[craigster59]

Filming scenes involving firearms brings a lot of factors into play, namely safety over accuracy. You have to remember, IT"S ALL MAKE BELIEVE. As a person who works on the sets and is involved with the weapons, I think I can give some insight.

First off, as far as "The Shooter" goes, when a director "sets up" or frames a scene, it's like painting a picture. Maybe he preferred the dog to be stage left or right of the actor. The weapon probably shot a 1/4 load blank if it didn't need to "cycle", so not much of a bang. If we go to 1/2 or full load, we take tampons and place them in the animalsr ears (super size for horses) and spray them with "streaks n' tips" to match their fur. Doesn't bother the animal at all, and you can shoot the scene over and over without harm.

As far as hammers on Glocks, that's all "foleyed" in post production sound along with footsteps, punches, doors locking, etc. anything to accentuate the action.

Racking of slides on shotguns, pistols is usually for visual or dramatic license or the simple fact that you don't want an actor who's not very familiar with the weapon to be running around, trying to hit his marks, remember his dialouge, jumping thru windows with a round in the chamber while surrounded by actors and other off camera crew. Accidents happen Very infrequently (Brandon Lee, John Erik Hexum) for the amount of gunplay that happens in movies and TV.

If you PM me your address, I can send you a booklet that is used in some of the safety classes that outlines the ammo and different weapons used by the Motion Picture Industry. It's an interesting read.