Grrl Power #819 – Pew 101
As most of you predicted, Sydney did not bust the range record. Her HUD glasses did help though. Quite a bit, actually. Her previous record was hitting the paper 11 out of 21 times. Now she’s hitting the page with nearly every shot. She just has to dial it in a bit more to hit the actual target.
I’m not sure why I decided to write a page about shooting basics. I myself am far from an expert, and Peggy would have definitely covered this stuff with Sydney. Still, there’s something to be said for repetition, especially with someone who might not have absorbed it the first time. Possibly because she was busy picturing herself as the next John Wick or something.
Apparently Peggy has impressed upon the other “normal” super elite soldier that walking around with a bit more stopping power on their hips is important. I’m not sure .454 Casull is where it’s at, but, those guns can be chambered with specialized buckshot in addition to a variety of slugs, and when it comes to fighting supers, variety can be important.
Speaking of stormtroopers… it would be interesting to see a movie or some long form TV show where the rank and file soldiers aren’t laughably incompetent and are actually crack shots. I don’t know if it could actually be done. You’d have to either write any encounter with them where the heroes have some amazing tactical or technological advantage that lets them pull a victory out of their ass, or the heroes would have to be so good that they would have to be that universe’s equivalent of superheroes. I guess that could be done, but then what’s the point of having the canon fodder all be marksmen if the heroes are immune to gunfire?
You ever notice that stormtroopers are all amazing shots when they’re shooting at a Jedi who is holding a lightsaber? It would be harder to deflect shots if every other shot was coming at your legs, or just barely close enough to your side that you’d risk a scorched elbow, but when a Jedi is holding a lightsaber, every stormtrooper in the world can hit center mass every time. But if the Jedi holsters his saber, the troopers all automatically shoot wide. I guess they like aiming at the bright thing.
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Wow! A .454 Casull! That’s THE handgun!
Good in case you run into a Tyrannosaur…
I was into big handguns after the Dirty Harry movies came out and did some research…
Wrong the .577 Tyrannosaur is mean for hunting dinosaurs. The .454 is meant for bears and supers that don’t understand the term “stop resisting” .
Dirty Harry was pretty accurate for its time period. Where the story was based on Zodiac Killer case, that would place DH in the late 60’s to early 70’s when .44 Magnum was indeed the most powerful handgun cartridge in the world.
I love revolvers, but I too would be scared just to try out .454 Casull, or at least would only do so from a heavy gun with a long barrel. I tried .357 Magnum out of a 25 oz. gun with 3″ barrel and it was NOT pleasant. I tried .44 Mag from a 7″ barrel heavy gun and it was surprisingly okay. Weight and barrel length go a long way in making these powerful cartridges manageable but they generally still turn handguns into hand cannons.
Muzzle brakes help too. Not much, but every little thing helps with the hand cannons.
So does a proper hydro-pneumatic recoil absorption system.
I’ve just fallen in love with Seneca. Last panel, “Yes.”
Still kind of a pea-shooter compared to the BFR revolver line from Magnum research.
For example, this one’s chambered for 45-70…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cnv9E_QeOa8
I guess pea-shooter is a little bit of an exaggeration. Chambered for the .450 marlin tho…
Hey, we don’t know what kind of peas you’re used to. No judgements here.
45-70 is big but a black powder cartridge. 2100-4000 J. It also needs that nearly rifle length barrel to get that energy. The .454 Casull is a smokeless cartridge with 2000-3000 J. Besides there are revolvers in .50 BMG. Not very useful but still.
Ummm and what is Maxima’s big pistol for then?
It’s for supers that have a bit more “invulnerability” than most. even so, Max’s finger packs more of a wallet.
It’s called the Rex Machina & there’s a better look at it at DaveB’s Deviant Art page: https://www.deviantart.com/davebarrack/art/Rex-Machina-254074351
Also, as Sydney learned first-hand, Max’s finger may be a deadlier weapon than any firearm, but a gun still gets across the message “I am about to ruin your day” far more effectively than pointing a finger does.
Exactly. Maxima explicitly points out what the gun is for: intimidating people who are just not going to process Max pointing her extremely more dangerous finger at them as a threat the way they’ll process a huge firearm.
Regarding Stormtroopers, they could have made them less of a joke. Granted, the poor shots in “A New Hope” could be played off as them allowing the heroes to escape due to the tracker on the ship. That does not excuse the shooting in “Return of the Jedi”.
No, they weren’t deliberately missing in AnH.
Ordering soldiers to not fight their best during a possibly dealy fight tends to have a negative impact on morale. Among the Survivors, thatt is…
Sith aren’t know to care or leave survivors.
Talking about their own survivors
I’m pretty sure the canon answer in AnH is the stormtroopers were missing on purpose. Just compare their performance in other parts of the film, or in ESB or R1.
As to morale, the sith are big believers in combinations of training and mind control, which is why the Imperial troops are not very bright but fanatically loyal.
As to how to show that in a film, the ending of AnH was perfect- the rebels got blasted into chowder left and right. it means you go through a lot of supporting charcters, but so be it.
I’m pretty sure the canon answer in ANH was “I can’t see a thing in this helmet!”
What is more impressive, a terminator walking through a hail of gunfire all around him, or a Terminator being hit by a squads fusilade and advancing nevertheless?
In my option … I think something like this for the storm troopers (or clone troopers) would be cool (Yes I know this if from War Hammer 40k)
https://youtu.be/VI9c_PbdfD4
That’s the other side of the stormtrooper trope, really. If the target is vulnerable to being shot, they can’t be hit unless dramatically appropriate. But if the target isn’t particularly vulnerable, then almost every shot will hit them.
For that matter, remember the strip about Wolverine and his ability to attract swords?
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-126-what-if-the-thing-hes-best-at-is-getting-stabbed/
I find that Seneca’s preferred firearm being a .454 Casull is impressive. Those things are wrist breakers for most ordinary folk.
tbf, if you’re one of ARC-SWAT’s support troops and a non-super, you’re STILL not going to be “Ordinary.” Probably pretty likely most of them’ve spent time in Delta Force and such.
Sydney needs to straighten her elbows prior to aiming. Speaking of which, shouldn’t her glasses be registering a new firearm?
…where did that churro come from? Is a food vendor following Seneca around?
https://youtu.be/iU3JLm1u5Oc
Seneca actually has Hammerspace as a superpower, but only for handheld food items kept in a specific cooler.
It’d be a decent explanation for her constant eating (in every frame we’ve ever seen her in). Supers probably all have high calorie requirements, but so far it’s her only defining feature.
Where are Seneca’s ear protectors in that last panel? I don’t think I see any plugs …
I was wondering the same thing. I suspect that hand cannon is very loud.
Maybe she ate them?
Believe there is a Star Wars movie as you described: it’s called “A New Hope”
Old Ben described the Troopers as being superb shots when they came across the Sandcrawler, and when they were fighting the normal Rebel grunts they were great shots, it was just when fighting against Han and Co they ‘magically’ stopped being so good, almost as if Han and Co had magical Plot Armour or something…
Or they allowed them to escape due to the tracker on their ship
Like said ‘MPA’
FFS Guesticus, it’s not Plot Armor when the whole plan in the movie was 1. chase the rebels around the ship a bit while we 2. install a tracking device, then 3. herd them toward the landing bay we towed their flying-saucer-with-a-dildo-shaped-cockpit-slapped-on into, so they can 4. “escape” and 5. lead us to the rebel base.
They expressly said that was what they were doing. Obi-wan expressly said stormtroopers were well known for their precise shooting, and Leia expressly said “They let us escape.” Lucas is not a subtle writer. It’s not “plot armor,” it’s the actual, literal, plot itself.
If the troopers shoot the rebels, they can’t lead the imperials to the rebel base — they have to miss every shot for the plan to work.
What do you think ‘Plot armour’ is? It’s when the plot requires them to not die
Plot armor is usually used to indicate that the only reason the characters survive is that they need to be alive later in the movie. That is, there’s no reason in-universe they shouldn’t be dead, and improbable things happen to make sure they survive for no apparent reason. To give a few salient examples:
1. Domino in Deadpool 2: Explicitly has probability-warping mutant power: NOT plot armor (to be fair, it is poking fun at plot armor, but it justifies her luck by having it be an actual mutant power).
2. Indiana Jones in the refrigerator: No in-universe justification for surviving the heat, shockwave, or impact with the ground inside a ‘frig. Some lampshading of it supposedly blocking the radiation (arguably BS): IS plot armor.
3. Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, C-3PO and R2-D2 all surviving to escape the Death Star: called out by Leia as ridiculously improbable in the movie, at the time and explicitly stated to be the intended result by Vader and Tarkin in the movie, at the time: NOT plot armor, but Lucas’ writing and scripting is bad enough that people read it like it is. To be fair, Leia was right to call it out as being allowed to escape, and if you reject her opinion and accept the opinion of the scruffy nerf-herder, that’s not really the fault of the movie, is it?
4. Dread Pirate Roberts/Wesley beating Vizzini, Fezzick and Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride: borderline plot armor, since it’s an obvious ass-pull each time that he’s smarter than Vizzini (and spent years building up an immunity to a poison that just happens to be useful at that exact moment), and a better fencer than Montoya (who expressly spent his whole life dedicated to improving his skill with a sword), and Fezzik almost lets him win. They’re consciously having fun with the idea of plot-armored heroes, though, and the kid who’s having the story read to him does call it out a bit. IS borderline plot armor (some of it is justified in-story, but badly and after the fact), but intentionally done for fun, so the audience rolls with it.
1. That ‘probability-warping’ mutant power was just a way to explain her ‘good luck’ aura, kinda like what Black Cat has (and that is not the ‘real’ Domino, who was Latino, not African-American)
2. Lead is supposed to block radiation (it’s why x-ray technician’s use to wear lead aprons), and the reason he survived the impact was because he was so tightly packed there was literally no room for him to move around and the fridge took the brunt of it
3. It didn’t take a genius to realise they let the Falcon ‘escape’ (only sending three or four TIE’s after them, when they had an entire flight or thirty?). Han was just an arrogant nerd-plucker who couldn’t believe that they were allowed to get away, and not because he was such a hot-shot pilot
And they didn’t need to let all of them escape (and no, don’t count Kenobi’s death, as that was a plot device to prevent Vader from stepping through that door and stopping the escape)
4. Wesley beats Inigo because, while Inigo may very well have been a better fencer (left or right handed), he was not a better (for lack of better term) athlete and Wesley simply wore him out. Fezzik didn’t ‘almost’ let Wesley win, he just underestimate him and wanted a ‘fair fight’ and was relying on his brute strength (Wesley knew, someone that large required more oxygen, so concentrated on blocking of his airways and hoped he would survive the attempted crushing long enough). As for Vizzini and the poison: how do we know that that was the only toxin or poison he spent years building up an immunity to, and it was Wesley who had the Iocaine Powder, not Vizzini
“Star Wars” please. It’s only called “A New Hope” by people who are too young to know there was actually was a time before Star Wars. Retconning the title when they released the prequels (more than 20 years after the movie was released!} was actually more insulting to the fandom than the prequels themselves. I’m surprised Lucas didn’t rename The Empire Strikes Back “The Empire Strikes for the Third or Fourth Time depending upon when you start counting”. And, yes, I too wonder why more people don’t twig to the fact that the Storm Troopers were ordered to let them escape. It’s never made explicit but the whole “Let’s hide a tracking device in the escapee’s ship” plot falls flat if the escapees are all lying dead on the hanger floor.
Lucas’ original intent was to make 9 movies: the middle 3, then the first 3, and then the last 3. The rationale was that the time involved in making the first 3 movies would allow the actors to age enough to play their older characters. After making the first 3, Lucas denied that this was his intent, and that he had only intended to make 6 movies, but there are recordings of him saying this…
Not to forget, it was always “Episode IV, V & VI”
And was around to see ANH on original theatrical release (about a year later, because The Slow Boat to China is still faster than it takes for deliveries to reach us today!)
Star Wars got retitled in 1981, well before the prequels
“A New Hope” was added to the opening crawl long before the prequels. It was some time between “Empire” and “Jedi.”
“And, yes, I too wonder why more people don’t twig to the fact that the Storm Troopers were ordered to let them escape.”
+1. Seriously, Grand Moff Tarkin even *says* that’s what they did.
Governor Tarkin:
Are they away?
Darth Vader:
They just made the jump into hyperspace.
Governor Tarkin:
And you’re sure the homing beacon is secure onboard their ship? I’m taking an awful risk, Vader. This had better work.
Way I’ve heard it explained is basically that they see the MCs as humans rather than targets because they aren’t wearing a uniform.
It’s more difficult to dehumanize the enemy when they’re some kid and some lovable jerk rather than a bunch of soldiers who all look the same or a bunch of faceless aliens that you don’t even need to dehumanize since they aren’t human to begin with.
I read an interesting explanation of that – it said that in ancient empires like Rome they kept the crack troops on the outskirts of the Empire to prevent them from taking over.
The ones they had in the capital, were the not so good ones.
And if the crack troops ever did enter, it meant shit was coming down, and not the fun kind for the one’s in charge
That’s where the phrase, crossing the Rubicon comes from. Generals were not allowed to have their troops on the Rome side of a river named Rubicon. Just crossing the Rubicon with their army was treason.
There obviously WERE generals allowed to have troops in Rome. Consuls and praetors. However, governors of Roman provinces – like was Caesar when he crossed the Rubicon – were not allowed to and were supposed to disband their armies before returning to Rome.
Yes, obviously there were troops in the city, apart from the actual Praetorian Guard, they were not crack troops or those who primary allegiance was to their general
The city itself was basically protected by the equivalent of Dad’s Army: if an army reached the gates of Rome, it meant Rome was about to fall because all the crack troops had either died defending the city or they were the ones advancing
She is going to smack herself in the face with that gun.
I’m thinking ‘Noisy Cricket’ levels of recoil with that handcannon.
Yup.
And we’ll get confirmation that Cora did, in fact, make the new glasses more damage-resistant as well.
When I was much younger, a guy at the range had a. 454 Casull.
He offered to let us fire it if we paid for the ammo.
He’d only load one round before handing it to us. I thought he was kidding until I pulled the trigger and the gun was then pointing at the sky.
I never underestimated recoil after that.
The gun doesn’t have to smack her in the face to be un-fun to say the least.
First time I tried firing .357 Magnum was quite unpleasant. It was out of a 25 oz. gun with 3″ barrel. It felt like I was suddenly enveloped in overwhelming sound and pressure. So that’s what a shockwave feels like.
And this is .454 Casull!
I had a pair of friends with .357s. One was a Desert Eagle with the longer barrel (I’m going to guess a 9″ barrel, but this was decades ago and I have no idea what barrel lengths were available for a DE back then), and one was a revolver, manufacturer not recalled, also with a fairly long barrel. The revolver had the heavier kick, probably due to no action bleed of any of the energy and a lighter weight. But the revolver was also easier to fire accurately because it fit my hand more comfortably and naturally, while the Eagle’s large grip did not fit naturally or comfortably in my hand, and I can palm a basketball.
In addition to what you said about a grip that fits, some people say that while revolvers have a bit more felt recoil because they don’t have a slide to absorb the force, that their barrels are fixed makes them more accurate.
Ultimately, though, I think one should shoot what one likes within reason and leave behind the auto vs. revolver debates.
I’m glad somebody said something about the shockwave. There is a complex interaction between bullet weight, type and weight of propellant, and the gun itself. A compact 9mm with hot +p rounds can be pretty unpleasant. Potentially the hottest revolver I have ever fired was chambered in .45-70. However the gun was cartoonishly large and the mass of the gun mitigated most of the kick. Managing the bulk of the gun was more of an issue than the kick. It is hard to tell how long the barrel is on Seneca’s gun but since it is presumably her carry gun we can assume probably around six inches. The S&W .500 that I shot did have a substantial recoil but it is manageable. What seems to catch a lot of people by surprise is the amount of muzzle blast. The one I shot had a 4 inch barrel and it doesn’t provide anywhere near enough time for all of the propellant to burn. It had one of those”blow every thing off the shooting bench” blasts. It will be interesting to see if Sydney likes it or wets her pants.
Yeah, jeeze, Seneca, if you’re going to turn her loose with that, at least work on her stance first. Keep those wrists and elbows straight, Syd. Much less drama, and you can get back on target faster.
A Galactus Silhouette? Shouldn’t she be firing the Ultimate Nullifier?
She’s about to . .
What happened to the Darth Vader silhouette? It was plainly visible as her target last strip…
Poor Seneca has been hanging around Sydney too long: poor girl has gone grey!
She use to have lovely brown hair :(
Subtle joke shift from shooting at a Stormtrooper silhouette last page to a Galactus silhouette this page.
Guess Sydney is improving if she can land a few shots on a target as big as him.
Wasn’t the Clone Wars animated section showed the troopers could generally hit what they aimed at?
Those are clone troopers, not Storm troopers. They are, in fact, entirely different groups.
and IIRC they generally HATED each other.
Told ya Sydney wouldn’t even keep her shots within her own lane: she was targeting Lord Vader last page :P
Of course we all knew those new glasses weren’t going to be the “magic bullet” that made Sydney an ace shot. That would be too easy.
That’s true, in both parts. Still, just over 50% on the paper to almost 25% in the scoring rings and all in discernable groups IS an amazing improvement.
When Luke, Leia, & co were escaping from the Death Star, the Imperials wanted them to escape, so they could use the tracking device on the Millennium Falcon to follow them to the Rebel base. The stormtroopers weren’t trying to kill them, they were herding them. How do you think Luke got pursued through a space station the size of a moon and ended up back at the right hangar?
He was using the Force, obviously.
a .454? I hope she doesn’t end up wearing the front sight in her forehead…
While the .454 is big, it is only a .45 caliber magnum cartridge. Uses a similar sized bullet to a .45 ACP or .45 colt…or the .460 Smith and Wesson [just because they named it different doesn’t mean the bullet is any bigger, its just to keep people from putting the wrong cartridge in cause they saw “.45” and didn’t know to ask for different].
Oh, there is also the .460 Rowland which is a .45 ACP with a thicker case and a powder charge that would over pressure weaker guns…
None of them runs a “buck shot” round. The closest to that is snake shot but its REALLY short range [rifling makes the pellets spread out fast] and the pellets are so small any super that could take a gunshot would think he was getting hit with lead confetti.
The .410 shot shells have a buckshot option though…but again, if you’re shooting at supers you may want something with more oomph as they are no equivalent to, say, a 12 Gauge shotgun…
Don’t get me wrong, the .454 is going to rock her socks off [and will actually fit in the .460 S&W revolvers as a LIGHT load along with the .45 Colt], but there are really no buckshot loads for it…though I can imagine other “specialty” loads…it IS a big bullet…
May I present, the Rossi 12 gauge pistol…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQR21EcH8Rs
You… do remember that they would be, potentially, facing other than Supers, right? You know, Supernaturals, like were’s, and ‘lead confetti’ could, instead, be ‘silver confetti’ (also to be remembering how Kat almost had kittens when she saw some of the load that was fired at them in the Council Chamber)
as dangerous as it would be, might not penetrate enough to do significant damage and just piss off a Were’
…though if you change that out for silver FLECHETTES….then you have something there. Good call.
In that case I would certainly say go up to the .460 for the larger case capacity [its just a little short of the aformentioned .410 shogun shells] and higher operational pressures…
Maybe pair it with a .45 Raptor rifle or carbine and mod the revolver to take those in full moon clips [same dimensions and loads as the .460 S&W, but rimless and feeds in rebarreled .308 Winchester/7.62 NATO rifles]
So when can we get Kylie’s Chiappa Rhino 40DS?
Regarding the invotive: is it just me, or does one of Kenya’s eyes look a little ‘off’?
Not going to say which one, if no one else notices anything, then there is obviously nothing wrong (except for me, being wrong, as usual)
No, you’re not wrong, just that Kenya’s not looking at us, she’s seen something over our right shoulders.
That’s… not what stood out for me
Looks like Sydney never played Half Life or she’d know that the revolver has quite the kick animation. But it’s what I expect from a person who reloads without taking cover first. :-)
“A New Hope” they needed to let han and co. survive the encounter so that they could lead them to the rebels, stormtroppers are the “BEST” trained troops in that universe… and as Guesticus wrote Old Ben described the Troopers as being superb shots when they came across the Sandcrawler. do remember they work for THE Darth Vader, who kills those who fail him… would you be willing to F. up the ruse and shot the bait if he is behind you…
I hadn’t thought of that, it makes the empire’s plan on the death star a lot better.
However, the stormtroopers turned out to be LOUSY shots when they were trying to prevent Han Solo and company and the Millennium Falcon from taking off from Tatooine. They were under no such orders to allow them to escape during that firefight, yet none of the stormtroopers could hit the broad side of a bantha that time.
https://youtu.be/VLAIBclQIFQ
Im a little bit amazed that she didnt get taught how to pull a trigger in her first lesson.Though I honestly think her glasses based improvement is STILL way better than it should be.
In all honesty in this universe a handcanon might be useful against a super but most supers weve seen so far could be easily killed with standard police issued weapons so anything that can resist those probably wont even feel someone going Clint Eastwood on their arse anyway.
+1
However, some things need to be constantly drilled for a while…
Pretty sure most supers on the team are capable of laughing off conventional weapons. (Even if it doesn’t involve standard enhanced durability.)
In the cast page of this site alone theres a minimum of 6 supers that could be killed with the most bog standard dumpster dove 2nd hand handgun you could possibly find.Though if youre referring to skills and abilities as a defence thats still not bullet immunity and a sniper could literally take their heads off before they even realised the sniper was there.
That doesn’t seem like something an arm of the militairy would want to gamble at.
Especially, because in their Vehemence fight they actually encountered their fair share of bullet resistent supers.(bullet proof supers don’t matter for gun buying habits.)
Drawing on my memory I would point to: stone girl(actually got shot and very irritated), Verhemence(shot and not happy), prepared telepath, prepared budget halo, (possible needs to be prepared)defence guy and claw guy, super speeder.
For the rest they ofcourse they have encounterd some other bullet resitstant stuff like: vampire lady, more vampires, Achilles, (probably)Deus body guard, (maybe)prepared magic users, Halo, (maybe bullet proof)Maxima, (sometimes)Varia, (maybe)Anvil, (probably)marble maiden and (shown by comined effort super speeder and Dabbler)Harem
As for snipers: it’s not always possible to have an unexpected sniper ready in case of an active bullet countering super.
This is all without considering the smart idea only people and organisations where by lots of money flow seem to think about: to wear a suit to corrigate for what you don’t have.
Interestingly, now that Seneca handed Sydney a revolver, she should have told her to pull at the first joint of her finger, not the finger tip. Then again, Sydney probably cocked the thing for single action firing, so the finger tip should be fine.
We shouldn’t be too surprised at Seneca’s choice of caliber. IIRC, Peggy’s sidearm is a similarly large hand cannon. In a world where you’re fighting supervillains and monsters, the choice makes sense. Reminds me of the anime series Blood+, where one of the good guys- an ordinary human agent of the CIA IIRC- uses a S&W Model 500 (fires the .500 S&W Magnum) ‘coz that’s what it takes just to wound the vampires of that world
I think The Presidents Vampire book series did it best with showing a squad sent to deal with a vampire packing automatic shotguns with depleted uranium shot in them.The theory was that if they filled the entire area with chunky salsa levels of death it would slow the vampire down enough to finish it off.
Maybe Sydney should’ve started training with a dart gun…!?
The Taurus Raging Judge. Capable of firing .45 long colt, .454 casull, and 410 shotgun shells. Why? Cause sawed off shotguns are illegal, silly!
Check out R.E.D the movie. One of the characters is very good shot and it’s Helen Mirrim!
Also there are several anime that have chars that are ‘crack shots’ as you put it, but the names of them escape me just now. /brainfade
Loving the comic btw, Sydney has grown in leaps and bounds since I’ve been reading.
Since you’re talking RED, you should be thinking about Marvin. Marvin’s revolver there was the S&W Model 460v which is almost the same as Seneca’s .454 Casull revolver.
“Bunny” (or Victoria, if you prefer) is an excellent shot (for instance, the car scene in RED 2), but the scene in RED where Marvin hits the oncoming shell and detonates it is an almost impossible shot (according to Mythbusters it’s ACTUALLY impossible; the fuse doesn’t activate that close to launch and without that the shell won’t explode). He even waits for her to fire before shooting the shell, instead of just shooting her in the head.
On the other hand, RED is based on a comic book, so things (particularly physics) get bent a little further out of true than is “normal” for most movies.
Bent elbows, Poor Sydney is gonna wear it.. Good description of trigger manipulation… far better than the Squeeze the trigger dont pull it – Thanks instructors, that really clears things up for me…
I’d like to see a side-on of Syd shooting. I don’t know if she’s leaning in as she should be, or leaning back as some girls do…
It’s a balance thing, so that should be “leaning back as some light people do…” And you usually see this with rifles, not so much with pistols. Because again, a light person trying to balance the mass of a 10-15lb rifle is likely to lean back.
Where do you get 10-15lb from a rifle? Even the Lee-Enfield No. 4 only massed 9lb, and that had a heavier than standard barrel. The SMLE mkIII (the most common and longest serving variant) massed 8.5lb on a bad day. However, I will allow you 1lb for a fully charged magazine on both guns. I’m deliberately quoting the Lee-Enfield as it was probably hellishly over-engineered by today’s standards and is recognised all over the world. I’m not familiar with military rifles developed since, oh, 1960 — if there are any, as against “assault rifles” or “machine carbines”.
In any case, being a “light person” myself, I found that at least half the mass of the rifle is up close and personal with the body. The Colt M1911 puts, what, 3lb in your hand with ammo in the magazine, with nothing to support it against the body. I’ll argue the unsupported mass of a medium/large pistol is harder to “balance” than a big ol’ rifle.
So I’d still like to see if Syd leans into the gun, or back from it.
If you want to see really realistic combat shooting in a movie, watch “Act of Valor”. It’s filmed with and about actual Navy SEALs. The acting is poor to terrible, but the combat scenes are terrific.
Or just watch “Heat”. Better movie, Val Kilmer and Al Pacino, AND the shootout scenes have been used as real world training tools.
Did anyone else think of the firing range scene from Police Academy 2 or just me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrPvUd7E9HU
Tackleberry!
Stormtroopers aren’t even particularly bad shots when you consider that they’re not firing at a shooting range.
Should not have given her more than one shell at a time. She’s too green for more with a beast like that.
Eh, it’s a revolver, and I sincerely hope she’s firing single action. I doubt she’ll have any trouble stopping after the first round.
It’s nice to see a comic involving the use of guns made by someone who knows something about guns.
You do realise, that this comic ain’t that, DaveB Himself said he is ‘far from an expert’
There’s a big gap between “knows something” and “far from an expert”. Based on what I’ve seen DaveB is in that gap and knows more than a lot of comic artists.
Well, considering ‘knows something’ starts off at the level of: “it makes a loud noise, and people can be hurt from it”, that is a huge field to be in
That is not putting DaveB down, just putting it into perspective
Ah. but note that Magnus wrote “knows something” not “expert”. There is a large gap between “expert” and “utterly pig-iigmoramt”, which is what most comic writers are about guns.
Well, if you compare this to recent shooting range scene in Leif and Thorn from Erin Ptah, including her admission that she looked up references based on the pose, then just used the gun they had, so she don’t know WHAT gun it is …
Having seen security guards do firearms training at one of the ranges I frequent, I’d say Sydney didn’t do too bad. That being said, the only way to get better is to practice a lot, and analyze and correct your mistakes. With an unlimited ammo budget and a handy range, shouldn’t be that hard. I imagine a panel with Sydney in front of a pile of brass, and a target with one big hole in the center. Then she ca move on to shoothouses and moving targets.
454 casull you say? Not bad, not bad…500mag also has a nice push. That’s how both feel to me
They’re at the range, where are Seneca’s eyes and ears? She has a churro but no protection? Bad form for Seneca. She should know better.
Those glasses probably should be flashing her a big red WARNING DANGEROUSLY HIGH RECOIL EXPECTED
Ummm… Sydney is a little over 5′, weighs maybe 100 lb, and a .454 Casull has a listed recoil of 2000 ft/lb.
The glasses should be showing something more like “Warning! Firing this weapon will result in serious physical trauma!!” if it doesn’t break her hand or wrist, or crack a bone in her forearm, it’s going to throw her like a rag doll.
As an owner of Sterling Sporter I can say the Stormtroopers have a better chance of success if they deploy the stock!
At least a 454 isn’t the noisy cricket.
Can’t speak to stormtroopers aiming for the bright thing, but… AMA firefighter/EMT, routinely run highway calls for accidents, and can vouch for some significant percentage of the driving public aiming for the parked 50,000lb steel box with more flashing lights than some nightclubs. They don’t hit it (usually…), but watching traffic go by, there’s a disconcerting number of drivers that end up having to swerve away from the truck to avoid hitting it. People tend to aim for whatever they’re looking at, and bright things attract attention.
As I have heard a few driving instructors say, “You will go where you look, so look where you want to go.” If you look at the pillar, you will go to the pillar, which is not really where you want to go. So look at the space beside the pillar and drive through that instead.
There is actually some really decent stormtrooper marksmanship in the recent game Jedi: Fallen Order. They work as a team to surround and try and take the Jedi down too. That doesn’t usually work so well against a lightsaber, but they DO work as team and shoot straight. I was pleasantly surprised by their competence. I guess in the 10+ years between that and A New Hope, the standards slipped quite a bit.
For Sydney giving the gun a scoville rating might be a better option.
Wow, a bit of a firearm lesson. I do admire that. This is stuff I have heard my dad say.
The catch is that if you want stormtroopers to be good shots you’ll need to use them sparingly. If it’s hard for the main characters to survive a fight, they’ll have to avoid them as much as possible and act as if there are risks to those who don’t wear red shirts.
Or you could just focus on a large army that gives the enemy plenty of other targets to kill.