The Walking Dead actors train with real guns and weapons

The cast of AMC’s The Walking Dead learn to use their weapons by training with real life versions of the deadly guns used on the hit zombie survival show.

Fighting off the undead can be a real tough venture. The characters on AMC’s The Walking Dead each have weapons they seem comfortable using to put down walkers or opposing humans. However, not all the actors on the show were familiar with how much kick some weapons have or how heavy a sword is to swing.

The good thing is that AMC takes every step to make sure that the cast and crew know what these experiences are like. According to an article on the Tech Insider website, the actors are trained with real-life versions of their prop weapons first to ensure they know what the experiences are like before they are used on the program.

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John Sanders, the property master and weapons expert for The Walking Dead, is in charge of making sure that everything is available to help make the scenes with weapons as authentic as possible to ensure the scenes appear as realistic as possible.

"“We try to train them with live guns as well as with the blank guns, just so that they’ll know how the actual guns, when they fire an actual bullet, will feel in their hands,” Sanders said. “We do it with blanks as well so that they understand the difference between the two and we hope at least that it helps them in their acting and the reality of how that weapon really works.”"

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So far, the results have been pretty good. There haven’t been many incidents on the show where the unrealistic use of a gun has resulted in a scene taking the viewer out of reality. With help from many weapons experts, the cast of The Walking Dead may actually be well prepared in the event of an actual zombie apocalypse as well.

"“We have taken them outside to an outside long range with a number of weapons at times,” Sanders said. “And we bring training professionals, people from the military, people from the police force, SWAT team. The gun range trainer, Russ Smith, has worked with us for years. He owns a range, he’s also come on set with us on days we have big days, big weapons, such as the 50 caliber.”"

Of course, fans will remember the big 50 caliber gun from the scenes involving the assault on the prison. The presence of the big gun helped raise the threat level of Woodbury’s people and gave the scene an intense punch to show viewers The Governor meant business.

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Knowing that the actors on the show actually know how to handle the weapons they are holding adds a bigger sense of reality to AMC’s The Walking Dead. Thanks to the weapons experts, AMC, and John Sanders, the future of zombie killing on the hit zombie survival drama seems to be in good hands.