Looking for a decent RKBA TV series. Is Shooter any good?

[BigFatKen]

I looked at TV series Shooter, see link below.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooter_(TV_series)

I suffered through first few scenes where the expert marksman, a highly trained Force Recon Marine, tells steel trap using man that his Remington .223 is only good for game no bigger than squirrels. How could he not know its same size as M-16 round? Later, at home he uses a big sloppy adjustable wrench on scoped rifle. Yeah! I could not take it anymore. In decades of rifle use he never bought proper tools. I yelled out loud and my wife suggested another show. Now watching White Collar. Nice show but I have to suffer through the sounds of cocking Glocks and usual Hollywood mistakes. Great con jobs. Learned some things like never insert an unknown found thumb drive into a networked computer. If you want to open files, use an old computer.

I finished my fifth re-watch of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I like to watch the whole series in a few weeks. Some episodes like http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_Siege_of_AR-558_(episode) are really great and classic shoot-em-ups.
Great quotes like;
Sir, what are your orders?
SISKO: "There's only one order, Lieutenant. We hold!"
Even somewhat cowardly bartender Quark draws his pistol and kills a Jem'Hadar while visiting with his wounded Nephew in make-shift hospital.

I have watched my DVDs of Firefly so many times, I have it almost memorized

"Boy, it sure would be nice if we had some grenades, don't you think?

And Christopher McQuarrie when he wrote Jack Reacher changed Lee Child's sniper distance from 35 to about 350 or more yards in shooting scene.

Does Shooter get any better?

Any other suggestions?

 

[Madcap_Magician]

It gets less bad. The first episode is the worst. It's never terribly realistic, but you have to be willing to suspend some disbelief. Steven Hunter cameos later in the season.

 

[maxxhavoc]

Shooter has better source material. The movie is closer, but still not nearly as good as the book.

Stephen Hunter is a big RKBA supporter, and I would guess he benefits from the show. Heck, turn off the TV and read all of his books.

Lee Child has no idea about guns at all. Some of the better "tactics" Reacher has used in the novels are:
-Bad Guy has a 92FS loaded in a drawer stored for a year. He misses with the first shot, so Reacher closes with him knowing that the gun will jam since the spring in the mag is dead. And it did.
-Another novel, he is 20 yards from a bad guy, which is beyond the range of his MP5 (his words, not mine.) So he goes out of cover so the bad guy can waste his ammo shooting at him, since 20 yards with an M16 is a tricky shot.
-Oh yeah, same book. He had the hotel concierge go out and buy him the full-auto MP5 since the gun stores wouldn't sell him a full auto gun (because he was out of state.)

If gun goofs bother you, don't ever read a Reacher novel, the movies are much closer to correct...and that is saying a lot.

If you want good RKBA TV, just stick to old westerns.

 

[cslinger]

Huhwhathow????

20 yards??? Mmmmmkay.

Well if anybody is ever in town let me know and I will shoot down to the Walmart and grab you an MP5 and a couple frags and a 12 pack a beer.

 

[doubleh]

I am a fan of both the Bob Lee Swagger and Jack Reacher novels. I learned a long time ago to enjoy the twists and turns of the story and kind of let the gun goofs slide on by. I liked both the Shooter and the Reacher movies but I did have a very hard time with one thing in both movies. Reacher is a big dude, six foot, five inches, Bob is a tall, skinny guy. Reacher is played by a guy that's maybe five, seven when he is standing up really straight. Bob Lee is played by a five,eight guy that is husky to say the least. Kind of hard to wrap my mind around that although I try.

I tried the Shooter series but kind of gave up on it. I think I'll just read the books again.

 

[bk42261]

Stephen Hunter is the best "gun writer" ever, unfortunately, the movie basically had nothing in common with the book except the title, as usually happens.

 

[Crawdad1]

I have Shane, The Outlaw Josey Wales and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, among some others for such times as I just can't take it anymore. They relax me.

 

[hdwhit]

When I watch television shows or motion pictures, I watch them for the story, not the choreography of the gunplay, which, as has already been noted is almost invariably wrong.

 

[BigBore44]

I've never found a "gun movie" or series I couldn't pick apart. So I just accepted that Hollywood doesn't know a damn thing about them. It's helped for the most part. But every once in awhile I just have to politely, and ever so quietly, voice my frustration at the tv.

I agree that old westerns do help me relax. But I was more a fan of "The Duke" than Clint Eastwood and the Spaghetti westerns where the audio always seemed one or two words behind and his character never seemed to miss.

 

[JohnBiltz]

"Justified" is what you want to watch. There a few mistakes on how guns work but it is first of all a really good show with lots of guns. As Raylan says, "My guns are always loaded." Its based on an Elmore Leonard story and tries to stick to Elmore Leonard's style of interesting criminals, clever dialog and humor. Elmore Leonard has written a fair share of westerns and many became movies as well. At its heart its a western.

 

[Old Dog]

Actually, I thought Tim Allen's "Last Man Standing" (a sitcom, recently cancelled by his network, possibly due to Allen's political views and not the show's ratings) was an excellent (and possibly the only) pro-RKBA series on TV. Still available in re-runs. Great episode where his daughter waxes nostalgic about how she felt her dad's love when he gifted her with her first pistol ...

"Justified" was excellent. And Elmore Leonard was superb, may he rest in peace.

 

[larryh1108]

I do get bothered by the 'click-click' sound of a gun being loaded whenever it is brought into action by the hero or bad guy even though the slide is never touched. I am also bothered by someone racking their gun every time they pick it up even though it was never fired or unloaded. I guess these sounds are meant to show the audience that the gunslinger means business.

 

[Dentite]

Check out anything directed by Michael Mann. Some examples include Colateral, Heat, Miami Vice (both the TV show and the movie). Of all the mainstream movies out there, I think he does the best being realistic with gun stuff. He even had competitive shooters play bad guys on Miami Vice TV show.

I like Shooter the original movie, the Shooter the TV show was just too cheesy so I didn't last past the first episode or two.

Stephen Hunter is a good author but he makes his share of mistakes or at least including stupid stuff IMO. The one novel he has Bob Lee Swagger stunning a deer with some "stun" bullet and sawing off the antlers to "save" the deer from hunters shooting and killing it. Wow that's stupid and a slap in the face to all hunters.

 

[JR24]

I didn't get past Ryan Phillipe as Bob Lee Swagger. Markey Mark was enough of a stretch, no way Mr Cruel Intentions was gonna do it for me.

Second anything by Michael Mann, I especially like Miami Vice the series, its just so 80s.

If ya have prime or cinemax; Strike Back h!s some entertaining gunplay and reasonable handling. At least from the two main guys. As a warning, there is a lot of pointless nudity in there too, it IS cinemax.

 

[ColtPythonElite]

I am watching the series right now. I find it entertaining. I don't care if it is technically inaccurate here or there.

 

[BigFatKen]

Thank you, one and all. I'm watching again the first year of Walking Dead. There is some nice real life stuff.
(gross-out warning) Very gory guts and blood

When Rick takes cover inside an Army tank, he must fire his Colt .357, the mind numbing ear pain sounds have him dizzy. That is something I have never seen on a TV show.

When a Walker (Zombie) is eating a deer, viewer sees three arrows in deer. You only need one unless bad shot. (Groan) Then Daryl Dixon appears with crossbow. It's only then viewer knows it's target bolts from crossbow. A big "Oh, yeah!". If all you have if those bolts, that might take three shots. My wife killed two deer in eight minutes the last time she went bow hunting. She prefers deer with head down and hits somewhere between shoulders in top-down shot; she hasn't shared exact placement.

When you see the rifle farm worker Otis uses when a through and through bullet kills a deer but wounds Carl, it has front sight removed. Anyone who hunts through heavy cover or has front sight in scope considers removing it.

The entire show is a perfectly good example of need for RKBA. Breaks laws of thermodynamics, but hey, so does faster than light space travel.

The show gets more Hollywood as the seasons roll on. More if you want...

 

[Airman Basic]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Milius
Just about anything Milius is involved in is good for gun nuts. From Dirty Harry to Red Dawn, (the first one) or the Wind and the Lion, a few of my favs. Not saying he didn't make mistakes, but they were few in my estimation.

 

[stoky]

Looking for a decent RKBA TV series
good luck w that..........maybe on the Outdoor or Sportsman's Channel.

Firefly

The Outlaw Josey Wales

Red Dawn

Quigley Down Under
Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garret and Billy The Kid, or Wild Bunch.

 

[AZAndy]

I have watched my DVDs of Firefly so many times, I have it almost memorized

I think I do have it memorized. I have the series, and the "Serenity" movie, on a tablet. It's great for passing time in a doctor's waiting room, or while getting the tires rotated, and suchlike. Been thinking about doing the same with Battlestar Galactica...

I'll second JB24's recommendation of "Strike Back." There's an occasional ludicrous moment, but the gun handling isn't totally wacky. You can tell they had somebody in-the-know helping with the realism.

 

[Sunray]

"...How could he not know..." It's TV. Nothing on TV or in movies is remotely real. No such thing as a RKBA TV series.
Now go rent 'Zulu'. 1964.

 

[Shanghai McCoy]

Tremors...

 

[JeeperCreeper]

My favorite Jack Reacher faux paux is one where he was playing Russian roulette, and Reacher knew that the cylinder would spin and put the bullet on the most distant from the barrel, so he knows in 3 trigger pulls, the revolver will fire... because of inertia??

Anyways, for a good "gun" TV show, I love Justified and Strike Back as others have said... both available on Amazon Prime. I also like the Shield from FX which I bought the DVDs for like $25 at Walmart. Supernatural isn't bad for the first 4 seasons on Netflix.

On a side note, alot of the Asian films on Netflix have been amazing with their firearms usage, such as The Tiger, The Good The Bad and The Weird, etc.

 

[BigFatKen]

My favorite Jack Reacher faux paux is one where he was playing Russian roulette, and Reacher knew that the cylinder would spin and put the bullet on the most distant from the barrel, so he knows in 3 trigger pulls, the revolver will fire... because of inertia??

I always wanted to ask that of some member with slick Colt Python. Reacher says the bullet was a massive lead bullet, at least 300 grains. I would like to have someone make a heavy load, try 350 and if that works, try 300 and try it again. Child might think that there is a way to hold hammer back so the hand does engage and not make the clicking sound.

I'm not good anymore on my high school math where I learned things like rotational momentum.

 

[Old Dog]

Upon further review, "Supernatural" actually is a great pro-2A television series ... There are never any judgements made about firearms on that show ... (Even Selleck's "Blue Bloods" get gouged by anti-gun and/or clueless screenplay writers) ...

A lot of the other media being mentioned are actually motion pictures or made-for-TV movies ...

Lee Childs is just another stupid Brit who can't be bothered to learn about gun stuff (he needs to sit down and have a beer or bourbon with Stephen Hunter). At least the first Reacher flick wasn't embarassing ...

 

[BigFatKen]

These images are decades apart but I always thought John Milius played Pilot Vasco Rodrigues in Shogun, but it was John Rhys-Davies

No arms kept by serfs in Japan, so if you did not bow low enough, meet Mr. Katana.