaded until proven otherwise. The simplified statement is not to be dissected literally. It is a boiled down mnemonic rule.

 

[GoWolfpack]

Take off your shoes beatledog, for you are trodding on sacred ground.