Hello prop people,

This week continues a series of articles on firearms safety. If anyone
has questions or would like to start a discussion about weapons,
don't forget about the new Stage Weapons forum on the discussion
board!

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In this issue:
1. Hedda Gabler Firearms, Part 2
2. Past issues of Prop News

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>Hedda Gabler Firearms, Part 2

To do a quick review from the last issue, I recently had the
responsibility of being the weapons master for our production of
Hedda Gabler at Long Wharf. To give people a better idea of what
stage firearms are like in a regional theatre, this series of articles is
about what my process was in providing weapons and instruction
for this production. Part 1 was about the requirements of the show
and the problems I ran into when trying to rent a pair of Colt
peacemaker revolvers from Centre Firearms in NYC.

Since the guns from Centre were too problematic for us to rent, I
needed to look elsewhere. I ended up finding a pair of reproduction
Colt peacemakers from Collector's Armoury. CA has a nice selection
of blank firing repros that aren't terribly expensive. Because they are
not real guns, they don't have the same legal restrictions on them.
We were able to order them over the phone and have them shipped
immediately. But even with reproductions, you need to be careful
of the rules regarding shipping. Connecticut doesn't allow shipping
of replica modern weapons (produced after 1900). The peacemakers
were made in the mid 1800's, so they could be shipped to CT. Again,
watch those regulations!

Upon receiving the weapons, the first thing I did was take them apart
and give them a thorough inspection. This is the first thing you
should do when buying or renting a firearm. I verified that the barrel
was completely blocked, inspected the action of the hammer and
trigger, and removed the cylinder to examine the chambers. What I
found there surprised and alarmed me.

In almost all of the chambers there were metal burrs left over from
the casting process. A couple of the chambers were completely
blocked by metal! Though the chambers had obstructions, this
didn't prevent a shell from being loaded. Needless to say this was
a really bad situation. If the gun were loaded and fired in its present
condition, two things could possibly happen:

-The metal burrs would be expelled from the sides of the weapon by
the force of the firing blank. The danger zones of these weapons are
90 degrees to either side of the gun, perpendicular to the barrel.
Because the barrel is completely blocked, the force of the explosion
is expelled out the sides of the gun. Anyone in the danger zone
could be hit by small pieces of metal shrapnel, traveling a the
velocity of a fired bullet.
-In the case of the obstructed cylinders, the force of the firing blank
might be contained by the metal blockage. The explosive force
would have nowhere to go. If this happened, the gun could explode,
because it has effectively become a pipe bomb. Now maybe the
metal wasn't thick enough to contain the blast, but I wasn't anxious
to test that theory.

To remedy the problem, I immediately removed the foreign material
with a small metal file. It took some effort, because there was a
substantial amount of metal in some chambers. After completely
cleaning the loose metal out the chambers I felt that the gun was
safe to fire. The next thing I did was give Collector's Armoury a call.

I wanted to make sure that they were warned of the problem right
away, because an inexperienced person could really get hurt if they
tried to fire a gun like the ones I purchased. I talked directly with
their customer service person, and she was very receptive and
helpful. They had been made aware of the problem the day before,
but until I called hadn't realized how serious the problem really was.
They were under the impression that it was just paint blocking the
chambers. She assured me that they were in the process of
inspecting all of the weapons that they had received from their
supplier and cleaning out the blockages in the chambers.

If anyone else has recently purchased firearms from Collector's
Armoury (or anyone else for that matter) please make sure that you
inspect them thoroughly before attempting to fire them! If you do
find a problem, drop me a line and I will give you the number for the
customer service representative. All this being said, I would still
recommend doing business with Collector's Armoury. You can find
decent replicas that (hopefully) won't break your budget.

But be warned! Always give new firearms a thorough inspection
before test firing them. Don't blindly trust your supplier! The
health and safety of you and those around you could be at risk.
Take every precaution you can think of to make the use of your
firearms as safe as possible.

Next week: Testing the weapons and introducing them to the actors

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>Past issues of Prop News

Since many people subscribed to this list have joined us recently, I
wanted to let you know that past issues are always available for
reading. All issues of Prop News are posted on the site in the
"Newsletter" section. Just click the button on the navigation bar
and you'll find what you're looking for! Here's the direct link:

http://PropPeople.com/newsletter

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Sean McArdle
Owner/Webmaster
http://PropPeople.com
propboy@proppeople.com

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Prop News : The PropPeople.com Newsletter Vol. 1, Issue 9 5/1/2000
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