Firing blanks from a real gun

[Ace Oliveira]

Originally Posted by MT2008

The bullet was part of a dummy cartridge - which was made by taking a real bullet and removing the powder from it. The scene called for the gun to be shown getting loaded with the dummy rounds, before it was later fired using blanks. Somehow, the head was put on too loosely, and when an untrained property assistant (not the armorer, who got sent off-set to save money) dry-fired the gun to uncock it, the bullet came loose from the shell and got lodged in the chamber. Nobody checked the gun before it was loaded with blanks and fired at Lee, and the wad from the blank propelled the bullet from the chamber and into Lee's abdomen.

And that gentlemen, is why you never screw around with guns on set without armourer supervision.