10 misconceptions about shooting and firearms

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

In a real shootout, this is not at all the case.

1. A pistol loaded with blanks is useless

There is such a cliché. The villain points his weapon at the hero and shoots, but the hero only laughs. After all, he changed the cartridges, replacing them with blanks, and now the gun in the hands of the villain is no more dangerous than a children's water pistol. Or not?

In fact, firing a blank cartridge can cripple or kill.

If you shoot a person in the eyes with a blank from a short distance, he will most likely die or lose his sight.

It is also known that a jet of powder gas at close range is capable of piercing the chest, abdomen or skull.

2. Some pistols can be smuggled through a metal detector

In the movie Die Hard 2, a bandit carried a Glock 17 pistol to the airport. Bruce Willis's hero killed the villain and, picking up his gun, identified the find as "a German porcelain pistol that cannot be caught by metal detectors and costs more than your monthly salary."

In reality, the Glock 17, although made partly from polyamide - a synthetic plastic - still contains metal parts and is perfectly detectable by metal detectors.

Plastic parts are added to pistols to make them lighter and easier to maintain, but avoiding metal detectors with them still won't work. So far, there are no more or less battle-worthy barrels made without the use of metal.

3. You can hide from a bullet behind a car door or behind a table

When special forces burst into a building in Hollywood action movies, the first thing the bandits ready to shoot back do is turn the table over to hide behind it from the shots. And if the shootout took place on the street, the characters often try to hide behind the car door.

In fact, the car door (if we are not talking about armored models, of course) will not stop a regular 9 mm bullet, let alone larger ammunition. And a wooden table, a plasterboard wall or a trash can of a bullet will even break through.

4. Silencer makes the shot less effective

This myth came to us from video games. Since the game requires balance, players are rarely given some cool stuff without negative sides at all. Therefore, in games, a silencer screwed onto a weapon, as a rule, weakens its combat characteristics and reduces bullet damage, but it helps to shoot silently.

In reality, as we have already written, the silencer does not make the shot quiet, it only helps the shooter not to become completely deaf. And it does not weaken the shot, does not reduce accuracy, and does not reduce destructive power.

On the contrary, the muffler even slightly increases the speed of the bullet, since it increases the gas pressure in the barrel. So there are some advantages from shooting with a silencer, except that it is less convenient to carry a weapon with it.

5. Shooting with both hands is a great idea

As you know, tough guys always have a gun with them, and whoever has two of them is doubly tough. The shooter spreads his pistols to the sides and hits two enemies at once. This technique is called "shooting in Macedonian" or "akimbo".

But deliberately hitting two targets at the same time is extremely difficult.

The only case when an experienced shooter picks up two pistols at once is if he intends to press down the enemy with overwhelming fire. By shooting with both pistols, you can increase the accuracy of fire. But this technique only makes sense if you do not have a submachine gun: one has a greater lethality than two semi-automatic barrels, and its accuracy is higher.

6. It's easy to shoot a person underwater

The character jumps into the water, escaping from the shooter with an automatic weapon. He unloads after the entire clip, and bullets fly past the fugitive who has sunk to the bottom. He remains alive only by a miracle, what a tense moment!

If bullets remained effective under water, Soviet gunsmiths would not have to invent such a thing for the swimmers of the USSR Navy. The fact is that water is almost 700 times denser than air, and a simple bullet loses its lethal force in it at a distance of about a meter.

You can verify this by watching the video in which the Norwegian physicist Andreas Wahl tries unsuccessfully to shoot himself with a machine gun in the pool.

7. A hostage can easily hide from bullets

One hero, but many enemies. With a deft grip, he takes one of the villains by the collar and starts shooting at his accomplices, hiding behind a man like a shield. The bandits riddled their own and fell from the well-aimed return shots of the hero, and he, throwing away the already lifeless enemy, rises unharmed.

In reality, such a trick is difficult to pull off, because a human body, not protected by a bulletproof vest, does not stop bullets very well. The direction of flight of a bullet that hits the body through it changes by about 6-7 degrees, but, naturally, this will not help the one who is behind the target. So, if you shoot at a person with a hostage, most likely both will be killed.

8. You can shoot a helicopter with a pistol if you know how

The villain hides in a helicopter, but the main character makes several well-aimed shots, and the rotorcraft falls. This is what an ordinary "Walter PPK" of 7, 65 mm caliber is capable of in the right hands!

But, in truth, shooting down a helicopter with a pistol, as in "SPECTRA" or "Lethal Weapon", will not work. Firstly, it is difficult to hit it even from an automatic rifle, not that from a pistol. Secondly, even direct hits into the rotor are unlikely to disable the aircraft - a foreign object, especially one as small as a bullet, will not harm it.

During the Vietnam War, the pilots of the Bell UH-1 "Huey" helicopters used propellers to chop tree branches around the landing sites - that's how strong they are.

9. Beams of laser designators are red and noticeable

In the movies, special forces soldiers, snipers and other armed guys supply their guns with laser designators - they release beams that make it easy to understand where your bullet will fly and where your comrade is aiming. Red rays in the dark - it looks stylish and cool.

These are the only rays that unmask the shooter, so no fighter will use them. Instead of lasers emitting in the visible spectrum, they use OPTICS DESIGN FOR LASER DESIGNATOR CUM RANGE FINDER infrared - they can only be seen Why are the infrared laser beams of laser aiming devices like the AN / PEQ-15 ‘visible’ with night vision? With a visible laser, you can only see the beam if the air is dusty in a night vision device. And they do not look red, but white and green.

10. Bulletproof vest makes its owner invulnerable

See how the tough guys in action movies behave when they are wearing body armor. The enemy shoots, the hero falls. But a second later he is back on his feet and deftly kills the enemy. And the numerous shots he doesn’t care.

In fact, a shot into a bulletproof vest is still extremely painful, since Kevlar and other existing protective materials are not able to compensate for the impact of a bullet. A single shot can incapacitate you: even if it doesn't kill you, it can damage your ribs and leave a severe bruise.

A bullet hitting a bulletproof vest hits like a sledgehammer. Therefore, the invulnerable John Wick, withstanding numerous shots to the body, looks ridiculous.