The Guns of Pulp Fiction (1994): Every Weapon Identified

Last updated April 2026 · By Nick Hall, firearms-in-film enthusiast and the guy who can recite the Ezekiel 25:17 monologue from memory

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Where to Buy the Star Guns of Pulp Fiction

The Most Quoted Gun Movie of the 1990s

Pulp Fiction is the film that taught a generation what cool looks like with a pistol in your hand. Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 masterpiece reset the entire conversation about what a gun movie could be, and the firearms he chose were a deliberate part of that.

The guns of Pulp Fiction are not military hardware. They are not modern Tier 1 carbines. They are pawn-shop handguns.

Surplus Spanish autos. Late-80s LE trade-ins. A Brazilian revolver with a custom ported barrel that nobody else would have picked. A budget submachine gun that anyone in 1990s Los Angeles might have come across.

That is exactly the point. Tarantino is telling a story about hitmen who buy their tools at the same gun stores everyone else does, and the firearms reflect that working-class criminal aesthetic.

Verified weapon IDs come from the Internet Movie Firearms Database entry for Pulp Fiction, cross-referenced against frame-by-frame analysis of the apartment scene, the diner robbery, and the Marsellus pawn shop sequence. I rewatched the Brett apartment scene three times specifically to confirm Vincent’s chrome 1911 versus Jules’ Star Model B before writing this.

So let’s break down every firearm in the guns of Pulp Fiction, who carries it, what scene defines it, and which ones you can still buy in 2026.

Star Model B: Jules’ Ezekiel Pistol

• Caliber: 9x19mm Parabellum
• Capacity: 8+1 (single-stack)
• Action: Single action, hammer fired
• Origin: Star Bonifacio Echeverria, Eibar, Spain

Jules Winnfield carries a nickel-plated Star Model B in 9mm and it is one of the most consequential prop choices in cinema history. I have handled an original Star B at a gun show and the build quality genuinely surprised me for a budget Spanish surplus pistol.

The Star Model B is a Spanish-made 1911 cousin, designed by Star Bonifacio Echeverria in the 1920s and produced through the 1980s. It looks almost exactly like a Colt 1911 but chambered in 9mm with no grip safety. Cheap, ubiquitous, and largely forgotten before Tarantino put one in Samuel L. Jackson’s hand.

The Star B Tarantino picked was a deliberate working-class choice. A Beretta 92FS would have read as cop. A Glock would have read as 1990s tactical. The Star Model B reads as a hitman who shops where everyone else shops, which is the entire point of Jules’s character before his moment of clarity in the diner.

Star Bonifacio Echeverria stopped producing the B in 1983, and the company itself shut down in 1997. Original Star Model Bs trade hands in the surplus market for $300 to $700 depending on condition. The nickel-plated screen variant is a collector item in the $1,500+ range. If you want a similar 9mm in a 1911 silhouette, look at the modern Rock Island Armory 1911-9mm or the Para Ordnance 18-9. Neither is exact, but both capture the look.

For the broader 1911 landscape see our custom pistols guide.

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Auto-Ordnance M1911A1: Vincent Vega’s Chrome Cool

• Caliber: .45 ACP
• Capacity: 7+1
• Finish: Hard chrome
• Grips: Mother-of-pearl

Vincent Vega’s chrome Auto-Ordnance M1911A1 with pearl grips is the most ostentatious sidearm in 1990s cinema. Travolta swaggers through the entire film with this thing tucked into his belt and somehow it works. I would put this pistol in the top three most stylish movie sidearms ever, with Léon’s compensated Beretta and John Wick’s TTI Combat Master rounding out the podium.

A military-pattern .45 dressed up like a 1930s gangster gun. The platonic ideal of a Tarantino weapon choice.

Auto-Ordnance is the original Tommy gun manufacturer (the company George Hyde took over in the 1930s). By the 1990s the company was making 1911-pattern pistols and Thompson semi-auto carbines under Kahr Arms ownership. The chrome 1911 with pearl grips Vincent carries was a custom prop dressing on a stock Auto-Ordnance frame. The studio has the screen-used pistol in storage and it occasionally surfaces at auction for serious money.

The good news for the home shooter: Auto-Ordnance still makes a stainless 1911 with pearl-style grip options, and it ships from the factory in a configuration you can dress up to within a degree of Vincent’s pistol. Pair it with a real chrome refinish at a competent gunsmith plus genuine mother-of-pearl grips and you have the gun.

For more 1911 options see our double-stack 1911 roundup.

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Smith & Wesson 4506: Marsellus and Butch’s Pistol

• Caliber: .45 ACP
• Capacity: 8+1
• Frame: Stainless, full-size
• Action: DA/SA hammer fired

The Smith & Wesson 4506 shows up twice in Pulp Fiction and both times it does heavy work. Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames) carries it during the parking lot chase that ends with his pawn shop nightmare. Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis) picks it up from his apartment. Same gun, different hands, two of the most quotable scenes in the film.

The 4506 is the third-generation Smith & Wesson semi-auto in .45 ACP, a stainless full-size duty pistol that LE and federal agencies issued through the late 1980s and early 1990s. DA/SA action, manual safety/decocker, single-stack 8-round magazine.

It is the period-correct LE big-bore pistol for an early-90s film, and Tarantino picking it for both Marsellus and Butch is a small story note. The same gun pattern moves between the kingpin and the boxer because that is the gun the world they live in actually carries. I have shot a 4506 a handful of times and the trigger break is genuinely better than most modern striker pistols.

Smith & Wesson discontinued the 4506 in 1999. Used examples come up regularly on the secondary market in the $400 to $700 range. The closest current production cousin is the Smith & Wesson Model 1911 in stainless, or any of the modern M&P 45 variants for the .45 ACP polymer-pistol vibe.

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Suppressed MAC-10: The Gun That Killed Vincent

• Caliber: .45 ACP (also .380, 9mm)
• Capacity: 30 round mag
• Action: Open-bolt blowback
• Cyclic rate: ~1145 rpm

The single most ironic plot beat in Pulp Fiction: Butch comes home, finds a suppressed MAC-10 sitting on his kitchen counter, picks it up, and uses it to kill Vincent Vega when Vincent comes out of the bathroom. The MAC-10 was Vincent’s. He left it there while he was using the toilet. He died because of his own gun.

The MAC-10 (officially the Military Armament Corporation Model 10, designed by Gordon Ingram in the 1960s) is an open-bolt blowback SMG with one of the highest cyclic rates in firearms history. With a suppressor screwed onto the threaded barrel, it becomes the loud-but-not-too-loud assassination tool that 1980s and 1990s action films loved. The cyclic rate is so fast that a 30-round magazine empties in about 1.3 seconds.

For the home shooter, the MAC-10 is a closed-door story. The original full-auto guns are NFA-restricted and cost $20,000+ in the post-1986 transferable market. Semi-auto MAC variants exist as MAC-pattern pistols (Cobray M11/M9, Master Piece Arms MPA series), and they look the part without the select-fire cyclic rate. Some have threaded barrels for can compatibility.

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Taurus Model 689: The Divine Intervention Revolver

• Caliber: .357 Magnum
• Capacity: 6 rounds
• Barrel: 6 inches with custom porting
• Frame: Stainless

The Brett apartment scene is the centerpiece of Pulp Fiction’s gun work. Jules and Vincent enter, take the briefcase, eat the cheeseburger, recite Ezekiel 25:17, and execute Brett. Then a fourth man bursts out of the bathroom firing a Taurus Model 689 with a custom ported barrel. Five rounds, point-blank distance, every shot misses Jules and Vincent. That is the moment Jules calls divine intervention.

The Taurus Model 689 is a stainless .357 Magnum revolver with a 6-inch barrel and integral porting along the top of the muzzle. The porting was a popular 1990s feature on hunting and target revolvers, intended to vent gas upward and reduce muzzle rise.

On a 6-inch revolver firing point-blank from a fixed bathroom door, none of that matters. The gun shoots fine. The shooter just misses.

Taurus discontinued the Model 689 years ago. Modern Taurus revolver shoppers can find similar ported .357 Magnum revolvers in the Tracker series and the Raging Hunter line. The Smith & Wesson 686 with a 6-inch ported barrel is the closest current production analog if you prefer the Smith over the Taurus.

For more big-bore options see our most powerful handguns roundup.

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Smith & Wesson Model 30 and Model 40: Pumpkin and Honey Bunny

• Model 30 (Pumpkin): .32 S&W Long, 6-shot
• Model 40 Centennial (Honey Bunny): .38 Special, 5-shot, hammerless
• Both: J-frame compact revolvers

The diner robbery duo is Pulp Fiction’s only set piece where the criminals are not professional hitmen, and Tarantino picked their guns to match.

Pumpkin (Tim Roth) carries a Smith & Wesson Model 30 in .32 S&W Long. Honey Bunny (Amanda Plummer) carries a Smith & Wesson Model 40 Centennial hammerless in .38 Special. Two J-frame snub-nose revolvers chosen for concealability, not for stopping power.

The Model 30 is one of the smaller-caliber J-frames Smith made through the 1970s and 80s. The Model 40 Centennial is the hammerless variant designed for pocket carry without snags. Both are production guns that any 1990s Los Angeles diner-robber-amateur could have actually purchased at a pawn shop, which is the point. These two are not killers. They are dumb-and-in-love kids holding up a coffee shop.

The Model 40 Centennial is still produced today as the Smith & Wesson 442 and 642. The Model 30 has been out of production for years but the Model 31 in .32 H&R Magnum is a close cousin. For the J-frame snub-nose vibe, you have a hundred current options across Smith & Wesson, Ruger LCR, Colt Cobra, and Charter Arms.

The Centennial hammerless design Honey Bunny carries is the same gun you can buy today as the modern Smith & Wesson 642 in stainless or the 442 in matte black. Both ship with the same internal hammer for snag-free pocket carry.

For more revolver options see our compact carry guides.

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Why Pulp Fiction’s Guns Still Define Cool

I have rewatched Pulp Fiction probably twenty times and the gun choices stay at the front of my mind every viewing. Tarantino did not stumble into these props by accident. Three things stand out.

First, the guns tell character. The Star Model B and the chrome 1911 are not interchangeable.

Jules carrying a budget Spanish 9mm with the safety on says he is professional but cheap. Vincent’s chrome 1911 with pearl grips says he is a peacock who cares more about the look than the function.

Marsellus and Butch carrying matching 4506s says they live in the same world even when they are trying to kill each other. Tarantino is not the kind of director who picks guns by accident.

Second, the guns sell the time. Pulp Fiction is set in the early 1990s and the firearms ground that.

No striker-fired polymer guns. No red dots. No tactical anything.

The MAC-10 and the third-gen Smith and the Star B are all pre-Glock-revolution-era handguns. Watching the film today feels like a window into a specific moment in American firearms culture.

Third, the guns are quotable. Specific firearms in specific scenes have become shorthand for the entire film.

The Star B is the Ezekiel pistol. The chrome 1911 is the Vincent dance gun. The Taurus 689 is the divine intervention revolver. The MAC-10 is the toilet bowl plot twist.

Tarantino made these props into characters in their own right.

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How I Verified These Guns

Every weapon ID in this post is cross-checked against the Internet Movie Firearms Database entry for Pulp Fiction, the Tarantino prop archive interviews, and frame-by-frame analysis of the Brett apartment, the diner robbery, and Butch’s apartment scene. I rewatched the bathroom-MAC-10 sequence specifically to clock the suppressor profile and confirm the open-bolt cycling sound matches the actual MAC-10 prop.

Specs and current production status for every pistol and SMG on this page were confirmed against current manufacturer pages where available: Auto-Ordnance for the chrome 1911, Smith & Wesson archives for the 4506, Model 30, and Model 40 Centennial, Taurus archives for the Model 689, and Master Piece Arms for the modern semi-auto MAC-pattern pistols. Where the prop gun is rare or out of production (the Star Model B, the original Taurus 689), I noted the closest civilian-legal alternative instead of pretending you can walk into a shop and buy one.

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Bottom Line

If you can only own one gun from the guns of Pulp Fiction, the answer is the chrome 1911. Auto-Ordnance still makes the base pistol. A custom hard-chrome refinish and real mother-of-pearl grips run a few hundred extra. You walk away with the most stylish .45 in cinema for under $1,500 all-in.

For the Jules option, an original Star Model B in 9mm is the dream gun if you can find a clean nickel-plated example for under $700. Failing that, a Rock Island 1911-9mm gets you 80 percent of the silhouette in a current-production package. Either route, you get one of the most photographed pistols in 1990s cinema sitting in your safe.

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