What does “Cocking the gun” actually do in movie scenes. Why wouldn’t you just pull the trigger?
In: Engineering
This is a trope that resulted from the function of one of the earliest popular guns, and works really well as a storytelling device so it’s preserved for modern guns where it makes no sense.
The Colt Single Action Army or Peacemaker was as the first name states a single action gun. Single action means pulling the trigger does one action, which is releasing the hammer to strike the firing pin and fire a round. Because in the original design, the hammer strikes the firing pin directly, if the hammer is struck hard enough it can fire a bullet even when the trigger isn’t pulled (modern replicas often eliminate this with a more complex firing pin).
This mean that the gun was often carried with the hammer “down” or uncocked over an empty chamber.
So to fire, the user would draw the gun then pull the hammer back, then pull the trigger. Often they’d have ways to do this very quickly.
Moviemakers adopted this method of drawing and pulling the hammer back, but in dramatic scenes began to separate the two actions so they could increase the tension in the scene twice (once when the gun was drawn and once when the hammer was cocked).
That ability to further raise the drama is such a useful storytelling device, they very regularly use it in movie making today. Even though modern guns are usually designed to cock the hammer when the trigger is pulled, or be safely carried with the hammer cocked. So in most movies the cocking of the hammer is purely there for storytelling reasons.
There are all kinds of common things used in TV and movies I wish would just quietly go away. We notice them when they’re there, but most probably wouldn’t notice if they were gone. Your question is right on for one of the big ones.
If a cop was going into a situation where a baddie with a gun was hiding, they’d have their own out, loaded, cocked, and ready to shoot (technical details over 5, but less than middle school here — like lines of fire and trigger discipline and such). Their gun won’t rattle when they raise it. There won’t be a click as they aim. None of that. A *good* movie/TV maker would use that.
In other situations, making the gun ready to shoot can *also* be used to make you nervous. Pulling out a gun, putting the magazine in (see the shiny bullet at the top glint evilly in the half-light?), the sudden noise of pulling the slide back and letting it snap forward again. *This* can tell people it is now dangerous to anyone it’s pointed at.
I have seen a few too many things over the years where working the action of a gun is done for effect — but because of how it’s done, it makes the people look stupid. In Sneakers, the main character is hiding in the ceiling. One of the baddies is in the hallway right below him, with a shotgun. He can hear the good guy’s friends calling him over his earpiece and starts shooting into the ceiling, getting closer to him with each shot. After each, schlick-SCHLACK! of him racking a fresh shell. Head baddie tells him to stop and convinces good guy to come out to save prisoner. He pokes his head out of the drop ceiling and shotgun guy racks the action again, and we hear the spent shell clatter on the floor… But he hadn’t fired since the last time he did that a minute earlier.
Same in Stargate (the movie). The spec-ops team is in the pyramid waiting for the main characters to get back. They’re cooking dinner when everything starts shaking as the bad guy’s spaceship lands on/over the pyramid. Much grabbing of weapons, which already have magazines in them, and they all work the bolts and start cautiously looking around for threats… But one guy does it twice within a few seconds of each other even though no one’s fired a shot yet — let alone emptied a magazine.
a round in a gun had three parts, a bullet (sometimes multiple like in a shotgun shell), some gunpowder, and a primer. when the primer is hit it explodes and lights the gunpowder. when you cock a gun you are pulling back a firing pin that will hit the primer.
as for why do it in the movies, the sound is threatening and seems badass.
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