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Yes and no. There are both but real guns are typically used for hero shots because they have the right weight and make the right noises.
There's also blank firing adapters for some weapons which are fairly big and obvious but essentially split the round in two as it exits the barrel and mushes them up so they lose all their energy.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blank-firing_adapter
That's not really what BFAs do, at least not the models I've used. You seem to imply that weapons with BFAs fitted are still firing real rounds, which are rendered safe by hitting the adapter. That's not true. They are firing blanks, which are cartridges with the bullet and some of the powder removed. Pull the trigger, you get a pop, a flash, and some smoke. Yay!
Pull the trigger again though, and you're very likely to have a misfire because the next round failed to feed from the magazine to the chamber. This is because most semi or fully automatic weapons use some of the energy of a fired round to cycle the action which expels the spent cartridge and feeds a fresh round into the firing chamber. When you fire a real bullet, it actually acts as something of a plug in the barrel for the very brief period of time it travels through it. This allows the pressure to overcome the resistance of the weapon's action, and thus operate.
When you fire a blank, there's no bullet. No bullet means no plug, which means that all of the gas from the explosion just rushes right out the end of the barrel and is not enough to cycle the gun. This, you have to manually run the action, turning your scary big black assault rifle into a quaint bolt action rifle.
So, how do you solve this problem? You make your own plug and stick it on the end of the barrel to redirect all of the energy through the weapon system rather than expelling it. That's a all a BFA is, a metal post matched to the diameter of the barrel that screws into place to plug it. This has the additional positive of preventing anything from exiting the barrel accidentally while firing blanks, which is useful in the training contexts that you often see these devices, because you're often "firing" on other people.
If you were to use a BFA in the manner you describe, i.e. with a real bullet, you're certainly going to damage the shit out of your weapon, and possibly wind up in the Emergency Room because you caught some metal splinters in the face when the end of your weapon exploded.
They aren't wrong though. There's different types of "blanks". There are blanks which are completely "blank", but there are also "blanks" which just have a regular shaped bullet, but a very light one, made out of balsa wood, and those do require a blank-firing adapter and while they wouldn't fly far from the barrel, you could hurt someone with one probably, but more importantly the blank-firing adapter also restricts the gases which are let out, thus increasing the (otherwise inadequate) pressure on the reload mechanism, so you don't have to manually reload. In fact, we here in Finland call it "sysäyksenvahvistin", and the direct translation wouldn't be "blank-firing adapter", but "increaser-of-pushback-pressure", more or less.
It's easier to make blanks like that than it is to make ones which don't expel anything and still manage to keep a semi- or fullauto reloading.
There's a mandated 50m safety distance for these, but I once got shot in the face from less than a metre a way while we were practicing urban warfare. I was spitting balsa wood for the rest of the day.
One dipshit ones had blanks in his mag, didn't have his safety on, didn't have his blank-firing adapter installed, and the gun was fucking loaded. Sure it probably wouldn't have killed anyone, but that shit was still dangerous.
Soooo yeah, it is exactly what certain types of blank-firing adapters do.
I'm a little confused by your response. Everything in my post was written from the perspective of firing the type of blank I described (no bullet, balsa wood or real) with the BFA attached. While I have had that type of blank cycle the weapon without a BFA attached, it's the exception to the rule.
Furthermore, would you clarify the use of these balsa wood bullets for me? Because, given my understanding of BFAs and what you described, I don't see how those two concepts would work together. As you said, the principle behind BFAs is plugging the barrel so more gas is directed to the action, rather than our of the system. If you had a BFA fitted to a weapon that was firing blanks which were tipped with wood or some other fake projectile, my assumption would be the debris would collect in the end of the barrel behind the BFA post. Hell, that's why we always hated training with blanks, it was always a nightmare to clean out the carbon buildup in the weapon after since none of it was expelled in the firing process like it would be in normal operation. Compacting a shit load of debris in the barrel of your weapon does not seem like it would be the intended outcome of a training event, but dumber shit has happened.
I am sure that there are blanks (especially in the context of a Hollywood armory) which are designed in such away to more closely resemble real ammunition, I've just never worked with something of that ilk, and it doesn't jive with my (limited) understanding of how firearms work.
Why do you assume how it works instead of just simply looking it up?
The blank firing adaptor isn't solid. There's an opening, but not a direct one. Thus the balsa wood bullet will be broken down into little pieces which will be ejected through the BFA, making room for the next bullet.
"If you had"
You don't have the balls to say "you're full of bullshit and don't know what you're talking about", but you're still trying to say that, when you could've just actually googled this.
"It doesn't jive with my ignorance", yeah, and that's probably what should propel you to seek more information on the matter instead of thinking your assumptions are correct, isn't it?
If the cops didn't bust me for weed and take take out all the other stuff I had while they were at it, I'd still have a few of those blanks to show you from my army days. It just really upsets me that you would rather assert that I'm in the wrong than be open to learning more. It's just... so American.
edit here's an image of the type of bullet I'm talking about, but this one is Swedish
OP described something which conflicted with my direct, personal experience with that thing. I offered up my perspective. You responded with your perspective, based on your own anecdotal evidence. Yes, I could have run off to Google to fact check you and learn of all of the types of BFA that are out there. I chose not to. Why? Because we're in the comment section of an article that has NOTHING to do with blank firing adapters. I assumed, and I guess you're just going to have to forgive me for not researching in advance enough to not make this assumption, that, in responding to my post, you might be interested in further expounding upon the statements you made and answering questions I had about how your devices worked since they were clearly of a different design than what I had experienced. On the topic of assumptions, I was very clear that I was making an assumption so as to make it painstakingly obvious that I wasn't trying to say you were WRONG ON THE INTERNET, but just that I wasn't clear on how the device you were describing could be functional, given my previously stated understanding. I even attempted to reinforce that I wasn't trying to invalidate your assertions by stating I was certain that wood tipped blanks were a real thing, I just had no personal experience with them.
So, I dunno what to tell you man. I tried really hard to be as non-confrontational as possible in my comments. I'm tempted to say that I clearly failed in my ambition there, but no, I don't think I will. You responded like a dick, and I think you ought to ask yourself what you're doing in a discussion forum if your first response to a comment asking for you to clarify some of your statements is "fuck you, Google it."
So yours is "direct personal experience" and mine is "anecdotal evidence"?
Just like I said in my first comment, while you might be unaware of all types of blanks, that doesn't mean they don't exist. So rather than ask or research, you implied or even downright refuted the existence of such ammunition.
Why?
You didn't ask "oh, how do those work vis-a-vis this thing", you said "oh those would clog up your barrel", because the BFA you used was different from the one we used.
Be open. Ask questions. Don't say "that would cause X". It sounds a bit like Flat Earthers who make weird claims about how far you're supposed to see into the horizon.
Yeah, I was too confrontational, I admit that, and I apologise. The lack of tone of voice on text based messaging can be a bitch, but honestly, I feel like you weren't being too open to types of weapon accessories that aren't common in your part of the globe. (See how I snuck "globe" in there to piss off any would be Flat Earthers reading this. Also, I've had about bottle of Bacardi.) Being neutral online can actually lead to people perceiving your comments as hostile. Fucking annoying, innit?