I know the Brandon Lee incident involved a dummy round where the primer was left on it. It got propelled into the barrel when shooting that scene. Then the gun was filled with blanks and the barrel wasn’t checked, causing the firing of a blank in the next scene to fire the dummy round out of the gun.
Is it possible the deadly round in this case was intended to be a dummy round, but was improperly made or prepared?
Assuming that the gun was used recreationally with real rounds by a random crew member in between scenes, and they left one real round in the weapon, how easy (or hard) is it for the armorer to make the mistake of filling the other 5 chambers with dummies but neglecting to take out the one live round? Assuming that she walks up to the gun with the assumption that it’s empty.
Of course, I understand that’s why it was said to lay out your 6 rounds on the table beforehand. If you’re pulling them out of a box, it’s certainly easier to forget how many you just put in.
We’re told now it was a Pietta 45, probably a long Colt.
Pietta makes 2 basic types of 45lc period revolvers, a percussion-conversion type and a single action army type. Both are gate loaded.
One difference is how the cylinders are removed. Neither is a swing-out cylinder, which I’d guess is a little easier to inspect. The SAA cylinder is removed by pressing a cross bolt in front of the cylinder, and pulling out the cylinder pin. Unless a part is stuck, it’s easy to do. The conversion is a little more complicated, a cross wedge is removed, and the front of the gun, including the barrel is pulled off. The the cylinder can then be removed.
I’d think the most thorough way to check the gun would be to pull the cylinder, which could be visually inspected in its entirety. Since that is cumbersome, these guns are usually cleared by ejecting all the shells and cartridges, setting at half cock, and turning the cylinder a full turn, looking through the open gate, and seeing daylight to through each chamber.
At that point the gun can be loaded with any type of round desired. That procedure would prevent an errant round from being left in the gun from before.
Next, the claim is the gun was loaded with 5 dummy rounds. The rounds have been described as 4 with holes on the sides, and one missing a primer, descriptions of legitimate types of dummy rounds.
The holes in the sides of the rounds could not be observed in the chambers. Therefore, to check the gun it would have to be cleared again, the rounds inspected and reloaded. Anyone handling the gun would have to do that if they were to certify the gun was safe.