by Larry Mager
There were two
types of personal weapons used by the Colonial forces in BG; the familiar laser
pistol and the laser rifle. The Colonial rifle was seen in only one episode as
the Colonial rifle, in Baltar’s Escape, wherein the escaping Eastern Alliance
enforcers swiped them out of the armory aboard the Prison Barge in a scene filmed but
edited out. It also appeared in considerably modified form as the Nationalist rifle in Experiment
in Terra. The actual prop weapon was surprisingly makeshift, although it looked sturdy
on the show. The rifle’s main body consisted of two pieces of vacuformed plastic
approximately 1/8 of an inch thick. It was partly held together by four wood screws which
held the makeshift sling swivels on and set into two blocks of wood inside the plastic
shell, one at the front of the body and one inside the pistol grip. The main device used
to hold the plastic shell together was (and are you ready for this?) black vinyl
electrician’s tape! As my sources indicated, it had to be done in a hurry and look
good. The scope on the top rear was located on the left side of the body and consisted of
an aluminum tube with a plate vertically mounted on top with a hole in it (for rack
mounting?). The tube was not hollow beyond the first three inches of the front and the
“eyepiece” was a piece of turned wood dished out at the back, painted black with
no time taken to disguise the grain of the wood. The scope was mounted to the rifle body
by two pieces of bent aluminum 1/8 of an inch thick, welded to the tube. The rod on the
lower front of the weapon was solid aluminum and it was mounted in the same piece of wood
the front sling screws were. The shoulder stock was made of 1 inch by 1/8 inch bar stock
welded in three places. It was welded to a plate of the same material and the entire unit
was held to the body by two screws which went through a similar plate on the inside rear
of the plastic body and out through the stock plate on the right side. Suffice it to say,
the stock is most assuredly not sturdy as only one side of the stock is attached to the
plastic rifle body. I have left the best for nearly last. The sides of the
“barrel” of the rifle are made up of two pieces of plastic overhead lighting
covers (!) as are the frames holding the side lights which, incidentally, are not LEDs but
are small incandescent lights with red plastic covers. These lights and the rifle are
turned on by a small three-position switch hidden on the left side of the weapon above the
lights on that side. The sidelight mountings are actually made up of three rows of the
overhead lighting covers (inserted into the plastic body of the rifle) but only the middle
row is left unpainted as the top and bottom rows are painted black. Back at the business
end, the bottom of the barrel is a piece of black plastic and the top and very end of the
barrel is red plastic. Inside the barrel assembly are 6 bar strobes (which fired in
sequence, not all at once) mounted with the long axis vertical. Between each strobe is a
piece of red plastic as well.
Turning to the inner workings of the
rifle, all I ought to say is that it is a wonder no one was electrocuted by it. The 22
side lights (11 per side) were powered by four 9-volt batteries. All electrical
connections were made with hot glue (don’t try this at home, kids) and the main power
source was a large 510-volt battery nestled in the rear of the gun. It also contained 6
huge capacitors of an unearthly high capacity. A friend of mine who deals with camera
strobes attempted to trace down the wiring paths from the IC boards to the strobes; he
couldn’t do it because the wires changed colors several times each during the
journey! The weight of the rifle complete with batteries was 9 lb. 8 oz. These poor prop
people were really forced to hurry, that much is clear. They have my deepest sympathy!
I was able to hook up the 9 volts (but
didn’t dare try the 510-volt!), just to get the firing pattern of the side lights.
The side lights fire as follows; the first three (starting from the stock end), then two,
two, two, and the last two down by the barrel end.
The trigger was mounted to a piece of
wood inside the pistol grip on the left side of the grip and was a micro switch from Radio
Shack. The sling swivels were made of heavy gauge wire welded to two washers, while the
sling itself was a length of non-adjustable webbing of an odd dark olive color in a
herringbone weave. All black portions of the rifle were painted gloss black, but by the
time I saw it, the black was chipping.
Remember, these good people had to, and
here I quote one of my sources, “make it fast, make it cheap, make it look good on
the screen.” These props weren’t built to last any longer than it took to film
the episode.
On to the pistols. There were at least
three types of materials used to make the pistols; latex-covered foam rubber for stunt
pistols, fiberglass for quick background extras (although late in the series—Take
the Celestra was mentioned by my sources as an example—some of these were taken
apart and Radio Shack switches and 9 volt batteries were stuck in with a bright
incandescent key light), and finally the working pistols fitted with strobe lights. Six of
these working pistols were made, some with bar strobes, others with horseshoe-shaped
strobes. They also had the ever present Radio Shack switch but were powered through a cord
that came out of the pistol butt. The cord ran down, in the case of the dress uniform, the
tunic sleeve or, when wearing combat dress, down the jacket sleeve to continue on down the
pants leg exiting through the off-camera side seam above the boot or, as can be seen in
the BG Photonovel, to a paperback-sized powerpack attached to the pistol belt.
While the working and non-working
pistols were generally identical, they differed slightly with regards to the barrel. The
reason given for the difference is that when it came time to make new guns, the original
mold for the barrel had disappeared. Hence, they were forced to use a different kind of
water faucet handle for the muzzle.
The holsters for the pistols were made
of Kydex, a trade name for a leather-textured plastic. They were heat-formed around a
wooden mold and then riveted to the gunbelt.
The personal arms of the Colonials are
interesting to see on the show, but even more interesting to look at and learn about.
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See photos of the prop Colonial laser rifle |
See photos of the
interior of the |
See photos of the prop Colonial laser pistol |
�1991, Larry Mager