French 1916 Berthier Carbine

[gurn]

Good info Virdea and welcome to the forum. A science fiction piece? Do tell more info on that, sounds interesting!

[Virdea]

gurn, I wish I could tell exact stuff, but I have an NDA to think on. Pure paranoia, but no one wants to have anything blabbed when funding is on the line.

I can say that I am setting the Berthiers up for a post-modern, blank firing capable, heroic gun for rough screen use. It is safer to use a Berthier base since 8mm is not something you can buy in the store, so it is easier to control and keep safe on set - a major concern. For most scenes the Berths will have filed down firing pins in them - when they have to be manhandled or dropped or just carried by absent minded actors. In one scene where they have to be shot from an otherwise dangerous angle a CO2 cartridge will expel powdered black talc out the front of the rifle and the chamber - the gas fed into the bolt and the bolt sealed with rubber gaskets - unless that scene can be dropped and instead done in post (my preference). In most cases the weapons will not need to load multiple shots (again safer) but in one case the hero fires twice in a row and will have a stripper clip retained in the weapon, and a block to keep it from dropping out and showing up in the shot.

The Berths will not be billed as Berths, and I have some butchered stocks to keep them from looking like them - which I intend to further butcher, but some sort of hand-made, no-two alike, bubba gun in the post-holocaust world. Interestingly the bad guys will be carrying MAS-36 - these are real nice to use on set because the ammo is even hard to find for owners, and the firing pin is easy to remove and reassemble - no need for filed pins. Leather wraps and leather shoe laces keep them from looking like the real thing, and even if they get recognized the average audience member only knows the M16, the AK47, and everything else...

[desdem12]

Great info on the berthiers. Good luck on the film and welcome to the forum.

[gurn]

Sounds cool and would love to hear more about all of it as you are able too. Please keep us up to date. Those little details that only someone in the business would know are fascinating!

[Virdea]

Yeah it is harder to use guns on set than you might imagine. All of my movies use student actors and crew so safety is essential. When I read a script the armorer and I make a list of ever shot with a gun in it and first ask do we need it and then ask how we can be safe. In Disrupted Gears we had a scene with a Glock to the cheek of an actor so we used a Glock cut from lucite painted black. The blank firing version had a solid ported barrel that for safety was stainless steel. A dropped scene had the bad guy taking his gun apart - that was a real Glock with a filed firing pin because the actor had to snap the trigger. A revolver never actually fires in the movie - it is all special effects. Also because it was shot thirty miles from civilization we had to drop a wire move that had the person shot falling backwards - too dangerous to even have some fall backwards without the right gear. Few people except shooters really appreciate how dangerous even blank firers are.

[Virdea]

One aside for the owner of a m16 Berthier. They are hands down the best scout rifles ever made - unless you carry a cut-down MAS36 which is a near runner up in the rugged ugly bolt-action category. Remember though, if you are like me and you use it a lot single shot - do not press the bullet into the chamber, drop it into the tray - you can break the extractor by closing it onto a round in the chamber.

[shoto2758]

Very interesting. Thanks for the information..


And welcome to our forum..

[Junk Yard Dog]

Welcome to the board, it's good to see people appreciating these little carbines at last, I took a lot of crap back in the day for going out of my way to pick these up, sometimes from owners who didn't even want money for them. Very light and handy, easy to carry, and with more than enough punch to get the job done. Bubba did have a field day with them in the 1950's and 60's until ammo went dead or became hard to find, I saw many butchered into who knows what.

[Virdea]

Welcome to the board, it's good to see people appreciating these little carbines at last, I took a lot of crap back in the day for going out of my way to pick these up, sometimes from owners who didn't even want money for them. Very light and handy, easy to carry, and with more than enough punch to get the job done. Bubba did have a field day with them in the 1950's and 60's until ammo went dead or became hard to find, I saw many butchered into who knows what.

The 8x50r is a great round - like the 30-30 it can do about everything a scout rifle needs. And in terms of tough the carbine is a hammer.

[Junk Yard Dog]

I load the round myself, it's useless trying to find surplus that will still fire, and Privi loads can get expensive, I do use their brass. The 8x50r is in the same class as the 7.92mm Mauser, not surprising being that the Germans stole the round from the French in the first place and just reworked the case. I currently have three assorted Berthier carbines, and a couple of Lebel ones also, but they are a bit heavier.

[Virdea]

From my ammo box.

1 - For size comparison, the .35 Remington round.
2 - 8x50r 175 grain soft nose. Loaded by Buffalo Arms.
3 - 8x50r 185 grain soft nose. Loaded by Graf.
4 - 11x59r 385 grain lead. Loaded by Buffalo Arms.
5 - 7.5x54 175 grain soft nose. Hand load for MAS 1936.

The 11x59r round was the parent case for the 8x50r and is an example of the French taking great pains to save money. When the French went with metallic cartridges they designed the 11x59r to be easily used in a bored out 11mm Chassepot Pin Rifle. The new round used gunpowder and the simple conversion of the Chassepot to the Gras cost only a few dollars and could be quickly done in French arsenals. Then the French developed Poudre B, and all their weapons were obsolete. To make conversion of all their rifles easy, they designed the 8x50r to use the same cartridge base diameter as the 11x59r, and the 11x59r became its parent case. A few Mle 1866/74 were converted to 8mm in WW1, making these weapons that were converted to a more modern calibre not once but twice.

[Greasemonkey]

Nice piece Shoto, no French carbine yet , but I do have a Chatellerault Mle M1907/15 in 8mm Lebel.

One aside for the owner of a m16 Berthier. They are hands down the best scout rifles ever made - unless you carry a cut-down MAS36 which is a near runner up in the rugged ugly bolt-action category. Remember though, if you are like me and you use it a lot single shot - do not press the bullet into the chamber, drop it into the tray - you can break the extractor by closing it onto a round in the chamber.

Ugly , heck I love'em I've had no issues getting ammo, either the 7.5 French or 8mm Lebel.

What happens to arms used in movies, are they destroyed, sold or what I remember seeing the rifles from The Last Samurai for sale a while back.

[Virdea]

There are three classes of weapon props commonly used for movies - rentals from property firms, armorer provided weapons, and custom made weapons. Of those prop weapons come in several types and classes.

Break away props are expendable - they are made from blown styrofoam (for example) and cannot hurt the actor when used to clobber one on the head. I have used a styrofoam weapon on set and they break easy but it is better to break one rather than an actor.

Resins are the next class. Most weapons on set are resins. They are mass produced, painted, but cannot be shot close up. An extra with a resin rifle pretends to shoot it and since directors like me are often using narrow DOF no one notices. If it is noticeable the shot ends up on the floor and we use another. I tag my resins with green tags and actors, with proper training, can use resins to learn handling characteristics. They can take them home (I give them padded Porta Brace tripod bags to avoid screaming gun to their neighbors) and can get used to having them in their hands. Extras almost always have resins - you hand them out by the hundred and take them back in if needed. You would be surprised but people can hurt themselves with resins - so extras that flip them around or act unprofessionally are carded and tossed from set - at least on my sets. A person on my sets that has to use a resin for anything but basic fake firing gets different credit than an extra that is a spear carrier and I treat them like extras with spoken lines.

Heroic dummies are next. They can have their actions racked, can sometimes be loaded with dummy ammo (or even real ammo if the have no firing mechanism), and they look real even fairly close up. Students like to use air-softs but i do not trust these on set and never use them. Usually I and my armorer make our own heroic dummies from gun parts and then install filed firing pins or leave the firing pin out all together if it can be gotten away with. Heroic dummies get tagged with orange tags on set and may not retained off set by the actors. They are passed out and collected at the start and end of scene sequences. Sometimes I arrange for an actor to have a heroic dummy at home for a while to learn to do things with them that the part requires. It takes a lot of practice to look like a confident cop or a scared kid with a gun, and they get this practice in front of a mirror, so a de-milled heroic piece is great to take home. All actors with heroics take an 8 hour safety course before being allowed to use them. These guns are orange tagged.

Heroic shooters are used only in scenes that need them. There are all types depending on what type of camera angle, shot, and scene they are used in. I make my own, most people rent them as they are needed (which must have a trained armorer on set to allow). On my sets, when an actor is to use a heroic dummy it is a stunt and must be closely coordinated. Actors will do most of their scenes with a resin or a heroic dummy. When a scene calls for a firing sequence the actor is so informed (and probably knows from reading the script and the shoot schedule). When they are blocked and lit with a resin they then surrender it and hold up both hands in the air like a stick up. The armorer calls hot set and the DP, myself, and the armorer designate range safety rules with everyone on set required to listen to the rules. The armorer can stop shooting at any second by calling safety. The armorer's assistant then moves from actor to actor with cased, loaded weapons, handing them to the actors, who takes them in the grip they will be holding them in for the scene. Actors use both cheating and range safety at the start of the scene, and no blocking is done where a blank can be let go within a cone 20 degrees wide and 200 meters long of a living person. When motion is called right after camera speed the actor takes on their stance and starts moving as they practiced. On action they perform their task - shoot the rounds allotted or whatever. On cut they hold the weapon and both hands in the air and have it taken from them for reloading and move back to position one, where they repeat if needed. All blank firers have a red tag that is removed before being handed out, and replaced when returned to the case.

Not all sets are as safety conscious as I am but I work with a lot of students. At one time live weapons were used on set with live bullets. James Cagney in one scene hides under a car when two stunt guys fire real tommy guns at it.

Rental weapons at the end of the shoot are returned to their rental house. Resins are usually destroyed for liability reasons unless they look sic-fi enough. Most people do not want the PR hassle of someone taking one of your props and robbing a gas station with it.

I sell my heroic prop weapons when I am done with them if I made them myself, but I use, for liability reasons, a gun store or FFL and keep the transaction on the books and the buyer has to sign a quit claim taking responsibility for the future use of the weapon. Most prop stores NEVER sell their stock for fear of setting competition up in business, they destroy even stuff that has no real danger of misuse. The exceptions are collectables sold for auction to good causes, where the chance of the prop showing up in a new movie is slim.

By the way, a little known secret is that some petite actors get 3/4 size prop weapons to make sure the audience does not know how short they are. The use of these props is top secret - contracts stipulate cosmic security for this, and the prop master who releases this information is bound for unemployment.