Making Blanks

[LoneCoon]

A friend of mine is shooting a movie with some action sequences and asked me if he could use my guns. Fair enough. I trust him enough to be smart about it, and I'll be there to supervise.

He wants realisitc gunfire though. So I told him I'd look, but not to count on it.

So the question I present to you, is it possible to hand make blank ammuniton?

 

[griz]

Yes it is. I have done it in 357 mag. Here is a thread about it:

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=204050

What caliber are you going to use and are you willing to use black powder? BP in a revolver is the easiest route, but not everybody wants to clean up the soot. If it's for a semi it will be much more complicated, assuming you want the gun to cycle.

 

[LoneCoon]

Thankfully, it's just revolvers and my Marlin 1894c. I don't have any "period" auto pistols.

Black powder is fine, though would the mentioned loads be safe to fire from the Marlin?

 

[BluesBear]

It's possible but be advised that the report will be very hard on the sound levels of the recording eqipment.
What usually happens is the gunshots cause so much compression that the resulting distortion makes them sound terrible. Depending on the sensitivity of the audio equipment being used the release time may also interfere with other normal sounds.

Try using primer only loads at first. Quite often that's all that's needed. But you'll need to enlarge the flash holes to prevent primer setback. This will also ruin them for regular use.


I had a family member that worked on the old Virginian TV series. They used special cylinders in Colt and Great Western SA revolvers that were bored from the front to look like a .44/.45 but the rear was bored smell and off center to chamber a standard .22 short blank.