Trivia Note: In the Aliens series of movies this weapon always seems to be a hazard. i.e. shooting an alien with this weapon would cause a character to get splattered with acidic blood. This event happens a lot in AVP: Requiem. However, in reality, a direct shotgun blast would NOT splatter any blood "towards the shooter" or "to the sides". The force alone would direct all brain and blood splatter AWAY from the shooter. All one has to do is look a real life crime scene photos of shotgun blasts to the head. All particles or viscera are blown away from the barrel, none are to the front and very little if any is to the sides.
Additional Trivia Note: As the previous trivia note says, little 'splashback' if any would be expected. That said, the Aliens are well known to be extremely tough beasties, so who's to say parts of the body were not damaged very much by the shotgun blasts? This could have resulted in the 'splashback' as softer tissue and blood rebounds off harder bone / chitinous tissue...
Remember reading in a book or online when I was in school that the aliens had extremely high "blood pressure" resulting in them pretty much exploding when shot and in effect turning them into a walking anti personnel mine.
Even if they are under pressure, the blast would blow the blood AWAY. I shot a pressurized Paint balloon with a shotgun for a demo once. Sure it flew everywhere EXCEPT where I was because the blast of the shotgun forced the particulate matter in the other direction. I am very wary of any theory that has the alien blood at such high pressure that it can overcome the kinetic energy of a shotgun blast. Wouldn't happen.MoviePropMaster2008 21:09, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
I really love it when folks say "wouldn't happen" when referencing a science fiction movie with big fake ships, fake alien creatures, and giant fantasy guns that weigh about 45 pounds each. It's fantasy guys. Come on. They tear a synthetic person in half, would his blood splatter the way it did when his body flew in 2 different directions? Aliens are not real. How do we know they fake fantasy high pressure acidic blood isn't magnetic for 5 seconds once it is exposed to oxygen? I mean, it's acid right? Would that happen?
In accordance with the statement above mine, the aliens blood is in fact, highly pressurized. Coincidence? I think not. I'd think of it as more of a natural deterrent, or biological "fail-safe" due to the fact that if a Xenomorph is attacked and killed, or even injured, the aggressor will pay the price.
Physicist's note: According to the character Bishop, the creatures' blood completely oxidizes as of their death. Presumably, this is due to direct exposure to external atmospheric conditions, but that's just a moot guess at a fictitious alien. In any case, oxidation, along with its reduction counterpart, is the neutralization of an acidic compound of a which results in the release of chemical energy (also known as redoxing).
Familiar examples of this in the real world include the process in cellular respiration that oxidizes glucose to carbon dioxide and the corresponding reduction of oxygen to water. An example of a counterpart to the process is its inverse in photosynthesis. In agriculture, ammonia is oxidized into nitric acid--which, incidentally, is also useful as an explosive, but I'll get to that. It's the fundamental reaction behind an electrochemical battery. In some cases, it releases an enormous amount of heat.
Suppose all of the glucose and oxygen in your blood were to suddenly redox. You would have a lot of energy on hand, and I suspect it would really hurt. The impression that our android hero gives me is that these aliens are walking fertilizer bombs, which is hardly the worst thing I can think of (we've got the equivalent and worse in many insect species on Earth), but still an excellent defense mechanism. I don't think it's the shockwave of the shotgun that is causing the backsplash of acid, it would be the onset of the oxidation of the acid itself.
Keep existing or change to new ones?--Predator20 16:26, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
-I'd say keep the existing M41A, if only because I uploaded it, and I like seeing the receivers.-protoAuthor 01:56, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
Those are two of my favourite fictional weapons.
I really don't like the picture of the M41A that we have on the page. It is an airsoft replica (I saw it on an airsoft site once), not one of the real guns. Whereas this picture...
...is one of the actual screen-used M41As from the series (even though it's still painted black from being used in Alien³, unlike the ones in Aliens which were still green). I realize it's low-res, but the pic was taken by Dan Shea in 2002 (when most people were still on 56K and everything loaded slower). As best I know, this is the only one of the pulse rifles that Bapty & Co. has kept in its original configuration. -MT2008 16:13, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
Hicks or Hudson
In the description of the Ithaca Stakeout, it says that it was Hicks that shot the alien in the mouth as they were trying to close the door of the APC. But wasn't it Hudson who did that? Wouldn't it make more sense considering it was Hudson that got burned? I thought Hicks was busy trying to close the door. Or did I "misremember" it? Can someone confirm?
Michael Biehn is Hicks. Hudson got splashed, even though he didn't fire the gun.-protoAuthor 22:12, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Hicks initially tried to close the door himself, then Vasquez and Hudson go to help. --Predator20 22:19, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Error creating thumbnail: File missingHicks after shooting the alien, Hudson was on the left and Vasquez was on the right (whose hand you see in the screenshot on the main page.) Hicks does gets sprayed later when one tries to get in the elevator.
Advertising?
Can we please remove the tasteless advertising from the Pulse Rifle? This is a DB, not a forum, if anything it belongs in the discussion tab. Scratch that I AM removing it, it will be in the discussion tab. --Furious Oyster
Lage Mfg
Lage Manufacturing in currently working on a real live fire replica called the Max-41A. The MAX-41A is a combination submachinegun in 9mm and short barreled 12 gauge shotgun designed to resemble the M-41A Pulse Rifle from the movie.
Submachinegun component is a NFA registered SWD M-11/9 with an Anthony Smith style Suomi upper receiver. Magazine used is a Suomi "Coffin" magazine that holds 50 rounds of 9mm. Shotgun component is a NFA registered Remington 870 short barreled shotgun and holds two rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber.
BATFE letter was obtained confirming this is a legal configuration, prior to manufacturing.
The MAX-41A is a prototype that is currently being tested. My main concern is durability when fired with 12 guage buckshot and slugs. So far, most testing has been with light birdshot loads. The subgun component has run flawlessly.
The bullet counter has a minor problem when firing in full auto, only counts half of the rounds fired. When firing singles, there is no problem. Should be fixable.
The test phase is expected to take about a year.
The Bullet counters do add some tension in the combat seens
