The Guns of Snake Plissken

A Deep-Dive Into The Firearms Of Both Plissken Films

Back in 1981, a young John Carpenter hot off the early success of Halloween (1978) and The Fog (1980) co-wrote, co-scored, and directed the ahead-of-its-time dystopian action flick Escape from New York. This wild movie with an original premise wasn’t a big hit in theaters, but it later became a huge cult favorite on video and cable, while introducing the world to antihero Snake Plissken. 

Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) is a former military officer turned mercenary and hardened criminal in the not-to-distant future of 1997. What’s left of the U.S. government taps Plissken to rescue the president when his airplane’s escape pod crashes on the island of Manhattan, which is now a cordoned-off island prison in the crime-ridden nation — the largest prison in the world. There are no guards and the only containment measures are there to keep people from getting off the island. 

Plissken is injected with a micro-explosive that will sever his carotid artery if he doesn’t return, mission accomplished, in less than 24 hours. They do give him some gear, and a pretty sweet glider that he lands on top of one of the Twin Towers. 

Now, let’s get into the guns of Snake Plissken, from both of his big screen appearances.

Guns of Snake Plissken: ‘Escape From New York’

Smith & Wesson Model 67 revolver

Plissken is issued a scoped revolver as his main sidearm, a stainless steel Smith & Wesson Model 67. The adjustable sights without a shrouded lug tell us it’s a Model 67, which also means it’s a .38 Special and not a .357 Magnum. Snake’s revolver is the stainless counterpart to the S&W Model 15 Combat Masterpiece. 

When the camera pans across the table with all of Snake’s gear laid out on it, we see the revolver with a simple leather holster and two speedloaders, so 12 extra rounds, assuming it’s loaded. He doesn’t use it much — actually, Maggie (Adrienne Barbeau) uses it more than he does. 

MAC-10 Submachine Gun

Snake’s primary weapon is…interesting. In the tradition of Hollywood sci-fi/future movies gluing things on guns to make them look more futuristic, the filmmakers came up with a fairly conventional MAC-10 submachine gun with its signature long suppressor attached. Only, they mounted the scope to the suppressor. It certainly gives it a distinctive look. And, oddly enough, when the gun is fired, the shots are not suppressed. At all. 

Snake carries it in a large leg holster, and when he’s captured by the bad guys, The Duke (Isaac Hayes) takes his MAC-10 and uses it for the rest of the movie.   

Guns of Snake Plissken: ‘Escape from L.A.’

The CoreBurner

Snake returned for another go-round, this time in an earthquake-ravaged prison-city of Los Angeles in Escape from L.A (1996). The movie was released the year before the setting of the original. 

It’s basically the same setup, except this time, instead of a tiny explosive, Snake is injected with a virus that will kill him in 24 hours without an antidote. 

He also has his gear for the mission laid out for him on a big table. For a primary, he’s given a gun called the “Coreburner.” Under all the movie attachments, it’s a modified LaFrance M16K carbine. Apparently the filmmakers had a tough time getting the Coreburner to work in full-auto with the original build. The armorer rebuilt the gun from the ground up, choosing the M16K as a base, and it worked just fine. 

It has a high-tech looking scope, an odd buttstock, and some kind of housing around the barrel and muzzle. On the table near the gun are two ammo boxes that say “.223 Magnesium Cartridges,” and the voice describing his loadout says he is being given 500 extra rounds of magnesium ammo. So futuristic. 

Good thing they gave him the 500 extra rounds, considering the first magazine was loaded with blanks to prevent Snake from killing everyone in the room once he was armed up, which he totally tries to do. 

Twin Smith & Wesson Model 629 Performance Center Revolvers

Instead of one sidearm, Snake gets two pistols this time — two big pistols. He carries twin Smith & Wesson Model 629 Performance Center .44 Magnum revolvers in drop-leg holsters. And, of course, they both have Aimpoint red-dot optics that match the stainless wheelguns. These handguns have one particular awesome, standout scene when Snake challenges a couple of thick-headed bad guys to an old-fashioned draw, but using “Bangkok rules.”  

He tells them he’s going to throw a can in the air and when it hits the ground, they draw and try to kill each other. Of course, Snake throws the can up and immediately draws, burning the two convicts down. 

Snake gets captured more than once along this adventure, and so he ends up using some weapons of opportunity, including a Desert Eagle Mark VII in .357 Magnum that he gets off Stars Eddie (Steve Buscemi), and a tiny Seecamp LWS .32 ACP pistol he takes off Hershe (Pam Grier).