Quote:
Originally Posted by Krel
A few years back I read an article on blanks. It said that blanks are made from rifle brass, which is cut to length for loading, and crimping. The article explained that, that is why it is so hard to make a .45 work with blanks. There is no rifle brass the same size as a .45 acp round.
Does anyone know it this is true?
David.
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This is taken from a users talk page. I just happened to notice it when I responded to the user on another matter.
==Re: 1911 adaptation==
The 1911 pistols used in the early films fall into three categories. (1) 1911 used strictly as a hand prop has in waving it around or in a holster. (2) Fired live on set. This is something that was done in the 1920's and 1930's just prior to blank adapting. The scene would be of shooting a door or car trunk lid by the actor. (3) 1911 lookalikes which were a cast aluminum clam shell that looked like a 1911 but held a Colt Detective Special of Iver Johnson revolvers. These we used from 1930's to the early 1960's since the 1911 pistols could not fire more than one round. In most of your early films the autos used were the Colt 1903 Hammerless or another pistol that was similar. The reason for this was they are a direct blowback design so they were easy to convert to blanks. The 1911 is a delayed blowback design since the barrel is not fixed it cams up and down. The armories had to figure out how to get this to work with blanks. It took several different armorers 30 years to develop the blanks and the blank conversion to work in the 45 caliber 1911. The film industry was able to use the [[Star Model B]] as a stand in for the 1911 from the 1950's until 1970's and the 9mm was easier to convert than the 45 auto. As for how the 1911 are converted I can not pass on that information since I still work in the industry. But you can find other conversions online used by reenactors which are close. -[[User:Phoenixent|Phoenixent]] 07:07, 24 July 2009 (UTC)