Answer: The opening scene of The Rifleman staring Chuck Connors was edited as are all T.V. shows. The 1892 Winchester in .44/.40 caliber used on the show only holds eleven bullets. The audio track was dubbed over the video track. They are not entirely in sync. You may hear 12 or 13 shots fired in the audio portion, and you may watch him pull the lever back on the rifle a different number of times. This is what makes it a trick question. The editors could have made it look like he fired as many shots as they like by piecing the two segments of the opening scene together as they did. The difficulty with this question is that when the editors dubbed in the rifle sound they crammed in as many shots as they could in the given time period for the opening instead of noticing how many times Chuck Connors was pulling the lever on the rifle to fire the gun and just synchronizing the sound of the shots. - Mike DiMuzio
How many shots were fired in the opening of The Rifleman?
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 mdimuzio |
How many shots were fired in the opening of The Rifleman? |
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Posts: 90 (01/28/08 04:25:24) |
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JT4440 |
How many shots? | ||
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Posts: 1 (07/20/08 09:57:02) |
Close your eyes and listen,and count. I usually come up with 12************
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john anderson |
A baker's dozen | ||
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Posts: 5 (09/16/08 14:13:38) |
I hear 13 shots in the opening segment. Although the last one is a bit 'echoey', I count it as an actual shot. so the total is 13 in my book. It seems
like I had the same discussion/argument with my classmates in elementary school 50 years ago. Kids also used to say that the rifle couldn't possibly hold
that many bullets. Mike, the website developer, says that type of rifle Lucas McCain uses held a maximum of eleven bullets, so my classmates were right on
that score.
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mcpain |
I count 12 shots | ||
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Posts: 2 (12/28/08 06:31:23) |
I just played it on Tivo and slowed it down to count the times he cocks the lever. He does it 12 times. The interesting thing is while the rifle holds 11
rounds in the magazine under the barrel, he could still have one in the breach ready to go and that would be the 12 shots you hear.
Then again, a shot could be coming from the grassy knoll. 
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