I never knew Private Jackson is a lefty........

[WILCO]

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/H4SzEhZzoPE/maxresdefault.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgHRj2-vvs8

[country gent]

Also watch when he works the bolt. He reaches over the scope to get to the bolt handle.

[swheeler]

That's a good movie. roasted pepper

[swheeler]

or smoked pepper

[Ken in Iowa]

I noticed a couple of strange things about his rifle.

2 different scopes are shown in the film. The rifle itself appears to be a proper 03/A4.

In the famous machine gun nest scene, Jackson did not attack. He looked from afar through a detached rifle scope. The view through the scope showed he was well within range, so why did he not engage?

[nagantguy]

Jackson did attack, the German speaking desk clerk was looking through his scope, Oppeum was his name I think.

[JSnover]

As a lefty I noticed it right off.
I used to shoot bolt actions the same way until I bought my first Enfield. Seems like the action bound up every time. When I started shooting it the way God intended the problem disappeared.
(And Upham was the clerks name)

[HarryT]

Great movie!

[Ken in Iowa]

Jackson did attack, the German speaking desk clerk was looking through his scope, Oppeum was his name I think.

I stand corrected. I wonder if the scope Upham was using was his own.

[Adam Helmer]

Wilco,

I saw the movie and it does not matter if Private Jackson was a lefty. In the scene when he was aiming at a German in a bell tower about 75 yards away, he starts turning turrets this way and that. At such short distance, he should have just "held off" as needed rather than turning knobs. Whatever?

The movie was just another Hollywood Product.

Adam

[WILCO]

Wilco,

I saw the movie and it does not matter if Private Jackson was a lefty. In the scene when he was aiming at a German in a bell tower about 75 yards away, he starts turning turrets this way and that. At such short distance, he should have just "held off" as needed rather than turning knobs. Whatever?

The movie was just another Hollywood Product.

Adam

Thanks for chiming in Adam. I thought it interesting that the character was using a right handed rifle when he's a left handed shooter. Just one more reason I like watching movies over and over. Something new always pops up.

[gnoahhh]

The army didn't own any left handed bolt guns back then. LH'ed recruits were conditioned to shoot right handed. Of course when it came to M-1 use it didn't matter as much.

As for Jackson's scope use, 03A4's were never adapted to use Unertls interchangeably with "regular" scopes. That , dear heart, was Hollywood make believe. Unertls weren't used by the Army at all on sniper rifles in WWII, but the Marines used them on 1903A1's.

[Ithaca Gunner]

Pvt. Ryan? I'm sure there was more than a few, but this story never happened after the D-Day scenes. The French town in the end didn't even exist. It is loosely based on a true story of a man in the 101st. but his story isn't nearly as interesting from a money making Hollywood point of view.

https://youtu.be/h1aGH6NbbyE This link isn't the catch all-end all, but it does clear a few things up in the movie.

[richhodg66]

The wife and I watched that movie the 2nd showing it ever did at our hometown theater. While it is an excellent film, I have to say, it was emotionally a very difficult thing to watch, I really think it was the saddest movie we ever watched. Though I've caught parts of it now and then since, I don't remember ever sitting and watching it from start to finish since. I'm glad Spielberg made it, it's exactly the kind of thing Americans need to see.

[WILCO]

While it is an excellent film, I have to say, it was emotionally a very difficult thing to watch.....

Agreed.

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/d0/d2/8b/d0d28bead126cd263a8f96e0b277b55c.jpg

[Bigslug]

As for Jackson's scope use, 03A4's were never adapted to use Unertls interchangeably with "regular" scopes. That , dear heart, was Hollywood make believe. Unertls weren't used by the Army at all on sniper rifles in WWII, but the Marines used them on 1903A1's.

Yep. I gotta spend some time looking at exactly what they did for that movie; if they actually used two different rifles, or what.

The Army 1903-A4 used a couple of different scopes in the 4-ish power range bolted to the receiver on a 1-piece dovetail front, windage rear base. The Marines M1941 variant of the 1903 put the rear Unertl base on the receiver ring, and the front one on the barrel just forward of the rear sight, re-shaping and cutting a hole in the handguard to make it happen. Looks like I gotta watch the movie again. Oh darn!

I did always kinda wonder why Barry Pepper didn't just run the rifle right handed, unless he was already a bolt-gunner accustomed to doing it that way. No reason to sweat eye dominance for a movie performance.

[country gent]

The other OOOpps in a movie I get a giggle out of is in the movie sniper where the gunny is having the new spotter "prove" hes up to the job. He gives a wind correction and the spotter on his fncy rifle scope combo reaches up to the top turret to make the correction. The sniper in Saving private Ryan is another. But then it is in the script or the consultants dont really know either.

[Multigunner]

Learning how to operate a right handed rifle from the left shoulder is something that could come in handy, especially in urban combat where you might end up having to fire from a position at a building's corner on the right hand side of a street and want to be as little exposed as possible.
An objection to most bull pup rifle designs has been difficulty in firing from the left shoulder when necessary.