Is this it?
Posted on 01/11/2007 5:59:47 AM PST by Vor Lady
I need the expertise of the Freepers. Last night at my writer's meeting, another author described a scene from his current work in progress. The gist was that the protagonist could tell that the safety was off and a round was chambered in a weapon that was being pointed at him. The weapon was an AK-47.
Can a person tell by looking at a gun currently being pointed at them that the safety is off and a round is chambered? When I called the man on it, he told me that one could tell a round was chambered by the way the clip was seated. This sounds a little far fetched to me but I'm willing to be taught. How about it fellow Freepers?
Thanks for all your technical help! I know that the great citizens of Free Republic can answer most of life's weird little questions :)
I had a cop tell me one time at a crime scene they found a gun and the safety was 'on'. One of his fellow officers picked it up and quickly found out that the safety was broken. The cops words were 'never trust a gun you do not know'.
Consider this about his "clip" comment. An AK-47 chambers a round through the bolt latching forward (from its rear position), pushing a round forward and up out of the magazine into the chamber. Once the bolt is seated all the way forward, behind the chambered round, the magazine can be completely removed without affecting the chambered round at all.
When the magazine is empty, it does not move. One has to push the release button for it to drop out of the lower receiver. There is no visible change in its position at all between its empty and full (or chambered and unchambered) positions.
As a matter of fact, there is generally (barring mechanical problems with the weapon) no way to seat a magazine in a different position in the weapon at all. If there were, then this second position (which, supposedly, does not chamber a round) would be considered a defective weapon, unreliable for use.
If the bolt is locked back, it generally means that the magazine is empty (though still inserted) and the last chambered round has been fired. the bolt locks back in order to facilitate insertion of a fresh magazine and immediate chambering of another round. One might be able to see if the bolt were locked back, but NOT if the weapon were actually pointed at you.
Bottom line - the other author's scene and his defense of it are decidedly wrong.
BTW - I resigned my Army commission in 1997, and was a range safety officer for my battalion in Germany. I offer this only to provide evidence of some real-world experience in such matters.
So, for us hopeless landlubbers, is starboard LEFT or RIGHT? ;-P
Is this it?
Is the X-cop's name Barney Miller?
Also, AKs go from safe to full auto to semi, as opposed to ours that go from safe to semi to full auto. It would be hard for anyone downrange to judge exactly where it is, unless it's well lit and you're very close. A pretty useless point, anyway, since you can go from safe to accurate fire in a fraction of a second, if you already have your sight picture.
As far as a round being chambered, the only, and I mean, only way you ever know that for sure about the status of a weapon is if you saw the chamber was empty, and then watched someone load. Otherwise, there's no way to know, and only a fool would bet his life that he's facing an unloaded gun.
> So, for us hopeless landlubbers, is starboard LEFT or RIGHT? <
Here's how to remember:
PORT = LEFT, because both words have four letters.
Therefore, STARBOARD = RIGHT.
Pretty much all forms of AK will lock the bolt back on an empty magazine. You can push down the feed on the magazine to drop the bolt back into firing position though. This also depends though on if it's a converted sks or an actual ak. The safety is on the right hand side of the gun and is accessible via the index finger but you need to remember that this stuff is all the same color and would be fairly hard to see unless you are close and have time to actually look at it.
What I am getting to is any Police Officer first of all knows never to assume or expect a gun pointed at them is unloaded or has the safety on. Even if he could discern this he is going against his training to assume such a thing. Not many police officers would survive in the field using this kind of logic when someone is pointing a gun at them.
Round chambered, absolutely not. Safety off, easier if viewing the right side of the weapon, but barely possible if viewed from the front. The last time a weapon was pointed at me, although I know a good deal about firearms, I noticed very little except how big the "hole" in the end of the barrel was. :)
Thats the safety on an AK.
I remember once laughing at novel wherein a character had to reload a .38 special. (After firing eight rounds from the five-shot revolver...)
The author then perfectly described the reload procedure for a semi-automatic handgun.
Come on!
that was a .38 extra-special! ;-P
LOL!
That's her. You can even see the scratch in the oh-so-lovely commie-bloc finish showing the arc of travel between safe and fire.
LOL! Now a .38 Special I know about.
Barney Miller was in NY. 'My cop' is in Omaha.
If I am not mistaken, the AK47 has a selector lever. The lever is on the right side, above the grip, and it is pretty large. From the right side, the character might be able to tell that the weapon off safe. Dunno 'bout from the from the front, but maybe.
You can't tell if there is a round in the chamber as the weapon fires from a closed bolt and you can't see the bolt from the front, anyway.
Also, AK-47s are kinda old. Nowadays they use AKMs (AK-47s modified for easier production - still kinda old...) and AK-74s and AKSs. Your fellow writer needs to do some research.
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