Current Events > In movies/tv when they cock a gun and then they cock the gun again...

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Is that how guns work? If a gun is already cocked and loaded and ready to fire, it can be cocked again? I know they do it just for emphasis but was wondering.
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in movies when you hear a gun cocking and it's a glock

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of course. i've watched plenty of double cock videos, and the shooting works fine

Usually no. Unless the gun is double action and they are manually pulling the hammer back for a lighter trigger pull, it makes no sense.

Bonus points if its a pump shotgun that gets racked multiple times for dramatic effect.

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There's a scene near the end of the original Stargate movie and I swear a gun gets cocked like 3 or 4 times, it's kinda ridiculous. It's like every time there's a cut, they forgot they already did it so added another one just incase.

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Yeah shot gun, that's one of the guns I was talking about, when the character does that sound with the gun over and over again without ever having fired a shot.
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Itll pop a shell out, wont it?
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Im a brit. Why in cowboy movies, the gunslingers pull back the hammer everytime before their fire their shots? Is it to look cool?

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It's possibly they're decocking it at some point... Though it does seem a bit redundant/pointless unless there's not a round in battery for a semi-auto. Pulling the hammer back on a semi-auto that's slide forward won't chamber a round, so if they pull the hammer back on it they'll just dry fire it if there's nothing in the chamber... so pulling the slide back is needed.

Either way sounds like someone's doofing up somewhere.

You can work the action of a gun over and over but it will spit out an unfired round each time its done (until your magazine is empty)

The hammer/striker part of the gun that is actually cocked will stay as such until the trigger is pulled

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Cobra1010 posted...

Im a brit. Why in cowboy movies, the gunslingers pull back the hammer everytime before their fire their shots? Is it to look cool?

I thought old timey revolvers had to have the lever pulled before every shot.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6OBk9YBLQU

spanky1 posted...

I thought old timey revolvers had to have the lever pulled before every shot.

Yeah, old single action revolvers have to have the hammer pulled back each shot. Double actions though, you can pull the trigger and it will rotate the cylinder for you

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Pitlord_Special posted...

The hammer/striker part of the gun that is actually cocked will stay as such until the trigger is pulled

That's my one theory/assumption, maybe they pulled the hammer back then reset it. Or it's just a weird movie where they think it magically undoes itself, but it's cool/scary so they did it.

saspa posted...

Yeah shot gun, that's one of the guns I was talking about, when the character does that sound with the gun over and over again without ever having fired a shot.

If it's pump action it'll just skip a shell and move on.


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I love how, in Silence of the Lambs, the cocking of the gun completely negated the advantage that Buffalo Bill was supposed to have.

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I like how cocking the gun makes the threat more serious. Like if someone points a gun to your head, you're going to think "well at least they haven't cocked it yet"

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Cobra1010 posted...

Im a brit. Why in cowboy movies, the gunslingers pull back the hammer everytime before their fire their shots? Is it to look cool?

With single action revolvers they hold the trigger and fire the gun by manually working the hammer. That was semi-auto before semi-auto was a thing, or double action with the case of revolvers.
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It's entirely dependent on the gun. The old Maxim machine guns (Or another very old machine gun of that generation, I would need to double check) needed to be manually operated twice in order to load the first round into the chamber. This is very muchan exception and not the rule, though. Guns typically fall into two camps here: They automatically lock up when reloaded, which is less common and more complex mechanically, or they need to be manually cycled in order to chamber the first cartridge. After the first cartridge is chambered, operating the action again will almost always just eject the current cartridge and load another one (With rare exceptions in older guns or single shot designs).

Operating the slide on most guns automatically cocks the hammer if it is a slide operated gun, with atypical exceptions of course. Typically, the only time you would need to manually cock a hammer on a modern firearm is if it's a hammer-fired gun that you just drew from a holster and you need to fire it with precision, or if you're using a old single-action revolver design.

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voldothegr8 posted...

With single action revolvers they hold the trigger and fire the gun by manually working the hammer. That was semi-auto before semi-auto was a thing, or double action with the case of revolvers.

No one would have fanned the hammer in an actual firefight, at least not to any effect. It is extremely inaccurate and prone to malfunction.

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voldothegr8 posted...

With single action revolvers they hold the trigger and fire the gun by manually working the hammer. That was semi-auto before semi-auto was a thing, or double action with the case of revolvers.

Holy shit is that what they're doing? Just holding the trigger down? My whole life when I saw this move I thought they were just timing the trigger pull really quickly.
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EndOfDiscOne posted...

I like how cocking the gun makes the threat more serious. Like if someone points a gun to your head, you're going to think "well at least they haven't cocked it yet"

There's a nice little scene in the second Expanse book where a few characters are in a standoff with some mercs at gunpoint. They're still trying to talk it out, but one of the characters is a scientist and hasn't used a gun before, and he knows from movies that when you cock your gun in a situation like that it shows you're serious and will make people listen to you. Everyone starts blasting instead.

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Sictis posted...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6OBk9YBLQU

Was gonna post this haha

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spanky1 posted...

Holy shit is that what they're doing? Just holding the trigger down? My whole life when I saw this move I thought they were just timing the trigger pull really quickly.

Little of column A, little of column B.

Fanning the trigger was popular in exhibition shooting in the late 1800s and early 1900s when commercializing the mythos of the Wild West and the American Gunslinger were at their peak. It was exciting to watch visually as a good shooter could rattle off six or seven shots in less than a second, which at the time was practically unheard of. Fairly rapid firing could still be achieved without keeping the trigger depressed.

Related is "slam-firing" as present on the American Trench Gun, when you could rack the slide forward while depressing the trigger and fire the gun that way as well. Maybe slightly more useful than fanning the hammer of a revolver, but there's a reason why neither of these features are present in modern firearms.

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EndOfDiscOne posted...

I like how cocking the gun makes the threat more serious. Like if someone points a gun to your head, you're going to think "well at least they haven't cocked it yet"

"Not only is this shotgun pointed at you, I've let you know that there's a round chambered and ready to fire. Your move."

With handguns, though...I mean, the Click Hello is such an effective trope that I'll take it in fiction, but in reality it seems silly.

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