Things you wish authors would stop doing?

Even I know most of that is wrong.

 

Yup, the Glock 26 is only available in nickel-plated

 

There was a low budget horror film, I think Maniac Cop, where the female officer was practicing at the range and her partner could tell she was wasting using hollowpoints because she was blowing fist-sized holes in the paper silhouette targets.

 

TMW the entry wound is also the exit wound.

 

But it sounds so Exciiiiittttinnnnngggg!!!!

I'm going to need a beta reader or two to vet the guns I use in my W.I.P. It's particularly tricky because my bad guys pick up (steal) guns wherever they can, and each of them has his or her own preference. I'm trying hard to make sure they're all firearms available in the time and place the story is set. We'll get into function after that.

 

Yes, I sometime watch Matt on Demolition Ranch. Came over from Vet Ranch and stayed for the pretty explosions.

Ouch, painful. So far I've only named weapons available in West Germany in 1983, when the story takes place. But you raise a good point. My terrorist would likely have access to guns from East Germany and other Eastern Bloc countries. Maybe I should use that to alert the readers that my cell is part of a bigger effort, and ergo more dangerous.

Ouch again. So far I haven't mentioned ammunition and probably won't. What I have to be careful of is tailoring my gun language to the awareness of the POV character for a given scene. Like my FMC--- after Book 1 she can identify an AK-47 a mile away, but generally she's doing well to distinguish a shotgun from a rifle and a pistol from a revolver. I can't have her spotting a handgun as a Glock, Ruger, whatever.

 

There are lots of American rifles that shoot the 7.62x39 cartridge. It has a modest and growing following in the AR-15 world, and the Ruger Mini-30 is designed around the 7.62x39. Also, there are a lot of imported surplus SKS rifles (from a number of different countries) in the U.S. that shoot the 7.62x39 round.

The Russian 7.62x54R (the 'R' stands for "rimmed," not "Russian") isn't just a machine gun cartridge. The primary Russian battle rifle in WW1 and WW2, the Mosin-Nagant 91/30, originally adopted in 1891 and still in use today (in small quantities), takes the 7.62x54R cartridge. 7.62x51 can't be fired in firearms chambered for 7.62x54R for two reasons: First, although the 7.62x51 bullet is smaller than the Russian bullet, the neck of the cartridge case is larger. Also, the 7.62x54R case has a rim that extends beyond the diameter of the case body (like a .22 rimfire). The rim of the 7.62x51 case is smaller than the diameter to the 7.62x54R case, so the case would go too far into the chamber and the firing pin probably wouldn't reach the primer.

This one is indisputably wrong, but I can understand where the author might have gotten the notion. When the U.S. first started mucking around in Vietnam, we didn't use the M16 -- we were still using the M14, which was chambered in 7.62x51 NATO. By the time I got to Vietnam we were using the M16, but there were indeed stories still floating around that you could shoot North Vietnamese 7.62 ammunition through the M14.


Shifting to handguns, and Eastern Bloc handguns in particular, the Makarov is nominally a 9mm -- but it isn't.

There are, in fact, a LOT of "9mm" cartridges: 9x17 (a.k.a. .380 ACP, 9mm Corto, and 9mm Kurz), 9x19 (a.k.a. 9mm Luger and 9mm Parabellum -- this is what most people mean when they just say "9mm"), 9x21, 9x23 -- and then there's the Makarov round (also used in the Czech CZ-82). It's properly called 9x18, so the case length is 18mm, putting it neatly between 9x17 and 9x19, both of which take bullets with a diameter of .355 to .356 inches. BUT -- the 9x18 is an outlier -- it uses a bullet with a diameter of .365 inches, so it's a bigger (fatter) bullet than all the other "9mm" handgun cartridges. By contrast, .355 inches is almost exactly 9mm -- 9.017mm.

 

Just now ran across this in Tinker by Wen Spencer:



It goes on to refer to "clips," but since they're speaking in Low Elvish I'll give that a pass.

 

Avoid Proust like the plague.

 

Agreed. For some genres I read (thrillers, for example) I expect a fair amount of action/tension at the start. In other cases, I do like the chance to settle in and get to know the characters and setting somewhat. There's a particular bit of bad advice I dislike: "Start as close to the end as possible." I feel like that was probably meant for short stories, when uttered, and I can see that. I've seen people give that advice when suggesting writers eliminate early chapters from a novel and I think it's bullshit offered up by someone who doesn't know any better.

Current trends seem to lean toward in medias res, which is fine at times but not every time.

 

For many of us, reaching The End is not the reason for reading a novel. I know, I know. Shocking.

For me, it's always the journey.

I can take a journey by jet. Or by bus. Or by train, or by car. Or by boat, either on its own or in combination with the other vehicles. On horseback. Or walk. All of these vehicles will get me to 'The End,' but the speed of the journey will not be the same each time. Nor will the experience itself, or what I see and learn along the way. Nor will the impressions left behind be the same.

Those who prefer to fly everywhere will probably want to start reading a story 'as near the end as possible.' Those of us who prefer to walk, take our time, and enjoy the experience will want a more leisurely start. That doesn't mean the start shouldn't be purposeful. It just means that we aren't in a hurry.

 

Sounds kinda like a human trying to handle an Ork shootah.
Granted a .50 BMG is kinda considered 'small caliber' by Ork
standards. There was a South American drug cartel that made
an SMG that could fire the .50 BMG, but it was crude and probably
the heaviest and unwieldy of homebrew weapons made. I hardly think
a 9mm Uzi could be as wild and crazy as that.

So Uzi doesn't compare to a 40-60 Lb SMG lobbing BMG rounds.

 

Considering that the definition of SMG is "a magazine-fed, automatic carbine designed to fire handgun rounds," I don't think anything firing the .50 BMG round could in any way be classified as an SMG.

 

I'm impressed by all of the shooty-things knowledge in this thread. Hats off to you guys.

 

Wikipedia for the win. I had a vague sense that a submachine gun was, by definition, small, but I had to look it up for verification. So, by [apparently accepted] definition, anything that shoots .50 BMG can't be a submachine gun because the .50 BMG is not a handgun round.

 

I think CT is referring to big fictional monsters for whom 50 cal is pistol ammo though.

 

The discussion was about a South American drug cartel that made an SMG that could fire the .50 BMG.

Anything that can fire .50 BMG isn't an SMG.

 

As much as I don't want to interrupt a lively and amenable discussion... all of you, please stay on topic.

 

Sounds like The Last Of Us. And I sided so hard with the "antagonist" in that game that I flat out refused to play the sequel.

 

From what I've heard about the sequel, you made the right choice.