Oh, swell. Movie baddie discovers Steyr Scout.

Seen first on Facebook.  It appears that Michael Douglas' latest portrayal of (wait for it, now) a corporate magnate gone bad (You really were shocked, weren't you?  Admit it.) will feature what appears to be a pimped out Steyr (Mannlicher) Scout.

I'm sure someone will make cooing noises over the Teutonic consistency between the Austrian rifle and the braggadocious Benz seen in the trailer, and perhaps this was even the deliberate design of someone hired to produce "authenticity" in the final product.  (They have people for that, you know.)

Oh, joy.   So now I get to bookmark here the leading edge of the coming effort to demonize the boltgun, by starting with the boltgun whose cosmetics lay in between Evil Black Rifles and traditional western Fuddguns.  Seriously, is there any doubt that this image will get used for full value down the line?

Click to embiggen the psychotic hatred.

Geek musings collected en bloc here:

Predictably, one also has to laugh at even the few gun-work bits highlighted in the trailer, which feature what looks to be a long-distance snapshot, out-of-the-shoulder boltwork, an illogical bipod deployment right in front of at least three superior post rests...  (Presumably they had to invent at least one suitably photogenic scene for the "leggy things that go down".)  I'm sure the full movie will be even more full of the gaag.

And the Scout itself, apparently, wasn't weird-looking enough out of the box;  it had to be modified to haz more evil.  This one seems to have a muzzlebrake (highlighted by the shiny aftermarket barrel--look here for the evil, folks!), more shinies to bring out the unconventionally-mounted telescope...  Somehow, I cannot imagine that the full movie will fail to mention also the (gasp) detachable magazine (and spare, mounted in the buttstock), nor the quality of the trigger, nor the inherent accuracy (...of the barrel that they replaced with the shiny one), nor the uncommonly light weight (...that they nullified with the heavy-contour, unfluted shiny barrel).

They fully missed, however, in swapping out the Ching Sling for what looks like a traditional two-point carry strap.  (Presumably they simply didn't understand what the weird-looking short strap was for.)  If you want to show people who have never seen it something that is ninja-like impressive, it would be hard to beat film of a practiced hand dropping into sitting while simultaneously locking himself to his rifle, and hitting twice at 200-300 yards.  It's amazing to watch.  (I know, of course, that most people haven't ever actually tried to hit things that far away, and so can't be as impressed as those who have, but the out-of-box Scout with the Ching Sling makes it as easy as you can make it with a rifle, and if my goal was to scare people with how efficient a boltgun can be, that would be the very first thing I'd show.

We'll see, of course, exactly how the polypragmatoi play it this time, but we've been here so many times before...the one thing that seems death-and-taxes certain is that they will do something with it.

Fudds take note.  Baddie's got a boltgun!