https://thegreatmodel8.net/

Our favorite rifle is a movie star. I happened to watch the film Public Enemies this last week end. It is the story of John Dillinger and Melvin Purvis. In many of the scenes in the film a Model 8 is present in the hands of lawmen. I saw this film in the theater some time ago but never noticed it. This time around I was able to pick it out on several occasions.

Chris Peck was the Property Master for Public Enemies. He is a great Prop master for that type of movie because he is an armorer himself and a member of the American Entertainment Armories Association. In a movie that put than many period guns into the hands of that many actors, making sure your prop master is a armorer was a key staffing choice that Nathan Crowley made and really did wonders with the feel of the film.

The most number of weapons I have ever had on set at the same time in a shoot was three and that was three to many (guns on set are a major pain in the arse). They had in some shots thirty weapons ranging from 03 Springfields and BARs, to customized weapons modified to make them period accurate, simulating weapons actually used by the principals. I understand from water cooler talk that they had 2-3 hundred guns in their armory.

They also had some of the most experienced journeyman armorers in the industry, including Vince Flaherty (of the Unit fame), Terry Atchison, and Harry Lu.

By the way, wardrobe in that movie was equally impressive, as was motorpool, and a careful observer will note that every watch used is either vintage or a perfect replica of a vintage watch - none of the time pieces are from other eras (a common money saving thing in property is to simply grab any watch made before 1960).

Re-watched it on Blu-ray & slow mo where every detail is amplified, it was great to see our guns and the attention they paid to detail - always a good thing to my eyes. That adds depth to the movie as did using the authentic locations all of which allowed Depp to really got into the character. A good flick for sure, especially with all the gun play.

Thanks Western for adding some background - had a sister-n-law in the movie/TV business for a while - the inside stuff is often funny and always interesting.

Hey, for you guys interested in seeing the model 8 used in films theres an interesting
site that lists a number of movies ( I believe theres 7 movies that show or feature the model 8)
Go to:

http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/file:remington_model_8.jpg

When you click on, scroll down just a bit to see the list of films, then click on the titles.
Pretty neat stuff!

Another site thats "cool", I think is:

http://wn.com/remington_model_8

Here you find a flock of uploaded film clips on model 8's and also 81's I believe,
interesting stuff if you haven't viewed it before.

By the way, while I'm on a "roll" here,
I should mention while serving in the U. S. Navy ( I'm a thirty year man, 1957-1987)
back in 1969 I was with an attack squadron deployed aboard USS Coral Sea in the western
Pacific. During an import at Subic Bay, Phillipines. I and a bunch of other sailor's
took time off ( we were on liberty actually.) to act as extras in a war film being shoot on base
there. The film was called "To Late the Hero". We learned later it didn't do well at the box office.
However during the filming, we got to meet several of the stars including Henry Fonda, and Michael Cane
among others. The neat thing however was meeting the fellow ( who's name unfortunately I can't recall)
who handled all the weapons and ammo for the production crew. The armorer.

This guy was contracted to the film production crew and owned or at least had possesion of all the weapons
used in the productio0n of the film. The film portrayed combat action between Japanese, British and American
forces during World War Two. This guy had a ton of "correct" weapons typicaly used by all the above forces
at the time. This included rifles, grenades, automatic weapons, helmets and so forth.
I spent a week on the set and got to fire all kinds of rifles and automatic weapons used in the film production.
After the very serious business of 120 or more days on Yankee Station, off the coast of Vietnam, with 18 hour shifts,
and losing aircraft to enemy action over the north, it was a hell of a way to blow off steam.
Shoot guns all day, drink San Miquel at night!

One thing interesting about the Model 8 videos on that sight is that the shooter uses a rather clumsy horizontal down and back loading motion. Many rifles made before WW2 with internal mags were designed to be loaded by taking a vertical cartridge primer side first and pushing in down. In these designs the cartridge guide of the magazine causes the round to move back as pushed down and neatly snap into the rifle. I suspected that this was the case with the Model 8, and it proved to be so, the bullets simply snap in.

Each of the shooters in the videos take the cartridges and worry them in like they are loading an automatic pistol magazine.

Outstanding!! I indeed have "worried them in" had no idea there was a proper way.

Great links and info, funcity for sure!

Imfuncity-

I am not sure if there is a "right way", I just know the cartridge base down method is a design feature of a lot of magazine arms (the theory is that the cartridge is long , so holding it vertical gives you more grip with no need to have your fingers in front of the action for longer). I know that modern rifle magazines also do not have this design feature - you simply press down, and pistol magazines you actually have to worry the cartridge in by design. I was not even sure if it worked in the model 8 until I bought one.

Mr. Mike -

I have only directed and produced one movie, and wrote the scripts to two others. I wanted to get my students practical movie making experience (I was a corporate and sports producer / director professionally). So I raised around 40,000 dollars and employed every student I could making the movies. They had a similar experience to you. Movies are incredibly fun to make.