How to Write Realistic and Professional Scenes About Shooting

by Jay Chambers

Let’s face it, most writers are not gun experts. And gathering reliable data about how gun fights actually happen is difficult, because there are a lot of tall tales out there and combat data collection is spotty, but there are a few things that we know.

The behavior of gun-savvy people is easy to observe and replicate in your writing. Here’s what you need to know to write realistic shooting scenes that make you look like a professional who does their homework.

How guns look and function when they’re out of ammo

One of the biggest mistakes in movies and writing is the out-of-ammo moment: when the hero’s gun is empty, he tries one (or a few) more trigger presses, and the gun clicks.

The revolver is a a handgun with the drum in the middle for loading bullets.

This only happens with revolvers, the type of handgun with a drum in the middle.

All other modern firearms have a condition that indicates the magazine is empty: pistols go into slide lock and rifles go into bolt lock. The shooter can easily identify that the gun is empty, and the trigger is inert when a gun is at slide lock or bolt lock. So, it won’t click if you press it.

Most experienced shooters will automatically do a reload when they recognize slide lock. Usually the surprise comes when they find that they are out of full magazines, not when they press the trigger and get a click.

When experienced shooters reload

There’s an easy answer here: experienced shooters reload all the time during extended shootouts.

The standard operating procedure in many military units is to tactically reload (put in a full magazine before the one in the gun is empty) as often as possible. Then they simply consolidate their magazines (turn a bunch of half full magazines into a few full magazines) as soon as they have time. That way, it’s unlikely that their guns will ever be out of ammunition when it matters.

However, the military is the only place where extended shootouts are common. Most gun fights are only seconds long, even for law enforcement officers. That means most shootouts don’t require a reload at all. There are a handful of exceptions, but many of the extended gun fights in the law enforcement sector involved bad guys who had military training and equipment. There are almost zero instances of civilians reloading when using their guns for self-defense. So, there’s a high likelihood that your characters won’t need to reload at all.

If you’re writing a scene where lots of bullets are flying, keep these guidelines in mind:

• Most pistols hold between 10 and 17 rounds.
• Most rifles hold between 20 and 30 rounds.

Write in some reloads as appropriate to avoid the everlasting Rambo ammunition phenomenon.

What actually happens when a person gets shot

Yes, it’s possible to receive a non-fatal gunshot wound.

However, getting shot is very bad. You can’t just put a nice tight bandage on a bullet wound and walk it off.

Even Teddy needs to rest when he's injured. Your characters do too.

First, if the bullet hits a bone, the bone shatters. It’s a crippling injury that requires surgery to repair. Even being hit in the shin or forearm would put someone out of commission.

The best case scenario is where the bullet passes through muscle without striking a bone or ligaments. However, the hydrostatic shock and trauma to the tissue would render that muscle unusable. The person would most likely survive, but they certainly wouldn’t be able to operate at 100%.

Hits to the body are almost always incapacitating. A bullet wound to any organ requires surgery, and is fatal if left untreated for too long.

So, be careful what your characters do after they get shot, because it’s easy to stray into unrealism if they’re doing a whole lot.

What actually stops bullets

This one happens in movies all the time. Characters throw over a table, which stops the bullets. WRONG!

Bullets go through tables. And walls. And car doors. And sofas. You get the idea.

So, what stops bullets? Dirt. Cement. Rock. Thick pieces of metal.

It’s impossible to list out everything that will stop a bullet here, but we can use some common bullet stoppers as a guide.

• Most body armor is made of steel or ceramic, and ranges from a quarter inch to one inch thick. A quarter inch thick plate will stop almost any pistol round. Whereas rifle rounds require something closer to an inch of thickness.
• Eight to ten inches of dense dirt like sand will stop all but very high powered rifle rounds.
• Only the engine block and wheels on a car will stop bullets. The doors aren’t enough.
• Bricks or cement of equal thickness reliably stops most rounds. The exception is large caliber rounds like the .50 BMG.

If you need something for characters to hide behind, use something that’s similar to one of these things.

Have your characters hide behind dirt (if the situation allows it).

Now, if a bullet travels through a barrier and then strikes a person, it’s less effective than being hit directly. The bullet will often tumble or fragment when it passes through the barrier (any barrier except glass, as bullets go through glass remarkably well). So, it won’t perform as intended when it hits flesh.

Just remember that being shot through a barrier is still very bad. So, don’t let anybody walk it off if they get shot through a barrier.

On to the second draft

There are other, more technical details of combat shooting and gun fighting. However, if you use these tips to avoid the major mishaps, you’ll produce solid shooting scenes that hold up to most reader scrutiny.

Now bring this to your typewriter and bang out that shootout scene you’ve been putting off.