Gun in Baby's hands ...

[Bubba Fat]

Pretty striking in MM1: A family scene at Max's house. He brings out the scary mask to cheer up Jesse. In the backround the baby's playing with Max's service revolver. You can clearly see the shoulder holster hanging on a chair ...

[HUMVEE Driver]

I've wondered about that... with Max being a cop gun safety would be a no-brainer. I thought that a baby probably wouldn't be able to play around with a gun like that (guns are heavy) and that it was a toy. But who knows. In the '70's everyone wasn't as PC and 'sensitive' as they are today, so maybe Max unloaded it to let his son get used to having them around.

HUMVEE Driver

[Foxtrot X-Ray]

I wasn't THAT young (I'd reckon Sproggle was around 18 months), but my dad let me clean his revolver & Shotgun when I was pretty young.. 6 to 8 years.

I have wondered about that scene, though.. Did the baby get the gun out during filming and the cast & crew didn't notice?
Or did Miller have the baby play with the gun for some reason.

Oh, and most handguns aren't THAT heavy where an 18 month old wouldn't be capable of moving them.
Mine could probably chuck that gun across the room at you.

(Didn't we once decide that it as a .22 caliber? Assuming it's Max's sidearm)

[medievil One]

The last time I watched the movie, My wife was sitting with me and she about flipped out when she saw the baby playing with the gun.
My god I cant believe there letting that baby play with a gun. I have to admit it did kinda throw me for a loop the first time I saw it.

[HUMVEE Driver]

(Didn't we once decide that it as a .22 caliber? Assuming it's Max's sidearm)

I believe the consensus was the gun is a S+W Model 53, which (I think) isn't much more than a .22.

HUMVEE Driver

[gunslinger2006]

I would almost bet that it is not a S&W 53. That was chambered for a round called the .22 jet. They were never particularly popular or common. It's performance wouldn't have been much more than a .22 magnum. I believe that Max's service revolver would have been a .357 magnum of some kind. I can't tell from the stills I've seen what make or model it is though. I have thought that it might be a S&W model 27, but it could easily be some other similar revolver.

[Madmaxing]

I'll have to wait until I get home to reference all my research, I had made a number of screencaps and did a lot of research to identify the guns. The .22jet round does factor into the identity of the gun. I felt because the Model 53 was never considered a good gun, nor was it desireable, that they would be cheap to obtain for the movie. There were aluminum inserts for the gun (S&W design) that always caused reliability issues. Other officers in the movie had them as well. It was a low budget movie so money was saved wherever possible. For the uninitiated, as I was, the gun certainly looks serious enough for the movie.


If I remember correctly this is a big continuity error in the film. The only time you see Sprog with the gun in his hands is in that close-up. When you watch him in the background the rest of the time in that scene he does not have the gun and he is also in a different position.

When watching that scene with the commentary on in the SE DVD one of the guys makes the comment that with Sprog having the gun it conveys to the viewers the feel that danger is ever present. This is open to interpretation. Either he means that in the world they live in danger is all around, your baby might even be playing with the gun you have for protection, or he could mean that because of society being as it is parents are comfortable around guns and condition their kids to be comfortable around them too.

An unloaded gun, after being verified that it is indeed unloaded, is just a piece of steel and wood. No danger there, unless someone wants to hit their little brother or sister in the head with it.

When I saw this the first couple times I thought "Wow, the kid is playing with a gun". But I only felt that way for the story. I never thought that the baby was in any danger during filming. Yeah, I think this might affect some younger people that grew up in a more PC world.

Steve

[HUMVEE Driver]

Well spoken, Steve.

I appreciate all the research you did. Do you (or anyone else) know if the Model 53 would 'drop' someone easy or what? I know a .22 kind of sucks, but the military's M-16A2 is only a .223 and it gets its kill power from the speed of the round. Granted, it doesn't pack the punch of a 7.62 but it will still stop someone dead. So just how powerful (or under powered) is a S+W Model 53?

HUMVEE Driver

[gunslinger2006]

This brief article compares the .22 Jet to the .22 Magnum. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... _n14816272
It would seem that the Jet out of a pistol is roughly equivalent to the .22 mag in a rifle. I certainly wouldn't want to be shot with either round but I wouldn't necessarily want to rely on either round for self-defense. It may well be that the model 53 was used in the filming, but my understanding is that it was never that common a gun so I have my doubts that particular model was used. We probably won't know for sure what kind of gun it was unless someone who handled the props or was responsible for obtaining the props speaks up. As for the .223/5.56 used in the M16 and M4, it runs at a significantly higher velocity and with a heavier bullet than the .22 jet, so it will have more power. However there have been a lot of complaints about its effectiveness in the field and the US military has been doing some research on more powerful rounds for the troops. I don't know, my person feeling on this is that either for the filming or for the world depicted in the movie it is unlikely that they would use a gun that was rare, expensive, and hard to find ammo for, just my .02

[Foxtrot X-Ray]

I must protest the claim that the .22 Sucks!

the .22LR an excellent round for what it's intended for and a decent round for many things it's not.
(Can you tell I own one?)

As for Max's revolver.. As said before, we'll never know what it really was unless the prop guy speaks up..
I think we can Assume, though that the "Character Gun"isn't necessarily the same model & caliber as the Prop gun. It's up to your imagination, I guess.

Hmm.. I think I'll imagine it to be a.. S&W .38 Police Special