Near the end when Neo gets shot the second time, cut to a scene looking down on the agents gun in slow motion. go frame by frame and you can see that the cartridge ejecting from the gun and the one below it in the clip are blanks.
A regular bullet, once fired, the empty casing is a hollow cylinder, but closed on the back side. A blank on the other hand, has that same hollow cylinder (of course filled with gun powder), but instead of a projectile bullet, the tip is scrunched so that when it is fired, the scrunched part simply expands to let the gun powder blow up.
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The recoil time isn't a problem, because of the plot; The agents can break the rules, thus they have more control over their firearm. The gun doesn't even exist in the first place, it's a computer program. And I partly agree; if they were doing a close-up of the gun, in slow motion, the next shot in the clip should have been a dummy-round(as-in you can actually SEE the bullet, not just an empty blank). The scene could have looked better, but give them a break! Most people don't care what each individual FRAME looks like!
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You do NOT use real bullets on a movie set. Period. No way, no how. There have been too many accidents resulting from their use to where producers do not allow them. To have fired a real round out of the firearm for the close up scene, as some here have suggested, would not only require live rounds being brought in, but an un-modified firearm being used as well (semi-automatic and automatic firearms need to have a converter added to them to use blanks in order to provide enough pressure to cycle the weapon . . . and you can't fire live rounds out of a "converted" firearm without removing the converter). Personally, I'm perfectly willing to let them get by with a "slip up" that involves safety issues.
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Once and for all:
1. You can tell it is a blank because the end where the bullet is crimped, blanks have the front end crimped together so the powder will build up pressure and explode.
2. If they were going to show a close up slow motion of the gun firing and recoiling you would expect (for authenticity) that they would film it on a shooting range with real bullets.
3. The arguments about the agents breaking the rules are silly stop using them.
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www.howstuffworks.com/machine-gun.htm. It is a very good site with lots of info on blowback systems, recoil based pistols and the like. I recommend that anyone who wants to post on a gun-based topic reads this. I found it very helpful.
by the way, a gattling gun or minigun(which is what is actually used) uses the blowback system which means that the recoil would be absorbed by the gun itself.
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If controlling the helicopter was difficult with the "minigun" on it, then the then it wouldn't be there. Many helicopters have larger weapons than that on them without having trouble controlling them while the weapon is fired. The reason that the recoil is a factor for aiming and reaiming is because in real life they would not be able to get a continuous slow motion shot of an "agent" firing the weapon, it would take too long to bring the weapon back into position. The blanks are an acceptable flaw and do not destroy any suspense of disbelief.
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Helicopters are not affected by recoil of a minigun. The only part that would affect the helicopter would be the weight of the ammo casings falling and the weight diff, but that is really easy to compensate for.
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Are you lot even sure that they filmed some guy shooting blanks then tried to freeze the shot in time? I would have thought they would be put in by computer rather than getting someone to fire blanks and then hope to catch them in shot...
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They actually did use real rounds in the old movies. But if the recoil time is so important in the Matrix, then how in the helicopter scene did Trinity keep the helicopter stable while Neo fired the minigun?
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