Back in the late 60's,while at Ft. Hood,there was a rumor going around.We had evidentily taken a soviet tank + upon examination found that all the internal controls were reversed mirror image.The consensus at that time was that the soviets,rather than try to retrain lefties to operate RH equipment,combined tank crews of LH individuals so as to operate in a manner more in tune with natural instincts.I never saw one of these tanks.Can anyone comment on the validity of this?

Don't know about their tanks, but the main rotor blades on Soviet helicopters rotate opposite the ones on US choppers. That would make for a fun ride for me--all my training and instincts would be backwards. Probably do OK until an emergency and I'd revert to my training and experience.

The movie poster for "Enemy at the Gates" shows an actor holding a left-handed Mosin-Nagant rifle. That one was a screw-up I think. Laid the negative down backwards, or just wanted to get the actor's "good side" more than likely.

BTW, have you ever seen "The Deer Hunter"? If you can get past the first 1/3 of it where the California directors make the case how dreary it might be to grow up in Western Pa. or how Russian Roulette is the national sport of Vietnam, the last ridiculous hunting scene with Robert DeNiro running after a deer in mountainous terrain and actually keeping up with it, with several shot opportunities at the same deer, has the same screw-up on film, as far as I can tell. Sometimes, he's shooting a left-handed rifle and sometimes a right-handed one. I re-wound that scene a dozen or so times, looking for a mole or a wristwatch, but my rented copy wasn't high enough quality to where I could tell whether they were swapping rifles or reversing the image.

H. C.

You can 'use' any right handed / left handed bolt action rifle. It is easier if the rifle stock does not have a cheek piece.

Just shoot it off the opposite shoulder. I find it strange and a bit odd, but it can be done. The UK military does not recognise 'left handedness'. Everyone has to shoot right handed.

More so now, since they are equiped with the SA80. The bolt would come back and break your cheek bone if you tried to fire the right handed SA 80 left handed from the shoulder.

In the film "The Deer Hunter", I thought Robert De Niro's character was using a left hand Remington Model 700 BDL, with white spacers etc.

I'll have to watch the "Deer Hunter" again.Don't remember looking at the bolt;what I do remember was how De Niro just threw the cased rifles out of the trunk onto the ground.That shit would have only happened once if I were hunting with him.