A custom lever-action rifle with a short barrel was owned by XOF commander Skull Face. He carried the weapon with him during XOF's operations from 1975 to 1984, in Cuba,[1] Africa and Afghanistan.
Skull Face used his rifle to kill one of the test subjects in the Ngumba Industrial Zone, in the Angola-Zaire border region. After being mortally wounded at the Serak Power Plant in Afghanistan, Skull Face himself ended up on the receiving end of the weapon, with Venom Snake and Kazuhira Miller using it to forcibly amputate his left foot and right arm (a reference to the injuries that Skull Face inflicted on the latter via the Skulls), before leaving him to die in agony. In order to ensure that Skull Face could not reach the gun, Miller, after telling Skull Face to "do it [himself]" in reference to his begging for them to finish him off, dropped the rifle and used his crutch to point the barrel away from Skull Face. Huey Emmerich then picked up the rifle and shot Skull Face in the head.
Behind the scenes[]
Skull Face's rifle appears to be based on the Mare’s Leg, a customized shortened rifle used by Steve McQueen’s character on the television series Wanted: Dead or Alive. "Mare's leg" is now a generic term for a Winchester Model 1892 (or modern derivative) with a shortened barrel and stock.
Skull Face's rifle was originally intended to be useable in-game as a weapon unlock, where, even though it was classified as a shotgun, it was relegated to the secondary weapon category similar to pistols and submachine guns. It would have been named the Skull Custom. It was ultimately cut from the game, although the player can mod it into the game and even call it from a delivery (although that being said, it will cause a soft-lock to the game, and it cannot receive any reloads, either voluntarily or when running out of ammo).[2]
Appearances[]
Notes and references[]
- ^ Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, Kojima Productions (2014).
Marine 1: You see that costume party those guys saluted to? // Marine 2: Yeah... Trench coat, and a ten gallon hat, and to top it off, that piece he's carrying is a sawed off old lever-action // Marine 1: Their CO's got style... for a bad guy in a western. // Marine 2: Nah man, he's just a Republican. // Marine 1: Either way, he didn't look like no soldier to me. // Marine 2: And his bodyguards are all special forces ball-busting heavy operators. Last time I saw that, I was reading a comic book. // Marine 1: I'm gonna have nightmares about this shit. - ^ https://tcrf.net/Metal_Gear_Solid_V:_The_Phantom_Pain_(Windows)#Skull_Custom