Thank you to sci fi fans young and old for watching this episode of Loadout. And an extra thank you to Jonathan Ferguson and The Royal Armouries for helping make this intimate look at the Pulse Rifle happen!

Fun fact: the AvP game developers 'nailed the sound' of the pulse rifle because they got their hands on the original sound files from the movie late into development of the game.

RIP Bill Paxton. He was awesome in Aliens as Hudson

One of the coolest looking, sounding, and functioning weapons in all of science fiction. I really love the M56 Smart Gun as well, for all the same reasons. They had brilliant minds behind those weapons, absolutely fucking brilliant.

I disagree with the counter being pointless, if it was on the inside (or if a leftie held it) it would be a good way to keep track of shots since it holds so many rounds, and doesn't eject shells.

I actually had the honour of handling the M41A Pulse Rifle hero weapons back in 2003 as a film student. Bapty's in North London. Very heavy thing, they say in the video 'extreme.' Yep it was. I handled it for like 5 mins during my tour. All the students had a go so we all took it in turns to hold it. Very beaten up and weathered. Not just due to weathering effects but lack of use. They did say it was the 'hero' weapon and they had two there at that time I knew of. They did say they were due to be sold on. So one of them could have been the one in the video at the Royal Amouries. It was a 'squee' moment for me I loved this weapon as a teenager watching Aliens. (Age given away there!) Thanks to the guys for letting me see it. :)

I was working at Picatinny Arsenal (US Army weapons development facility) when they were researching "the Aliens gun". I would have sworn some Generals went to see the movie and came out with strange ideas!

Psst, guys, that was an Ingram Model 10, not an Uzi ;)

Caseless ammo means the round has no metallic cartridge. So like a muzzle loader, there is just propellant and a projectile. The main advantage to caseless ammo is weight savings from not needing the cartridge. The main problem is heat. The metal cartridge soaks up heat from the firing process (hot brass down your shirt is a thing). Without a good way to get rid of heat the problem of a firearm overheating is difficult to solve. Caseless ammo is also susceptible to the effects of weather as it’s not self contained and sealed in the same way a metallic cartridge is. And obviously caseless ammo cannot be reloaded as there is nothing to “reload”. It’s a bit of a white elephant

I am actually lucky enough to own an airsoft variant of the pulse rifle, it does count down bullets, but sadly the grenade launcher is only cosmetic.

When mentioning modern assault riffle design don’t forget H&H G36 - looks very similiar!

Ten millimeter explosive tip caseless, huh? Sounds like a standard, light armor-piercing round.

lets not forget their Sidearm, the H&K VP70. which also happens to be Leons Gun in Resident Evil 2.

Furia 161 is the planet from Alien3, not Aliens. (6:20)

The smartgun is still way cooler. I mean the combination of a MG42, a motorcycle handle and a steadycam rig. What's not to like! It's so dirty and crood... And nice.

I wish he mentioned the 2010 AVP game

When I seen this guns cameo in Ready Player One, I lost my shit! My favorite movie gun, next to Zorgs ZF1 in The Fifth Element.

This video owned, every second was a joy to watch and listen, more of this please.

Another iconic weapon of that time was Megatron's original alt mode, the Walther P38 with it's sci-fi bells and whistles.

The one thing that ticks me off to no end, is when comics just get lazy about futuristic or advanced firearms and drop an M41A.

REALLY liked and enjoyed watching this!!!! One of my most favorite weapons in Sci-Fi!!!!

All firearms function in vacuum, though. To make that a selling point is like lauding it for having a functioning trigger.

I love what they did to the sound, the high pitch burst was like nothing I ever heard!

It was also used in GPolice , however only in some of the very few CGI sequences.

I absolutely love the Pulse rifle. I remember even seeing it in the (not very good) Dredd film in 1995. It’s always to me the most iconic Sci-Fi weapon of all-time like the Lightsaber is.

The Harrington Assault Rifle can be used in the Aliens Colonial Marines game, and fires by bursts of 3 or 5 (upgraded). I personally like it very much especially the attached mini flamethrower, but it ran out of ammo quicker than the Pulse Rifle

"..suffered from a myriad of bugs..." A myriad of "bugs"? Maybe that wasn't intended as a pun, but sure does work like one.

As a sidenote the Spas Autoloader shotgun used to make up the pulse rifle was also used by Arnold in the Terminator

2:24 That's not an AR-15, he even calls it the proper name: the XM-177. That's a variant of the M16 family, totally different from the AR variants.

In the film it’s referred to as an M forty one A not an M four one A.

All modern firearms can fire "in the vacuum of space"

Now that someone mentioned the Thompson, I can totally see it peeking through the frame.

I always liked the Thompson based design of the pulse rifle. I also like the Ruger AC-556 based Morita bullpup rifles used by the Mobile Infantry in Starship Troopers.

Very nice history lesson of what is arguably the most iconic prop weapon of all time!!! I would like to know more (sic) about one of my other favorite movie weapons: the rifle from the _Starship Troopers_ franchise!

5:55 That one in the museum looks filthy. Someone needs to give it a clean.

Around the 6 minute mark, you made a canon mistake. When mentioning Alien 3 the gun, you stated that marines return to Fury 161 the same planet in Aliens, when it's actually the planet from the third movie the game is named after.

Nice insight into the creation of the weapon. I found Aliens - Colonial Marines, the PC game a great game to play. The Coop LAN option was great and I used to play that with a few friends and had lots of fun. Thanks for the background detail. 👍

The plant from Aliens is called LV-426

Pule Rifle is the greatest sounding movie weapon of all time!

0:28 Kudos to the animators for putting forth the effort to animate ejecting casings. The gun's supposed to be caseless, but its base components certainly are not. 1:51 Apone: "Fasten that chinstrap, Hudson!" 2:23 Before the M-203, there was the XM-148. Jesse Ventura had one of those. 3:39 That's a MAC-10. The Uzi's way better. And the MP5 is the best (for the era). 4:05 Hicks describes the grenade launcher as being "30mm." A 12-gauge bore in metric is 18.5mm, so "20mm" would be more feasible. By comparison, a .45 caliber bore is 11.43mm in metric, so "10mm" is close enough. IRL, a caseless rifle would inevitably use a much slimmer bullet with an aerodynamic spitzer shape. 9:29 Sometimes, the launcher element is on top, as with the OICW. But not just an ordinary launcher. That's a "smart cannon." It's semi-auto, magazine-fed, and has a bullpup layout. The rifle element is actually underslung on the launcher/cannon. 10:16 More left-handed characters in vidya games! 10:46 20mm over 5.56. The pulse rifle's U1 grenade launcher would use grenades like those, but most likely shorter (and without the "smart" chip). So maybe more comparable to 18.5mm FRAG-12 grenades.

Last year at Bristol Comic Con there was the Terry English booth, the designer of the Colonial Marines armor. With him was a cosplayer weilding a replica of one of the screen used Pulse Rifles because when he let me hold it it was incredibly heavy I couldn't even lift it to aim being a full metal frame.

Hope u do more these types of vids

Was not expecting Johnathan Ferguson in this.

That first Colonial Marines pulse rifle animation is pretty good to be fair

11:21 'Having a counter is total nonsense' What? I think he means that the counter is on the side (where it can't be seen by the user), because having an ammo counter is amazing. Gamers won't tolerate a revolver without an ammo counter. That's why transparent gun mags are popular in real life. And some vendors even sell ammo counter gun mods. A bit clunky mind you. A fully integrated ammo counter would be viewed favorably.

M41A was available as a pick-up kit in the Allied Intent eXtended mod of EA/DICE Battlefield 2 and several mods of the Battlefield 2 first-person shooter.

The one thing you failed to mention is that the XM29 was a near total failure because the grenades were so small, they had very little useful fragmentation and the rifle part didn't do anything better than an M4.

Mr. Ferguson looks like Michael Sheen. Just ups the badass. And this is an impressive video article.

Best gun sound ever recorded ever

electronic buzzing growl yes that sums it up. well done.

The 1999 AVP pulse rifle’s sound did not pitch up and down in waves which is arguably the most iconic part of its sound. It just fired with a flat sample so to be fair, it can not be said that they nailed it. The actual sound effect was like a shriek and added greatly to the fear and excitement every time it was fired especially because the pitch of its terrifying and terrified shriek would wave up and down in faster or slower waves depending, to an extent, how long the trigger was held but was never an even and predictable wave so it hit the brain like an animal shriek encouraging a little squirt of adrenaline. Very hard to copy I’m sure but that game utterly failed or didn’t even attempt to emulate this key variance.

Fun fact the prop they use to show the weapon when they show it in the hands of the host and in revolving shots is actually a functional airsoft replica and the ammo counter actually counts down from 99 even though the magazine houses 120 pellets I believe

The Aliens Pulse Rifle will forever remain a popular and iconic weapon of the science fiction genre as a whole. Alongside the guns of Star Wars and their light sabers, and pistol from Blade Runner

Hey, maybe you haven't been keeping up on current events, but we just got our asses kicked, pal!

that was a M16 in Vietnam, not an AR15. The AR is the civilian semi-auto rifle based off of the M16

5:45 The Royal Armouries purchasing an Aliens Pulse Rifle! That is a great acquisition.

3:41 that isn’t an uzi, that is a MAC 10 or 11. I can’t really tell from the video.

I didn't realise how fast the rate of fire was on the pulse rifle...awesome.

You can see the pulse rifle (exactly the M41A) in the intro of the addon of the game : I-War.

What's crazy is that this "sci fi" rifle theoretically, can be made. There's even a video of someone firing a homemade version and he did the same thing: he used scrapped parts from a Thompson .45 submachine gun and Franchi shotgun and it looks exactly like the one in the movie. He even installed a digital timer so it "counts down" the rounds as the firing pin hits each round. The one big difference is his rifle can only fire 20 rounds, not 100!

Jonathan Ferguson ❤️❤️❤️

The M41A is excellent in Aliens: Fireteam Elite, for what it's worth. They absolutely nailed the sound and even though it's a starting gun, it wrecks at any level, any difficulty setting.

They forgot AvP2 game, released in 2001.

You can see a Pulse Rifle in the hands of the heroes in the game Contra by the way - the Arcade Version of it :)

I always thought it was super strange they used a Thompson as part of the base of this prop but had never considered that the look of the flash would have been a big consideration, i doubt there were that many other 45 cal riffles back then to pick from and the armorer prob just had one already as they are popular movie guns

Great video, thanks! What did you think of the pulse rifle's use in the latest Alien's game "Fireteam Elite?"

Excelente vídeo!!!!

its weird to think that AVP in 1999 was just 2 years before halo. its insane how big that jump in gameplay and technology was

Best gun sound ever.

That shooting sound of the pulse rifle is so satisfying I would say more satisfying then the iconic m1 garand ping sound muhehe MUHEHE

Please do the Morrita AR from the original Starship Troopers!

The reason the M41A looks so good is that it uses the golden ratio. The dimensions of the shroud and where the vertices end are in the golden ratio.

For me it’s the sound. Iconic

Quick correction. It wasn't "The AR-15" that US soldiers used in Vietnam. It was the M16. The Colt AR-15 (ArmaLite Rifle Number 15) was and is strictly the civilian derived descendant of the AR-10 (ArmaLite Rifle Number 10) a prototype/limited-production rifle designed by Eugene Stoner that would also be the basis for the Colt M16. The AR-15 lacks many of the features the M16 was given. One of the most important is Select Fire (the ability to switch the weapon from firing semi-automatically to either automatic fire or burst fire). The AR-15 is strictly a semi-automatic rifle. You have to pull the trigger once for every bullet that comes out. The M16 (and its carbine descendant, the M4) have the options of Semi-Automatic Fire, Automatic Fire (hold down the trigger and bullets will fire until either the magazine empties or it jams [heaven forbid]), or Burst Fire (the weapon automatically fires two or more rounds up to a designated number, in the case of the M16 three rounds, and then stops and you have to release the trigger before you can pull it to fire again).

where can I get my hands on the prop you used for this?!

3:45 It's a popular misconception that the Thompson A1 M1 sub-machinegun of WW2 is the same 1930's Thompson the gangsters, and the police we see, used. Theirs was the 1928, it had a completely different type of bolt. Also it could accommodate the drum magazine, the WW2 version could not. There were other differences too, introduced to speed up production in wartime.

"Remember....Short controlled bursts..."

I have been able to use the pulse rifle with no problem infact its my go to weapon i love it

Did anybody get recommended this because it has Jonathan Ferguson in it

The first FPS game to feature the Pulse Rifle was Alien vs Predator on the Atari Jaguar in 1994. Although it did not sound right and always looked like you were pointing it at the ceiling!

No idea what became of it, but there was one of the actual prop guns being used at E3 1998 or 1999 at the Alien Vs Predator booth. It was being held by one of the models (aka booth babes) in full Colonial Marine dress. She mentioned how sore her shoulder was from the strap diggin in the whole day before. She let me hold it, and i can confirm those things were freaking heavy. Fox Interactive was the company making it, and since they were affiliated with 20th Century Fox, it made sense that they were able to get one for the display, especially considering the way E3 was done back then, where you could generate a TON of hype just by drawing attention to a game display/booth with good props and/or models out in front.

All of the Star Wars OT hand weapons were based around real guns too. For example, the Stormtroopers used heavily modified British Sterling and German MG-34 machineguns, whilst Han's blaster was a modified Mauser.

The amount of knowledge Dave has of guns has convinced me that he's the guy under the Doom guy helmet. It's canon now, there's no going back.

Avp 2010 is criminally underrated

The counter is practical though, despite not being able to see it from a birds eye view it let's you know if your weapon has jammed or if its run out, wether the clip is worth salvaging and if in a covering fire situation wether or not you need to change clip soon and plan ahead accordingly

I was always convinced the sound was an mg42 sample slowed down and mixed with something else to make it sound slightly muffled.

I always love this gun so much. Yep. Like a laser gun. A pulse sound when firing. And come on. I found the Rifle on the Colonial Marine Game just fine.

That loose slide had me s h o o k

IDK, stating that an ammo counter is superfluous is well, inaccurate. A typical magazine on a modern combat rifle carries 30 rounds, which on full auto you can burn through in around 4 seconds, bust fire (which is the correct way) slightly longer and of course on semi even longer. Point is however, it's relatively easy to keep track of your rounds and MANY modern magazines includes a window or are semi-transparent to give an idea of how full that mag as and whether you needs to replace it. On a weapon like the M41A with it's INSANE 100 rounds mag, I'd say having SOME indicator of your ammo level would be quite necessary.

You can carry an OICW in Delta Force, Task force dagger. 30 rounds plus 6 round loads of grenades/pump action.

I worked all the stats out in 3g... it turned out to be pretty effective

Woah Johnathan Ferguson is it just me or is he popping up more and more

You overlooked AVP on the Atari Jaguar and Alien 3 on the 16-bit machines.

Gamespot with that quality oc

Holy fuck the editing in this video is beautiful

thank you for this video, people didn't believe me when i said that the bolt looked like the Thompson smg's bolt, also, i think this gun is used in the DOOM movie with the Rock

Theres a short in universe story about the development of the M41A that i found interesting. It was developed by a colonial marines master sergeant.

Got to applaud this guy for having better trigger discipline than the actors in the movie.

featured in Gpolice 1 and 2 as well

Remember...Short controlled bursts.!