Hollywood Flip....rant

Recently I was using my GP160 at the range and a couple other shooters displayed interest in the revolver. Showed them how it works, double & single action, loading & unloading. Agreed to let them try it; here's where it went astray.

One guy loaded the gun then Flipped the Cylinder closed like in a Hollywood movie; I told him to lay the gun down and get his hands off of it.

If anybody wants to close their revolver like that I don't care; just don't do it with mine!

I know where you are coming from. I had a fool slam a bolt close on one of my bolt action rifles. Needless to say he never handled any of my guns again. :roll:

I'd ordered a Charter Arms Bulldog from a non gun store that had an FFL. It was bought and paid for. When I walked in to pick it up 3 salespeople were passing it around while spinning the cylinder and slapping it shut and laughing. I said That better not be my gun! It was and they'd broken the non breakable firing pin :x I told them I wanted my $ back and they said no.

Charter fixed it, but what a PITA!

Many years ago (Funny how so many of my stories start this way now.) I was visiting my daughter up in Ohio. My son-in-law had invited a friend down to meet me as he was gun savvy, too.

Siting in my daughter's living room, this friend showed me his Colt Python. Now this guy was a big, sort of rough-around-the-edges type of man but with a high pitched, squeaky voice. As he handed me the Colt, I did what comes naturally, I opened the cylinder checked the gun was clear, and closed the cylinder.

Amazed, this friend blurted out "At least you didn't Kojak it! You're really into guns!"

"Kojaking" was his term for "the flip."

Bob Wright

Ordguy said:

Recently I was using my GP160 at the range and a couple other shooters displayed interest in the revolver. Showed them how it works, double & single action, loading & unloading. Agreed to let them try it; here's where it went astray.

One guy loaded the gun then Flipped the Cylinder closed like in a Hollywood movie; I told him to lay the gun down and get his hands off of it.

If anybody wants to close their revolver like that I don't care; just don't do it with mine!

Click to expand...

No one I don't know handles one of my revolvers without getting a little speech from me about not doing that. So part of this is on you.

BTW, flipping the cylinder closed isn't great, but it's not THAT bad. Flipping it OPEN, though, is VERY hard on the gun. :evil:

street said:

I know where you are coming from. I had a fool slam a bolt close on one of my bolt action rifles. Needless to say he never handled any of my guns again. :roll:

Click to expand...

You wouldn't have liked how Jeff Cooper handled your rifle, then. He advocated running the bolt forward AND back VERY vigorously. And I've never heard of this being a problem, but I imagine it could wreck certain .22 rifles I can think of.

I don't blame you one bit.
The asshat that started that on TV should be kicked in the gonads repeatedly till his nose bleeds!!

NEVER EVER let a stranger hold your gun. Because you never know what they are going to do with/to it. Your case in point.

Snake45 said:

street said:

I know where you are coming from. I had a fool slam a bolt close on one of my bolt action rifles. Needless to say he never handled any of my guns again. :roll:

Click to expand...

You wouldn't have liked how Jeff Cooper handled your rifle, then. He advocated running the bolt forward AND back VERY vigorously. And I've never heard of this being a problem, but I imagine it could wreck certain .22 rifles I can think of.

Click to expand...

I don't care who the "character" may be and YES I even said something to Elmer Keith many years ago at an NRA convention and got a "deer in the headlights" stare back. :roll:
Those guys ALL put their pants on one leg at a time and not above reproach. :wink:

If I ever see a Youtube gun channel cowboy a revolver I immediately turn the video off and know not to take anything seriously from that channel.

Had a guy come into the gun shop I worked at and wanted us to loosen his new S&W 66 up because he couldn't flip closed.

As I recall, Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, and others were bad to do that in old gangster movies.

6GUNSONLY said:

As I recall, Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, and others were bad to do that in old gangster movies.

Click to expand...

Yep, everybody had to double check their hardware: flip the cylinder closed, roll the Single Action down your sleeve, jack the lever of the Winchester, or rack the slide of the auto pistol. A little showmanship never hurts your image.

Bob Wright

Bob Wright said:

A little showmanship never hurts your image.

Click to expand...

It sure does to those of us who know what's what!

:roll: :roll: :roll:

The "flip" on screen goes back at least to 1931 and James Cagney's "The "Public Enemy". I imagine jerks were damaging revolvers as soon as swing out cylinders were invented. No telling how loose the Hollywood prop guns got.

Best Regards,
ADP3

I love it when they spin the cylinder on a double-action revolver, and it clicks like it was a single action Colt.

Novels are full of "gun gaffes", too. Some guy is forever "slipping off the safety latch" on his revolver or some such nonsense.

street said:

I know where you are coming from. I had a fool slam a bolt close on one of my bolt action rifles. Needless to say he never handled any of my guns again. :roll:

Click to expand...

Had a salesguy at the LGS do that to a Carl Gustaf 1900 as NIB I just purchased. Told him as impolitely as possible to set the rifle down.

So that's why a Colt New Service .38-40 that I once had with a Universal Studios marking on its barrel was the loosest NS I have ever had (I've had many). Got it back in the 1960s from a yard sale. It had been modified by tacking an SAA ejector rod housing onto the side of the NS barrel. I was told later that they did that to have a big Colt that was DA but looked kinda SA-ish for the actors and extras who couldn't seem to master a real SAA.

The bore of that gun was ruined by shooting 5-in-1 blackpowder blanks in it and not cleaning it promptly. And as I said, it was loose as a goose, not a common problem in New Services, even abused ones. Now I think I know the cause.

That wreck cost me $10, an amount that made me hungry for the rest of the week (I was a student living on 'way less than $100 a month) but I just can't stand seeing a Colt or any other quality firearm suffer! A few years later I had collected all the needed parts to rebuild it, including a Colt factory 5 1/2" blue NS .38-40 barrel to replace the wrecked one. It made an excellent shooter for a long time after. Wish I still had it, but there came a time when I needed a house payment more....

Hollywood. What worse can I say?

One of my shooting buddies calls flipping the cylinder open and shut "Humphrey Bogarting" after the way he and others in the Hollywood gangster movies started doing (and apparently no one corrected as I have seen it in JAG, Law & Order and many others over the years). We once were in a gun store / shooting range in Murfreesboro, TN and a kid behind the counter did that to a used model 10 S&W we asked to look at. My friend just raise his hand to refuse looking at the poor revolver and admonished the punk for mistreating a gun in such a way. He was obviously embarrassed and "butt-hurt" but responded "Oh really, I can flip another one for ya!!"!!! We found the Manager, explained our encounter and walked out never to return again. :roll:
Some people just don't know what they are doing... I don't hand over guns unless I know that they know ... :wink:

Thanks,

32Magfan

I took a Dick Special to a local show to sell. Going through the obligatory firearms check at the door the security guard flipped it. I politely asked him please don't do that. I got the deer in the headlights look as though he thought that's the way your supposed to do it. I explained but I don't think he understood.