They did a lot of filming up on the bridge, down in the engine room, the Launch Control Center, and what we call "Room 101", which is the Rocket Assembly Room where the payload gets mated to the rocket and tested before we transfer it over to the Launch Platform.
Almost all of the filming was done on 2nd and 3rd shifts, and since I was AWL (Absent With Leave!) when the schedules were made, I didn't get asked to assist the production company while they were on board.
It was mostly assistance to keep them from getting lost, making sure they didn't get into places they shouldn't go, and escorting them to the rest room.
Well, they finished filming over the weekend, and started breaking things down and moving them off the ship Monday morning.
The filming they did was a lot of "action" sequences, and according to my friends who were observing, involved LOT of prop gun shooting.
So much so, in fact, that people were sliding around on the spent brass in between takes before they could get the floor swept up for the next take!
One of my friends said they were taking 5 gallon buckets of brass off the ship!
Even after "cleaning up", they were still finding brass rolling around, so one of my friends saved a spent case for me.
He had no idea what kind of gun they were firing, other than "It was some kind of machine gun!", and since it was a prop gun, might have been rechambered to fire these blanks.
It's obviously a blank from the crimped end, but the head stamp indicates it's a "9MM Win Mag", which I had never heard of.
A wikipedia search turned up that it's considered an obsolete cartridge, designed in the 1970's to duplicate the ballistics of a 357 Magnum in an auto pistol cartridge, sort of like a prehistoric 357SIG, I guess.
So, here's a couple of pictures of a cartridge you may have never seen before.
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Never heard of that one. Thanks for the story & pix, though. :^)
ReplyDeleteI haven't heard of them either.
ReplyDeletePonder, in film, they like flash and bang. In a short barreled automatic weapon, that'd give both.
ReplyDelete5 gallon buckets of brass? Yeesh. Ponder just the amount of scrap metal to recycle...if that's allowed in your neck of the woods with spent brass in the form of blanks.
Oh, it's allowed out here, and seeing as I don't think you can reload blanks because of the crimp, they probably go to the smelter.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the flash and bang from a bigger cartridge, that's what I thought, too.
Guess I'll have to wait for the movie to come out so I can see what type of gun they're firing. Seeing as I know the ship pretty well, I'll know where the scenes were filmed.
+1 on Rev/LL
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