Movie Firearms

James Bond PPK
James Bond P99
Scaramanga, The man with with the golden gun
Han Solo, Star Wars
Hellboy, Hellboy
Mal Reynolds, Firefly/Serenity
Jayne Cobb, Firefly/Serenity
Jayne Cobb (2), Firefly/Serenity
Zoe Washburne, Firefly/Serenity
Van Helsing, Van Helsing

Walther PPK (James Bond 007)

Walther PPK (Polizei Pistole Kurz - Short Police Pistol) is a shortened wersion of the Walter PP (polizei Pistole) and differs from it only in size.

Walther PP was presented in 1929, PPK - in 1931 and quickly become wery popular among European police agencies and civilian shooters - both guns were reliable, easy to conceal (especially PPK). During WW2 those guns were issued to german military police personnel, high military officers and other military personnel.

In fact, PP and PPK were the worlds first successful DA autos. They were (and are) copied and still in production by both the Carl Walther Sportwaffen gmbh. and other companies. technically, PP and PPK are blowback operated DA handguns. Both have chamber loaded indicator, external hammer, manual safety and out of battery safety. The manual safety is somewhat odd, because it has to be turned UP to be set to fire position, instead of common down direction.
Both guns deserved good reputation during the decades of use. Especially popular they become as a James Bond (Agent 007) weapon (Walther PPK) in almost all novels and all but the most recent movies, when James Bond switched to more modern Walther pistol - a P99.

Walther P99 (James Bond 007)

The design of the P99 was initiated in 1994, and a handgun was presented in 1996. The main goal was to develop new, modern style police and self-defence handgun that incorporates all latest developments and will cost less than its predescessor - Wapther P88, that did not achieve any significant commercial Success, mainly due to high prices. Walther P99 is a recoil operated, locked breech gun, that used modified Browning style locking via extraction port in the slide. It is striker fired, and has no manual safeties and three automatic safeties: Striker safety, Trigger safety and Out of ammunition safety. Also, it has manual decocking button in the rear upper part of the slide. Also Walther developed QA action, which has partially pre-charged stricer that must be manually charget to full stroke via each trigger pull (somewhat similar in appearance to Glocks' "safe action").

P99 has polymer frame with removable backctrap of the handle, to provide to shooters better fit in the hands (3 sizes are standart). Also P99 incorporates recoil compensator. "Military" version of the P99 differs only in the color - frame is in "military green" color instead of standart black.

This guns is reported as extremely reliable and very accurate, especially in 9mm version.

The Golden Gun (Francisco Scaramanga, The Man With The Golden Gun)

A pomotional poster showing the assembly of the golden gun (sorry about the size)

The Golgen Gun is the weapon favoued by Francisco Scaramanga, it is a one of a kind custom made by a master Portuguese gunsmith named Lazar, living in Macau, China. It fires custom made 4.2mm caliber bullets made of 23carrat gold with traces of nickel
Scaramanga charges US$1,000,000 per assassination and never misses his target, fortunate, because such a tiny bullet could not have very much stopping power.
The gun itself only holds on bullet and reloading is slow, you can see the makeup of the gun from the image.

Technically the Golden Gun is a single shot derringer (a derringer is a gun which has a bullet in each of its barrels, the famous wild west derringers had two vertically stacked barrels) loaded from from an opening breech instead of of a tipping open barrel.
The weapon's vertical grip offers very poor ergonomics but its disasembly offers incredible ease of concealment.

Han Solo's blaster pistol (Han Solo,Star Wars, episodes IV,V and VI)

The original prop


The mauser C96 upon which it was based
Source: adamsguns.com

The blaster pistol Han Solo wields throughout the movies, he uses it to dispatch Greedo, among others, with searing bolts of lasery flavoured justice.

According to the manufacturer, the blaster operates in the following fashion:

A squeeze of a trigger emits volatile blaster gas into a conversion chamber, where it is excited by energy from the weapon's power source. The agitated gas is then funneled through the actuating blaster module, where it is processed into an intense particle beam. A prismatic crystal focuses the beam, and passes it through a refinement chamber which "galvens" the beam into its final bolt.

Obviously the blaster is not a real gun, the Mauser C96 was a popular design in 9mm parabellum or 7.63X25mm Mauser (also rarely in 9X25mm Mauser)available with fully automatic fire at around 1000 rounds per minute. First put into production in 1896.

The pictured model is a top loading ten or six round internal non-removable magazine reloaded through either single round or a stripper clip ( a strip with bullet on it, the bullet could be pushed down from the clip into a port on the gun for fast reloading.
Later models featured up to twenty round removable or non-removabvle magazines.

Samaritan revolver (Hellboy, Hellboy)

The original prop


An excellent image which I nicked from some online store selling replicas


A pic from the same site which shows loading action


Yet another pic from the same site with a good view of the chambers

The Samaritan revolver is wielded by Hellboy throughout the feature length movie bearing his name, according to the Dvd "The barrel was forged from the iron of Irish church bells".
(To anyone whose seen the Hellsing anime or read the manga this method of weapons manufacture will not sound unfamiliar, and another thing, why is it always the Irish?)

There are only four chambers for four massive bullets, the design also lacks an extraction star or extraction rod, that's why its open at the side, for the hand-ejection of spent cases instead.

The frame is an over-sized break-top double-action design, the four large chambers would give it a long and heavy trigger pull, even with Hellboy's strength accuracy would be reduced (he states himself that he's not a very good shot).

The ammunition for this thing is an enigma, just from the film I'd estimate 20mm calibre, bigger than Alucards Jackal, and half the size of your average grenade from a grenade launcher). He is seen with these rounds both loose and in a speedloader (a speedloader is a nifty device which holds the bullets in the cofiguration in which the chamber holds them, removing the need for loading one by one, its also known as a full moon clip)
The bullets used in Hellboy are not plain silver of mercury explosive as seen in Hellsing, instead they are described as containing "clove leaf, silver shavings and white oak suspended in holy water". Presumably some other types of ammo are available.

Mal's pistol (Malcolm Reynolds, Firefly/Serenity)

This antique styled weapon is the favourite of Mal Reynolds, captain of the "Serenity". It features a magazine of unknown capacity placed forward of the triggerguard, and the frame is based on an anitque revolver.

While the weapon features in a series set around 500years in the future, the weapon is seen to be loaded with ammunition of convention type, but the the firing sound (like all in the series)is substantialy different from normal gunshots, perhaps the result of a new kind of propellant?

Jayne's pistol (Jayne Cobb, Firefly/Serenity)

Jaynes weapon is a LeMat Revolver with the underbarrel shotgun (yes, you heard right, super-duper borg-dropper pistols were invented in the 19th century) removed and meaningless flash added by the prop department. (which was common for this series, in "War Stories" Simon Tam is seen using a glock with a scope mount, but no scope)

Vera (Jayne Cobb, Firefly/Serenity)

Jayne's very favourite gun a "Callahan fullbore autolock". This impressive weapon was aquired when, in Jaynes words "Three men came to kill me at once, and the best of them carried this". Effective even against ships, Vera is an incredible weapon indeed.

Based on a Saiga 12 guage (a shotgun varient of the Kalashnikov series) the prop departmen made a futuristic weapon that actually looks GOOD.

Mare's leg (Zoe Washburne, Firefly/Serenity)

Zoe's sidearm, a lever action Winchester 1892 rifle in .44 40with an enlarged hand-guard (which makes a handy knuckleduster in the close quarters of the combat she is usually engaged in) and a cut down stock an barrel

Zoe's Mare's leg is a reference to the one used by Steve McQueen character in "Wanted: Dead or Alive"

Van Helsing's crossbow (Van Helsing, Van Helsing)

The fully automatic crossbow used by Van Helsing, circa 1898, apparently powered by gas (though more likely by movie physics.)

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