Open source pistol design
L. Neil Smith wrote a new and interesting short article on the Liberator pistol of WW2, designed to be air-dropped to resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied territory. Towards the end of the article, he muses about the possibility of a 21st century version of the concept:
“We’ve made a very great deal of technical progress since the early days of World War II, and I believe that a modern incarnation of the Liberator Pistol could probably be made for under ten dollars. Given modern super polymers, the thing could even be made invisible to metal detectors. I’m willing to bet there are hundreds of organizations and thousands of individuals more than willing to pay for this historic effort.”
An interesting factoid about the FP-45 Liberator is that factories were able, even back in the early days of WW2, to produce the pistols faster than they could be loaded and fired.
“Building the pistol took about six or seven seconds whilst loading took about 10 seconds.”
To me, that seems to point the way toward some rudimentary design specifics. For starters, don’t bother making the weapon reloadable. We’re talking about a “purse gun” for self defense or, in the true heritage of the original Liberator, a “great gun to get another with“. So why not produce the pistol and its full magazine as one, factory-loaded, integrated package — much like the cheap disposable 35mm cameras that come with one roll of film?
While Smith has long praised the .40 Liberty cartridge, cost is an issue. The popular favorite for pistol ammunition remains 9mm, I believe. One can safely assume that, whatever the constraints upon production, 9mm represents the least headache.
The Liberator was conceived of as an essentially disposable weapon in the first place and Smith rightly points to the advantages of high-tech polymer materials today. If we’re talking about a genuinely disposable weapon, materials requirements can perhaps be less stringent than Smith suggests, though. Although I’m nowhere near well-informed enough to say this with authority, it might be that simply using hard, engineering-grade nylon could produce a barrel sufficiently strong to safely shoot as many as perhaps five 9mm cartridges. Five sounds about right for a suggested magazine capacity for this particular weapon anyway.
If we assume that the magazine is made of the same material as the rest of the weapon it is a non-removable part of, and we assume that material is not transparent or translucent, there ought to be an open slot running up and down said magazine in order for the shooter to readily assess the amount of ammunition contained therein.
Ideas? Opinions? Insults?
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It sounds like what you want is a zip gun that won’t blow off your fingers.
Another option might be a four shot revolver with each firing chamber having its own barrel. The barrel assembly could potentially be manufactured from a single square block of whatever polymer is used for the construction, with four barrel tubes drilled through and pre-loaded. The barrel assembly could be disposable but removable from a re-usable grip and trigger assembly — like a speedloader without the actual loading.
Wow, I’d never heard of this. What a great idea!
BTW, I got the first issue of American Gun Culture Report, and it’s awesome. I highly recommend it - hell, consider
Hi, Brad.
What sort of parameters are you looking at?
If you want simple & cheap - & especially disposable - then it seems to me you’re talking about a one-shot weapon that would be built around the cartridge. Point, shoot, throw away. I don’t see how anything could be cheaper & easier than that.
If you’re talking about reloading at all, that complicates the mechanism. If you’re talking about making it any kind of repeater, even a revolver, that complicates the mechanism enormously.
Any kind of multi-shot capability also makes it harder to make the weapon safe to fire. Whereas if your cartridge is simply sealed permanently inside the weapon, it becomes a lot simpler to contain those nasty, hot, high-pressure gases, and make sure they only come out the one hole in the front they’re supposed to.
There’s also a question of how you envision these things being fabricated. What advantage do you see in using polymers? Metal, metal-working tools, and metal-working skills are widely available. You can right now name a metal - steel - which is safe for making firearms and also readily available, even abundant. It even comes conveniently made in a wide variety of shapes which might be used or readily adapted for use in your design.