Doesn't the Prop Store bug you?
 

All those Hero guns that are filmed overseas (and sometimes here and sold over there) that are pretty much deactivated with welded rods and rendered inoperable so that they can be sold privately to those poor wretches who can't own live firearms. Whenever I see a gun pic on IMFDB with the PropStore of London watermark, I inherently know that many of the metal guns were once live firearms that were deactivated by the pinheads in the UK (the govt, not the people). I actually cringe when I see those pics....:(

But doesn't converting a gun to blank fire also pretty much destroy it? Sometimes Prop Store sells the ones that were converted to blank fire for American customers, still in firing state (like Denzel's Browning HP from "American Gangster"), and they always mention that the weapon is incapable of functioning with live ammo due to the conversion - although it still has to go through an FFL.

Don't you cringe whenever you see rare firearms get converted to blank fire?

It depends on what you call rare? It happens when a show calls out for that weapon. I had an assistant in Ellis who loved Glock's. Then we had a show that needed all the officers armed with Glock's and he turned white when I converted them to blanks. To me it comes with the job and you just have to let go.

Well, let's say a Sturmgewehr (any variant), for instance?

Glocks, I guess I wouldn't get so worked up about, just because those can be had anywhere, for close to pocket change.

Hopefully they'd convert a current reproduction replica and not a vintage WWII example. Then again, some of MPM's pics say they are old guns (like the vintage WWI Lugers), so do armorers convert real mint weaponry sometimes?

Didn't the HP Denzel use have a plugged barrel so he could shoot that guy in the head point blank? So technically it was plugged, but is still capable of firing low powered blanks (you can see the muzzle flash was added in in the film).

Let's I have converted a Stg44, MP40, MP38, 1895 Maxim only 10 in the US and I converted 2 or them, Colt 1921 Thompsons, 1918 Browning Automatic Rifles on WWII variations, and a number of other NFA weapons that are expensive and rare. I know that it just makes collector cringe see what is put on film.

Speaking of the Sturmgewehr, I've never seen any American movies with those at all. US armorers just can't get those? There were a lot of them in Downfall, but that was a German movie.

I have worked on four of them in one armory in CA. I know of one that I have used at another armory that's out of business on a history channel show also for EA's Metal of Honor series and two that were converted to 7.62 x 39 blank. That's seven Stg44 or MP44 in CA film industry now FG42 don't exsist in the film industry in CA at this time.

What, didn't you see the picture of the one that MoviePropMaster photographed for us, that now serves as our standard Stg image? ;)

Yeah, I remember MPM saying he's been looking for one for a while.

I didn't say if there were any in the US, I'm sure there has to be a few, but I'm just saying why no American made WWII films have the Stg44s or any other ones besides Downfall.