Help with nagging question?

[powwowdancer]

Greetings,
     I've been spending quite some time on the net trying to find out exactly what kind of machine gun Ramone Rojo was using to massacre all those Mexican soldiers.  It's not a "Vickers" or "Maxim" or "Gatlin" or any other kind that I can find.  After an exhasting search, this site rang the cherries, and here I am.  The machine gun has a "pepper box" style barrel, it's belt fed, and it's a true automatic, in that he didn't have to crank it.  The hand grips were twin, with a U-shaped (from the top view) design.   What got this started, was that I was watching the DVD again today, and I noticed that Ramone's machine gun couldn't be a Gatlin, because it didn't crank.  It looked rather like a WWI Vickers gun, and therefore, a glaring anacronism, but it's not a Vickers either.  WHAT THE DEVIL IS IT?  If you can help, either email me privately, or post it here.  Thanks in advance for any light you may be able to shed on this.

Ciao,

Powwowdancer.  

[Danny]

This I found on: moviemistakes.com

When the Rojos steals the gold from the Mexican soldiers, one of them uses a machine gun to scythe them down. Yet the first machine guns were not used by anybody until the Civil War, and A Fistful of Dollars takes place before then (its sequel, Good, Bad, Ugly was set during that war). Not to mention that the weapon itself resembles a Vickers gun from WWI. [It is not a 'machine gun', it is a gattling gun which was around at the time.]

[cigar joe]

moviemistakes.com is a mistake, first FFOD is probably the final film chronologically of the three dollars films, dated exactly by the use of that machinegun, and also that Clint is using a Colt Peacemaker. Peacemakers didn't start production until 1873 thereabouts, so it has to be after 1873.  

Chonologically GBU is a prequil, FFDM fits in the middle (though historicaly there wasn't an actual railroad in Tucumcari until 1900 though some passed nearby in 1879), then FFOD

Someone named D'Ambrosia on the Clint Eastwood board had a thread about the type of guns used in Eastwood westerns and I believe that it gave the make of the machine gun, its not a cranking "Gatling Gun" since Ramon is just holding it with two hands so the gun is using the explosive gas from each bullet to advance to the next round.

[powwowdancer]

I really appreciate the help!  BUT, moviemistakes has got it wrong, because a gatlin cranks, and a vickers has but one barrel.  (Ramon uses thumb triggers and there's the pepper box barrels... )  I can't help but think that it was some kind of "hybrid" thrown together with what was available.  (i.e., they used a WWI machine gun, put an ersatz "pepper box" case around the barrel to make it look like a maxim, and said "roll 'em.")  If any light ever sheds for sure on this, I'd like to know.  Thanks for turning me on to "movie mistakes!"  I'll have to bookmark it right next to the IMDB.

Ciao,

Powwowdancer.  

[grandpa_chum]

perhaps it's a gatling they just didn't crank... movie shortcut... even though leone isn't known for taking shortcuts

[cigar joe]

It looks, from some searching, like the barrel of a Gatling but the handels look like the handels of a Maxim, over all it looks like an early Maxim but the one Ramon shoots does not have a short barrel sticking out of the front of the gun, the front looks more like the front of a Gatling.

Check out these links for yourself.

Maxim's:
 
http://users.erols.com/hyattg/usmcguns/max_08.htm

http://www.rt66.com/~korteng/SmallArms/mghvruss.htm

http://www.thetankmaster.com/english/afv/maxim_mg08.asp


Late Model Gatlings:

http://users.erols.com/hyattg/usmcguns/mgtour8.jpg

[Dlanor]

This I found on: moviemistakes.com

When the Rojos steals the gold from the Mexican soldiers, one of them uses a machine gun to scythe them down. Yet the first machine guns were not used by anybody until the Civil War,.]

They weren't used until civil war but maybe there were prototypes before. Maybe he used a prototype.

[cigar joe]

AFOD is chronologically in "Leone's West" the LAST of the Trilogy.  The machine gun that used the discharged gasses of the fired bullet to advance to the next round they didn't appear until the very late 1800's. Leone used Spanish Army equipment in the films, especially evident in GBU. GBU had actual hand cranked gatling guns.

[Concorde]

 

I've puzzled over the same question myself many times. The machine gun appears to be the exact same one that is used by the hero in the first DJANGO movie, a film which gives us much better and longer views of the weapon.

In an effort to find out exactly what is, years ago I posted a small picture of it on various antique weapon and militaria websites, but in all that time I NEVER got a definitive answer. I even went to the United States Military Academy Museum two times and pored over their extensive collection of old machine guns, and I never found anything there that matched the FOD/DJANGO weapon.

What is particularly distinctive about this mystery gun is that it appears to have multiple barrels enclosed within a large heat-shield barrel shroud. I say multiple barrels because the muzzle flash appears to alternate between different openings on its "pepper box" front-piece.

I'm close to concluding that this might actually be just some silly "fantasy" blank-firing gun built from scratch by an Italian or German propman specifically for movie company applications, and NOT a real production model of an actual military device....

[Harmonica]

There was no such weapon ever manufactued such as the one used by Ramon in FOD...

It is simply a movie prop gun, that same one used in the Django movies I think...



Ramons Super Modified Gattling/Machine Pepper Box Gun!!!

[Concorde]

Gosh, Harmonica, thanks for the reply.....which I'll have to file under "Better Late Than Never."

 

[Harmonica]

Hey, I was posting the pic up at the Eastwood Web Board and figured, what the hell, I might as well post it up here as well....

[Concorde]

Thanks!

I approve!

       

[Harmonica]

Some interesting information I found during my research...

There was a Belgian gun called the  Montigny Mitrailleuse which was designed in 1850 and produced in 1869.  Although not a truly automatic machine gun it does have a barrel that resembles Ramons super prototype badass pepperbox gun...  My guess is that the prop masters took the barral off on of these Mitrailleuse's and slaped it on the front of a Maxim...

The Belgian Montigny Mitrailleuse




 
Ramon's super badass prototype pepperbox gun...

[Concorde]

Fascinating! The barrel-shroud looks identical, but the receiver is completely different.

The Belgian gun on the left -- the one with wheels -- is it a hand-crank weapon or a full-auto? What other info do you have on these?