The Dark Tower battle with moon clips!

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model 649

model 649

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Just saw the movie. No, it didn't bear any resemblance at all to the books. The fun part was watching the big battle in which Roland uses .45 moon clips, even reloading in the air! Fun stuff. Didn't even need to modify his guns for them, wow!
I didn't see anything about Ranch Products in the credits, however.
Anyone else enjoy that eye-candy?
 
I have checked on this (and other recent movies) at the IMFDb.org website.
Roland's (highly) customized 1858 revolvers:
_ he carries two in two gun rig
_ the revolvers were built by Lance Peters from scratch based on the Remington 1858 but with larger frames to accomodate double action trigger and swing-out cylinders
_ the revolvers have double action triggers
_ they have add-on knobs on the front of the frames in front of the cylinder but its not clear if these are used as cyclinder latches
_ they have cap'n'ball loading levers (I originally thought they were based on 1875 Remingtons which retained a web under the barrel to allow use in existing 1858 holsters)
_ if the shells look skinny, it's becaause they are .38 Spl
_ the cylinder of one gun swings out to the right, the cylinder of the other swings out to the left
_ Roland carries his guns so the cylinders swing "inward" to facilitate reloading with the off hand
_ he reloads with six round moonclips
_ the ammo loops on Roland's gun belt carry loaded moon clips
They promise the IMFDb page will be updated after the movie is in general release, so the focus now is on Roland's revolvers. http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/The_Dark_Tower


The carry rig is cool. (One of the guys at the club uses a Remington 1858 in the blackpowder cartridge matches. Course of fire is ten rounds slow fire, ten rounds rapid fire. He brings four cylinders preloaded five rounds each in leather belt pouches.)
 
It would be interesting to see better pictures of the revolvers. I only suspect, because I have not yet seen the movie, that there were two sets of revolvers - a swing out cylinders non-firing set and a fixed cylinder firing one. The loading levers appear to be a non-functional replacement - just for the looks. I also suspect that those cylinders were made from scratch. Despite the fictional character of those Remingtons it still would be interesting to see how Lance Peters dealt with the double action mechanism and the swing out cylinders. By the way, those frames look like a standard size to me, but the cylinder seems to be a smaller diameter one. About the caliber - I too would choose .38 Spl. instead of .45 Colt, or 5-in-1 blanks. The .38 caliber gives you more space for the rims and for the ratchet, making the conversion easier to deal with.
 
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Yeah, IMFDb. I completely forgot to look there, thanks. Interesting that they are .38's. In the movie he robs a gun dealer for ammo. He says he wants .45 caliber and spots a bunch of loaded moons on a belt. I thought they looked a bit "roomy" on the clips but....
In the books he used .45LC, IIRC.
 
I don't know if I am going to watch it in theaters but the guy who plays Roland is a pretty good actor and Matthew M is usually alright so I will probably see it eventually.

I remember reading the books as a kid and remember reading about Roland opening the loading gate to reload and then later on in a different fight, would "pop open the cylinder" to reload.

Even back then I thought "what the heck?! Either its a colt/ruger or its a DA? Make up you mind, King!"
 
Corpral_Agarn said:
I don't know if I am going to watch it in theaters but the guy who plays Roland is a pretty good actor and Matthew M is usually alright so I will probably see it eventually.

I remember reading the books as a kid and remember reading about Roland opening the loading gate to reload and then later on in a different fight, would "pop open the cylinder" to reload.

Even back then I thought "what the heck?! Either its a colt/ruger or its a DA? Make up you mind, King!"
Click to expand...
I always envisioned Roland using 1875 Remington's back then , so I'm good with the movie depiction. Probably a squib more realistic than Decker's bolt-action CPD pistol, Malcolm Reynold's, ummmm, " revolver", or Hellboy's hand cannon! Lol
 
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The flipping moonclips in the trailer is what convinced me this was going to not be a mpvie I want to see, though I like the two main actors. Sad they couldn't just use an excellent story itself.

I'll give it a shot when it hits Netflix, maybe.
 
Corpral_Agarn said:
I don't know if I am going to watch it in theaters but the guy who plays Roland is a pretty good actor and Matthew M is usually alright so I will probably see it eventually.

I remember reading the books as a kid and remember reading about Roland opening the loading gate to reload and then later on in a different fight, would "pop open the cylinder" to reload.

Even back then I thought "what the heck?! Either its a colt/ruger or its a DA? Make up you mind, King!"
Click to expand...

Me too, that and wondering how his ancient revolver liked the modern .44 mag loads he eventually gets.
 
King knows little about guns and I'm not sure he wants to learn more. Hopefully the film makers know more, or at least entertain us.
 
Cooldill said:
I find it ironic so many are interested when Steven King is vehemently anti-gun and against the 2nd amendment.
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Yeah, he's pretty bad. I didn't realize it until I had read most of his stuff. Though most of his works have very little to do with guns, so his 2nd A stance isn't overtly hypoctitical, so I don't too much care.
 
I did not read the whole series but I read the first 3 or 4 books and it looks like they decided to go super hero. Which he is not. Not going to see it, I doubt I'll bother watching it on cable. I pretty much think King is a terrible human being and not for his gun opinions but the guy can write. I have not seen or heard him out promoting this movie.
 
JohnBiltz said:
I did not read the whole series but I read the first 3 or 4 books and it looks like they decided to go super hero. Which he is not.
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If you read the first 3-4, you owe it to yourself to read the rest just to finish the story. I read the first few back in the late 80s -ish and finished them about 10 years ago. Glad I did. King is a good writer despite his 2nd Amendment stance.

Spoiler alert: he does get decidedly more "superhero" towards the end of the series.
 
I find it ironic so many are interested when Steven King is vehemently anti-gun and against the 2nd amendment.
Click to expand...
I enjoy some of his books - that man knows how to write, but only if he convinces himself to do it. I thoroughly enjoy yet another anti-gun writer - Kurt Vonnegut. On the contrary, I love to reread Faulkner's books also, so... Not everything boils down to pro-gun vs. antis and there are far more important things in this world than guns (like my family, my friends...) so I don't mind enjoying a good story, even if an anti-gunner wrote it.
But, as we participate in a gun forum, I thought that the thread will be focused more on the weapons used by the protagonist, and not on the writer... Myself, I would like to know more about the revolvers used - as a person that is somewhat involved in the movie armorers line of work, I would like to know more about the technical side of those weapons.
 
NIGHTLORD40K said:
I always envisioned Roland using 1875 Remington's back then , so I'm good with the movie depiction. Probably a squib more realistic than Decker's bolt-action CPD pistol, Malcolm Reynold's, ummmm, " revolver", or Hellboy's hand cannon! Lol
Click to expand...

The drawings I have seen in the books of his revolvers depict Ruger Blackhawks, which are very cool too.
 
NIGHTLORD40K said:
I always envisioned Roland using 1875 Remington's back then , so I'm good with the movie depiction. Probably a squib more realistic than Decker's bolt-action CPD pistol, Malcolm Reynold's, ummmm, " revolver", or Hellboy's hand cannon! Lol
Click to expand...
I always thought they were 73's until I put together all the inaccuracies.

Oh and back off Mal's space cowboy gun!
 
Jeff H said:
If you read the first 3-4, you owe it to yourself to read the rest just to finish the story. I read the first few back in the late 80s -ish and finished them about 10 years ago. Glad I did. King is a good writer despite his 2nd Amendment stance.

Spoiler alert: he does get decidedly more "superhero" towards the end of the series.
Click to expand...
It was quite a long time ago when I read them, I would have to reread the whole thing over again and I don't have the interest or time for it. Strange thing since being retired I still find books to read piling up. I really don't understand how I ever found the time to work.
 
I saw the previews and thought it looked like the stupidest movie of all time and remember thinking only morons would go see it.
 
Balrog said:
I saw the previews and thought it looked like the stupidest movie of all time and remember thinking only morons would go see it.
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Maximum Overdrive thanks you for relieving it of the title.

The gun play in the dark tower looks well crafted from the trailers, but moviegoing is an investment of time and money that I can't make for something that got 18% on rotten tomatoes.
 
Contrary to the popular believe, CGI is still much more expensive and time consuming than simply hiring armorers and blank firing guns. CGI is not used "instead of", but when other, cheaper, options are not available. Just because you saw one CGI scene, it does not mean that the whole shooting in this film is computer generated. Furthermore, when dealing with fantasy weapons it's almost a rule to build one set of non-firing guns that are closely matching the desired looks to be used in close up shots - loading, unloading, etc., and one blank firing set, that will miss some of the "features" - it's simply much more easyer and cheaper to do it that way. For example - Hell Boy revolver.
 
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