day of the jackal sniper rifle

[Reef]

Hi folks i havn't posted for a while so i thought i would show you what im building at the moment.
its still a work in progress but its 95% done,
oh its all metal with a working bolt,its not 100% accurate but its close enough.
i will post some more pics soon,and im building the crutch too! cheers reef.

 

[breen2057]

its looking great, not too many of these being made. the bullet you have looks bigger than the one in the film. have you changed the caliber for your rifle?

 

[Reef]

Ah yes the bullet is the wrong one it should be a.22 magnum but I will have to make that.
I will post some pics of it assembled cheers reef.

 

[Reef]

sorry its upside down!

 

[Reef]

some more work in progress nearly ready for paint cheers.

 

[ed-209]

SUPERB!!! I've been meaning to make this for a VERY long time. Glad to see someone finally made it. Top marks on a beautiful rendition of the prop!!!!!!
Keep posting more pics...they're fantastic!!!!! --Ed

 

[rorschach999]

WOW love it

 

[Reef]

I will upload a video of me assembling it today ,thanks for the kind comments cheers reef

 

[JANDERS10]

Beautiful! The first screen weapon I wanted to make. I did, but in plastic pipe. You never forget your first, about time someone made a replica worthy of the film. And you certainly have.

 

[Reef]

Started work on the crutch,it all fits inside nice and snug.
the scope mount and trigger fit inside the crutch top.

 

[Reef]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread but I've done some more work on the rifle.
the whole gun is finished but I'm having paint issues with the paint scraping off I will rectify this soon,I have built some murcury
tipped bullet [video]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NNI105j9azk[/video](Fake I must add) and finished the stock..View attachment 784309

 

[Jpdesign]

Is that an available scope mount, or did you make it yourself? I’d like to know more about this.

 

[Steyn]

Is that an available scope mount, or did you make it yourself? I’d like to know more about this.

Not sure if he's still monitoring his thread, but I can tell you, I've never been able to find a commercial mount like it. The only ones I've seen have been made specifically for replica Jackal rifles, but the one in the movie looks well-used, meaning it might be a commercially-produced item. It only works on a scope with integral dovetails, which would be pretty uncommon today.

Several other points here: The prop ammo is akin to .22 Magnum, which would be totally inappropriate for this rifle. It's a rimfire cartridge, certainly not a target-grade round, and rimfires are not designed to be reloaded; they're designed to be cheap, throwaway brass. Loading one with a custom bullet would be difficult. The bullets shown in the close-up of his 6 special rounds are clearly dummies turned freehand from aluminum by a prop man, as they are all different lengths and shapes, which makes them useless for accuracy. The .22 Mags were likely used because they're readily available, and 99% of the viewing audience wouldn't know the difference. In real life, a centerfire cartridge would have been used, such as the excellent .22 Hornet or K-Hornet. I have several, and they would be ideal for this application. Lastly, non-gun people hearing the gunsmith talking about the exploding bullets as "mercury", are mis-interpreting this to mean pure, liquid mercury, which would in reality do nothing on impact. When he says "mercury", he's referring to fulminate of mercury, a very sensitive explosive formerly used in primers, which explodes on being struck. (Such primers were very corrosive on gun barrels, so they have been phased out in the West by non-corrosive primers.) The fulminate of mercury would be placed in the hollow nose of a hollow-point bullet, to explode on striking a solid surface.

There's an excellent and quite accurate replica from Japan on Youtube:

 

[Jpdesign]

Not sure if he's still monitoring his thread, but I can tell you, I've never been able to find a commercial mount like it. The only ones I've seen have been made specifically for replica Jackal rifles, but the one in the movie looks well-used, meaning it might be a commercially-produced item. It only works on a scope with integral dovetails, which would be pretty uncommon today.

Several other points here: The prop ammo is akin to .22 Magnum, which would be totally inappropriate for this rifle. It's a rimfire cartridge, certainly not a target-grade round, and rimfires are not designed to be reloaded; they're designed to be cheap, throwaway brass. Loading one with a custom bullet would be difficult. The bullets shown in the close-up of his 6 special rounds are clearly dummies turned freehand from aluminum by a prop man, as they are all different lengths and shapes, which makes them useless for accuracy. The .22 Mags were likely used because they're readily available, and 99% of the viewing audience wouldn't know the difference. In real life, a centerfire cartridge would have been used, such as the excellent .22 Hornet or K-Hornet. I have several, and they would be ideal for this application. Lastly, non-gun people hearing the gunsmith talking about the exploding bullets as "mercury", are mis-interpreting this to mean pure, liquid mercury, which would in reality do nothing on impact. When he says "mercury", he's referring to fulminate of mercury, a very sensitive explosive formerly used in primers, which explodes on being struck. (Such primers were very corrosive on gun barrels, so they have been phased out in the West by non-corrosive primers.) The fulminate of mercury would be placed in the hollow nose of a hollow-point bullet, to explode on striking a solid surface.

There's an excellent and quite accurate replica from Japan on Youtube:

While I get your point on rimfire vs center fire, in my experience people underestimate .22 magnum. The one I have will shoot a quarter size group at 100 yards with match grade ammo. That’s plenty good on human size heads at 200 yards. And making .22 magnum ammo in the way it’s described, with mercury fulminate that would explode on impact, is dead simple. Use a micro hand trusted drill, about .165 inches, drill into the hollow point. Put in the mercury fulminate. Then press a bb , .177 inches, into the hollow on top of it. On impact the bb will set off the mercury fulminate. Not it will not be as dramatic as the screen explosion, but would be enough to creat a larger wound channel I suspect since the amount in a primer can drive a .22 bullet the length of a rifle barrel.

 

[bingoh]

I'm not sure I'd consider making a functional explosive .22 using mercury fulminate to be "dead simple." Mercury fulminate is both heat and impact sensitive (two things that a bullet experiences during firing), meaning that chances are pretty high that the explosive bullet would just blow up in the barrel when it's fired. Then you get into the question of whether such a small amount of mercury fulminate would even make a difference if it could be fired and exploded upon impact with a target. I'd argue that the explosive potential would be so small that a shooter would get a similar or even better result with traditional bullet manufacture (wound channels related to the hydrodynamics of hollow points and frangibles).

In the end, this is pretty far afield from the prop aspect of the movie gun...it was a cool Hollywood concept that probably wouldn't work but that's why suspension of disbelief exists.

 

[Jpdesign]

I’m not planning on making any, just saying it’s easier than people think, and I said it would not replicate what was seen in the movie.

I like take down guns. I find them fascinating and have both shotguns and .22 lr versions. A now looking at higher power takedowns. Recreating this to me is just another, more interesting, version of that. Hornady V-max with its lighter weight, polymer tip, and better expansion gives better wound cavities than the hypothetical exploding tip would in my estimation.

As a hunter there is a practical component to this project to me, and takedowns in general. I’m interested in both the crutch and the case. As a hunter, a savage 99 takedown in .30-30, modified for a ackley improved type up loaded ammo with pointed spitzer type bullets to me would be ideal for every game in North America out to about 200 yards.

 

[Steyn]

I'm not sure I'd consider making a functional explosive .22 using mercury fulminate to be "dead simple." Mercury fulminate is both heat and impact sensitive (two things that a bullet experiences during firing), meaning that chances are pretty high that the explosive bullet would just blow up in the barrel when it's fired. Then you get into the question of whether such a small amount of mercury fulminate would even make a difference if it could be fired and exploded upon impact with a target. I'd argue that the explosive potential would be so small that a shooter would get a similar or even better result with traditional bullet manufacture (wound channels related to the hydrodynamics of hollow points and frangibles).

In the end, this is pretty far afield from the prop aspect of the movie gun...it was a cool Hollywood concept that probably wouldn't work but that's why suspension of disbelief exists.

I agree with you. I wouldn't waste time or risk a million-dollar job fiddling about with trying to make explosive bullets. The Hornet rounds are more than capable of doing the job reliably at that range, and quietly too (there's an excellent Youtube video of a silenced .22 Hornet, showing great penetration in timber). Not just quiet firing, but also quiet in the case of a miss, as happened in the movie. An explosive bullet would detonate on the cobblestones with a loud crack, not a silenced poof, and that crack would trigger a stampede of bodyguards whisking away the target and storming the shooter.

As you say, impractical though it may be, it made for good entertainment, and doesn't detract one bit from my admiration for this film. It's one of my top five of all time, and I've watched it numerous times over the last forty+ years, since I was a kid. And it was over forty years before I realised something: Excluding the marching bands in the parade, there's no music whatsoever in this movie until the end credits. It's an amazing filmmaker that can tell a story that enthralling.