Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Alec Baldwin’s revolver

I’m guessing everyone here thinks the same thing about Alec Baldwin and knew he was lying his a** off when he said he didn’t pull the trigger. And the FBI has confirmed it and now he’s been indicted for manslaughter.

But what intrigues me is the statement that markings left on the cartridge proved the gun couldn’t have been fired without the trigger being pulled. The story also said they broke the thing beating on it with a mallet while it was cocked and it never fired, and that I understand. But what kind of markings left on the cartridge would show if the hammer struck with the trigger being pulled or not? Maybe the deprh of the indentation on the primer? Does anyone understand this?



FBI analysis of Baldwin’s gun

You have to keep in mind that there are several layers of people the storyline goes through between the technicians who do the testing and the final, written summary you see in the media. Those between the technicians and the listeners/readers/viewers don’t usually know schit from shinola about guns, ammunition, ballistics, chemistry, physics or anything else, but they all pretend they do. I long ago gave up trying to make sense of anything technical I see about firearms outside of publications dedicated to same.

Yep. This. ^

Yep.

So Occam’s Razor - the simplest explanation is most likely right. I think that makes sense here.

I think he pulled the trigger, thinking it was a checked out and safe gun, but then made up the excuse on the spot that he didn't pull the trigger, and that it just went off by itself.

Actors are in the habit of assuming that the prop masters wouldn't hand them a loaded gun on a movie set. They are not gun people, by and large, which is why prop masters are hired to make sure actors are never given loaded guns.

The party at fault is really the prop master on set, who's hired specifically to maintain a safe environment with firearms on the set that are going to be handled by actors who are to be presumed not to know anything about guns or safe gun handling.

"Mr. Knotts, here's your gun ... now you are going to point it that way and pull the trigger for this shot."

Early on, there was brief mention of possible sabotage, due to some sort of extreme disharmony among the crew. Then, strangely, nothing more was said about that. But, the fact that live rounds had made their way onto the set does seem to strongly suggest sabotage. Had I been the prosecutor responsible for that case, I’d have had my investigators very thoroughly interviewing every person who could possibly shed any light on that theory, with search warrants requested for live .45Colt cartridges accessible to crew members. While I certainly don’t think very much of Alec Baldwin, I nevertheless see all the attention surrounding his conduct as a red herring.

Prop master should apply at Boeing.

I can't stand Alec Baldwin, really dislike the azzhole. With that said, this sure seems more like a prop master screw-up than an actor screw-up. IIRC the prop master and some crew members had been out shooting live ammo through that gun before the filming of this scene. Somehow live rounds were mixed in with prop/blanks or somehow loaded into the gun in question and then the actor got the gun for filming the scene. If that were true I don't know why Baldwin would lie about pulling the trigger other than lying comes so naturally to him it was his first response.

What kind of revolver was it anyway?

Guy

I think it was an Italian replica of a Colt Single Action Army .45.

Hammer strike on S&W’s and Colts, Rugers is different in SA and DA mode. The hammer in SA actually sets further back and falls farther and a few oz harder in SA than in DA. Pull out a revolver and try it you’ll see the difference. Harder primers like CCI will always fire in SA but not in DA. When I was building comp revolvers I had to set the gun up for reliable ignition in DA as that how competitive shooters work

Single Actions are not applicable.
Rick

All true, but the difference here is that Baldwin was the producer and therefore should have been responsible enough to see that the armorer was competent. Also, there had already been conflict in the crew over safety violations - which Baldwin apparently didn't take seriously. If all those allegations which have been discussed here already at length are essentially true, he bears as much responsibility as the armorer.

Yep. He’s ultimately responsible IMO for the Fuqking IDOT of an “armorer” that he hired.
Do y’all remember seeing that dumb bitch’s photo???🤪 And the crew said she was getting high / smoking dope on the set, too.
Not to mention allowing live rounds on the set, and target practice with said “prop gun”.

And, she only got the job because her Dad was famous Hollyweird, stunt man, fast draw competitor, film advisor Thell Reed.
Who supposedly “trained” his idiot daughter. 🤪

And not to mention the fact that the asswipe Baldwin pointed the gun, pulled the trigger, and killed the Director.

Hope the POS recieves the Maximum Punishment allowed by law. But I won’t hold my breath.

You're making an argument for a civil negligence case against Baldwin, and that argument would depend on whether or not he made a reasonable effort to ascertain the competence of the prop master/armorer. Baldwin's defense would be to demonstrate that the hired person had a good reputation and proper credentials. That's not a high standard for his making a good defense case on that.

What I have heard is the live rounds were on the set by design. Actors would target shoot between sets, for fun and to get the feel of recoil since apparently some of them didn’t have experience with firearms.

It wouldn’t matter to me if Jerry Miculek himself told me he had checked it and that it was unloaded. That wouldn’t keep me from having responsibility to check it myself.

Last I heard, it was a Pietta. Dunno how accurate that report was, though.

For you, yes. The law would hold you to a high standard, since you've lived a life full of firearms experience. That's not the case for actors, however. There's little expectation that actors know much if anything about safe firearms handling, which is why they hire people to be on set to make sure all the guns on the set are unloaded, and that there is either no live ammo on set, or that it's all been accounted for.

Yes, it's certainly an argument for a civil case. But the thing is that none of this happened in a vacuum. You have the previous armorer quitting for a reason. You have others in the crew testifying about safety violation complaints relating to the use of live ammo with the prop gun. On top of that, Baldwin has a long history of movie roles that had him very familiar with the proper interaction and responsibility of the armorer. And....IIRC, he has made comments in the past about familiarity with arms.

I'm not one to say there's a good case for a murder prosecution there, but I think the current charge is justified and winnable. And he didn't help his credibility by lying about not pulling the trigger.

Baldwin should have known better.
His father, a former Marine, and HS teacher and football coach, was also Coach of his HS Rifle Team.

You can almost bet with a Dad like that, he was taught some sort of gun safety.