Putting to rest a "Dirty Harry" myth.

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The couple of myths I have constantly seen are that the guns were not even Model 29's.

One version is that they were Model 57 .41 Mags, because they were easier to find.

The other is that they were Model 25's in 45 Colt, so 5-in-1 Blanks could be used.

Of course both are myths.

One of the two guns used in the films is in the NRA National Firearms Museum, and it too is a Model 29.
 
Yep those were a couple of the myths. Another was that it was a 8 3/4" 29 used. 6.5" cuz they couldn't find a 4".

tipoc
 
Damn...I was reading on a site a while ago about movie guns...might have been something NRA related and they were mentioning how a 8.75" was used for some of the stills and such to emphasize the looooong barrel. Mostly front on shots like the famous movie posters.
 
From what I read on another board, 'Gun And Game Forums" I think. A S&W model 57 .41 mag was used in the FIRST movie only, (the audience was led to believe that it was a model 29 .44 mag), and a model 29 .44 mag was used in the rest until he got the Wildley .44 automag.
 
Who cares?
It is a fictional gun in a fictional movie about fictional characters.
Never understood people's interest about made-up gun fights.

Researching reality is so much more rewarding.
 
The .44 Automag used in the Dirty Harry movie Sudden Impact was an AMT, not a Wildey. The .475 Wildey was used in Death Wish 3 with Charles Bronson.

I read somewhere that Clint Eastwood owns exactly two firearms. A Model 29 and an AMT Automag.

Just my .02,
LeonCarr
 
It is a fictional gun in a fictional movie about fictional characters.
So I guess the 2 M29s I have in my safe don't really exist and all the ones I have shot and handled over the years were figments of my imagination.
 
They are figments of your imagination. Since they are, you should mail me one and think up another one for yourself. :)
 
I'm not positive and I can't check right now but I'm pretty sure in my copy of Magnum Force, he says he's shooting a light magnum. It is a newer copy, maybe they dubbed over it when they remastered it or whatever.
 
> I read somewhere that Clint Eastwood owns exactly two firearms. > A Model 29 and an AMT Automag.

AMT Automag? The lookalike blowback thing? That would be odd; he used a real Auto Mag in the movie.

BTW, Harry Sanford's heirs have all the remaining tooling, inventory, and intellectual property for the Auto Mag for sale for only $100,000, as of a couple of months ago, anyway. If the price of Auto Mags keeps going up, that could be a bargain...
 
I'm not positive and I can't check right now but I'm pretty sure in my copy of Magnum Force, he says he's shooting a light magnum. It is a newer copy, maybe they dubbed over it when they remastered it or whatever.

The Ins. Callahan character did divulge that he used .44 Spec loads in his magnum for better control, from what I recall (been a while since I last saw it).
 
Mr TRX,

The AMT Automags are numbered Automag II through Automag V. The original AMT Automag (no roman numeral) is the .44 Automag used by Dirty Harry in Sudden Impact. Automags II through Automag V are delayed blowback type guns. The original AMT Automag is gas operated.

Just my .02,
LeonCarr
 
I believe Harry tells the young motorcycle cops that he is shooting "light specials" in the scene at the indoor range in Magnum Force. They are all shooting .357's.
 
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TRX - "> I read somewhere that Clint Eastwood owns exactly two firearms. > A Model 29 and an AMT Automag."

I don't know where you read that but it is not true. Eastwood is a gun collector and owns quite a few firearms.

When I lived in Los Angeles, a friend of mine, a "magazine gun writer," did an interview with him. Also, it was not unusual to sometimes see Eastwood at several of the gun stores then, before the Marxist Socialist politicians of Calif., passed all their onerous laws against gun ownership by honest citizens.

FWIW.

L.W.
 
The bore in the gun that turns to face the camera doesn't look like a .44 bore to me; it looks like a .41. But if JM says it's a .44, then it must be a .44.

The one thing that amazes me about all this is, couldn't someone have just picked up the phone, called Smith & Wesson and said, "Hey, we need a 4-inch Model 29 for Clint Eastwood to use in this new movie." The idea that they couldn't find one in a shorter barrel length just doesn't seem reasonable to me.

And why couldn't they have loaded the gun for bear? I would have been much more impressed with a heavy roar, thundering recoil and a blast the size of a football field.
 
I'm pretty sure in Magnum Force when he tells the young cops he's shooting 'light specials' he's just referring to his target loads. He said they give him better control, and of course they are talking about target shooting.
 
I was thinking that "light special" refered to "44 magnum light special". This was the classical "police load" (240grX900-1000fps), in my mind.
It would be a good load for police use, indeed. Moderate recoil, good penetration and stopping power.

But, of course, the only one who said the true to us would be the author.
 
I was thinking that "light special" refered to "44 magnum light special".

Actually, Remington had the "Midrange" load whose ballistics are as you describe. That is probably what Milius meant him to say.
 
Skeeter Skelton reported that because the 29 was in such high demand, and each in the production run was already accounted for, when the producers contacted Smith & Wesson they refused (ethically) to pull one off of the production line to give to Paramount (sic).

An armorer then picked out the pieces and assembled one by hand so the producers could have the hotter-than-a-Texas-summer model 29. It served not only to cement the S&W brand name but to further whet the appetite of Maggie hunters even more.

Interestingly, Skelton reports that within months of the first Dirty Harry movie coming out, one could find many examples of 29s fired less than one box of ammo. Apparantly they didn't take seriously the warning that if fired correctly (perhaps the line should have been "incorrectly") it would remove fingerprints.

If you want a citation for this reference, I'll look for it later. It's either in HOGLEGS, HIPSHOTS & JALEPENOS or GOOD FRIENDS, GOOD GUNS, GOOD WHISKEY.

Q
 
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