Star Wars Sideshow Dengar weapon upgrade

If it is a question of wear damage as both Paul and Mark suggest, I'm glad that although I purposefully painted that part a more silvery color (mixing Vallejo silver and gunmetal grey), I didn't make it too shiny.

I have now added several layers of dry brushed silver to the flash hider on my modified MG42 to try and give more of the look seen in stills from the movie.



Paul

Looks good, Paul.

Thanks Stryker2011

I wish we had clearer shots of Dengar with this weapon.

Having studied the pics I have available to paint the muzzle on my adapted gun I am beginning to think that there may be something else going on with the muzzle end of this gun other than it just looking more silver.

In GubernatorFan's pic of Dengar on the star destroyer bridge it seems possible to me that the dimensions at the muzzle of the blaster may indicate that it has a shorter, more cylindrical (rather than conical) device.  It just looks a little short, and well odd to me.



This may also be evident in this pic from the same scene, especially perhaps the more straight sides of the flash hider.  Not clear at all I know.  Looks more silver here too



and again here.  Its blurred, I know and could easily be a standard muzzle device too.  Looks less silver again in this pic though.



Now I am more than happy to accept that this is an effect from lighting, or the angles at which the pics where taken or even that it is due to the fuzzy and sometimes out of focus nature of the screen grabs (why oh why did he pick up what appears to be 4-LOM's blaster for the promo pics which are by and large pin sharp lol).
However I do wonder if there is another explanation, and after some looking I have found pics of MG3s (the NATO version of the MG42) which show it being used with a different muzzle device which interestingly appears to be shorter and less conical.

This is an Austrian MG3



And a Norwegian one (less likely I think)



Interestingly both these pics seem to show some sort of brightly coloured 'practice' ammo being used with the guns (possibly plastic practice rounds??), and so I wonder if these muzzle devices are some sort of practice or blank firing muzzle break.  It is interesting too that the Austrian version's muzzle device has been painted red/orange.  
Is it possible that what we see on Dangers gun is one of these with the red/orange paint removed???
 
Its far more likely I know that its is a standard MG42 Muzzle device that was used, but perhaps this was changed to give the muzzle a different look from the similar one on the MG34 that 4-LOM has in the same scene, or perhaps someone just thought it looked more Star Wars I don't know.  I don't even know if these muzzle devices are interchangeable with an MG42.

As a side note you can see that on the Norwegian MG3 the buttock has been removed for use on the vehicle mount, just like Dengar's has no butt stock.

As I said I really don't know about the muzzle it might just be me, but somehow it just looks off from a standard MG42 muzzle, although the more I look at it now the more it looks like a standard muzzle device.   The low quality pictures make it very difficult to tell with any degree of certainty.  I really don't know here and I am doing a lot of thinking out loud while searching for an answer that may satisfy my curiosity.

Paul

From the pictures you supplied, it's hard to tell. Check out this site for further information about the weapons used:

http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_The_Original_Trilogy

Thanks Stryker2011, I’ve used that site extensively in the past, but unfortunately I don’t think it covers this gun. This is the only time we ever see this weapon in any of the films so it is a bit of an anomaly when it comes to any research into what it was exactly.

It is always assumed to be an MG42, but could be an MG3, or an MG42/59 which is the earlier designation for the 7.62mm NATO chambered version. It was also made by a number of countries under licence too including Sudan.
Because of the poor quality of the pics we have of it I suspect it is unlikely that we will ever have a definitive answer as to what it was sadly.

Paul

Interesting analysis, Paul, and I agree this gun does not appear anywhere in the guide. Although I didn't have clearer photos at my disposal (and you posted one I have not seen before), I also thought the actual end piece looked a little more cylindrical than conical -- though I dismissed it as a visual illusion caused by the poor quality of the photos. Maybe that's exactly what it is, or maybe it is like your Austrian and Norwegian variants. In fact, the moment I saw the Norwegian one, I immediately noticed the absence of the buttstock just like you did. But although I cannot be at all certain, the end piece on the Dengar blaster rifle appears to me a little bit larger than what we see with the Austrian and Norwegian variants of MG42. It would not be surprising if (assuming this is not just a visual illusion) the production department changed that piece as a minor adjustment to give the gun a slightly different, futuristic/alien appearance. For what it is worth (and that is not very much, considering they forgot to remove the buttstock), Sideshow's weapon has the standard conical flash hider that we see on the original MG42.

By the way nice added touch to your custom gun.

Thanks GubernatorFan, I'm glad you like what I have done here, and I will be keeping the conical flash hider on mine for now as there is no definitive answer to what was on the original.

I am probably totally over thinking it anyway, but in that original pic you posted it defiantly looks more cylindrical to me.  I think the different muzzle devices i posted are probably something like blank firing adapters due to the ammo that is being used with the gun. Because it is recoil operated it needs an additional device like this to cycle properly with blanks etc... Perhaps there was one in the box for the gun that was used??? who knows.

Ah well I guess we will never know anyway, as the pics are too low a quality to actually see any detail at that level.

I did find in researching for this though that Dengar's boots are actually reused Hoth rebel boots (hero ones as we discussed elsewhere), and his gauntlets are from a Hoth rebel trooper too.  The info is in 'Star Wars Costumes: The Original Trilogy' by Brandon Alinger.  Whilst he talks about Dengar's costume in the book there are sadly no new pics (in fact no pics of Dengar at all).

Paul

I often refer to the same book, Paul, but yes, it is not completely comprehensive. The boots do appear to be of the same type, although in the Sideshow figure's case that applies only to the lower "shoe" section (unless they have the upper section under the greave armor -- haven't checked), which was a good decision, allowing for ankle articulation (all the more important given the high center of gravity of the fully-kitted-out figure).