FP-45 Liberator (Warning to low speed internet users)

stencollector

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The Liberator pistol has been on my "must have" list for a few years now. For those that don't know about them, here is the Wikopedia article on them:
The pistol had its origins in the US Army Joint Psychological Committee and was designed for the United States Army in 1942 by the Inland Guide Lamp Manufacturing Division of the General Motors Corporation in Dayton, Ohio.[1] Interestingly, the army designated the weapon the Flare Projector Caliber .45 hence the designation FP-45. This was done to disguise the fact that a pistol was being mass produced. The original engineering drawings label the barrel as "tube", the trigger as "yoke", the firing pin as "control rod", and the trigger guard as "spanner". The Guide Lamp Division plant in Anderson, Indiana assembled a million of these weapons. The Liberator project took about 6 months from conception to end of production with about 11 weeks of actual manufacturing time, done by 300 workers.

The FP-45 was a crude, single-shot pistol designed to be cheaply and quickly mass produced. The Liberator had just 23 largely stamped and turned steel parts that were cheap and easy to manufacture. It fired a .45 caliber pistol cartridge from an unrifled barrel. Due to the unrifled barrel, maximum effective range was only about 25 feet (less than 8 m). At longer range, the bullet would begin to tumble and stray off course.

The Liberator was shipped in a cardboard box with 10 rounds of .45 ACP ammunition, a wooden dowel to remove the empty shell casing, and an instruction sheet in comic strip form[1] showing how to load and fire the weapon. Excess rounds of ammunition could be stored in the pistol grip.

After production, the Army turned the Liberators over to the OSS. A crude and clumsy weapon, the Liberator was never intended for front line service. It was originally intended as an insurgency weapon to be mass dropped behind enemy lines to resistance fighters in occupied territory. The resistance fighters were to recover the weapons, sneak up on an Axis occupier, either kill him or knock him out and retrieve his weapon(s). Many resistance fighters called the FP-45 "a great weapon to get another one with.

The weapon was valued as much for its psychological warfare effect as its actual field performance. It was believed that if vast quantities of these weapons could be delivered into Axis occupied territory, it would have a devastating effect on the morale of occupying troops. The plan was to drop the weapon in such great quantities that occupying forces could never capture or recover all the weapons. It was hoped that the thought of thousands of these unrecovered weapons potentially in the hands of the citizens of occupied countries would have a deleterious effect on enemy morale.

In reality, the OSS never saw the practicality in mass dropping the Liberator over occupied Europe, and only a handful were ever distributed. Only the Chinese and resistance forces in the Philippines received the Liberator in any significant quantity. The Liberator was never issued to American or Allied troops and there is no known instance of the weapon ever actually being used in combat.

The original delivered cost for the FP-45 was $2.40/unit[1] ($26 in 2005). A Liberator in good condition today can fetch approximately $2500, with the original box bringing an additional $1500, with an original extremely rare paper instruction sheet the value could exceed $4500 to a collector of rare World War II militaria. There are fakes of these sheets, but the real ones had a watermark that can be seen clearly, which is difficult to duplicate.

An interesting fact about the Liberator is that the factories could produce one faster than the weapon could be loaded and fired. The factory turned out a pistol every six or seven seconds whilst loading took about 10 seconds.

Another variant of this gun was a two shot version which never made general production. It had two chambers, where one would be fired and then the other slid into position to fire. This version is extremely rare.

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That Ottawa Citizen online registry showed about 78 of these registered in Canada. They were imported a number of years back at the high price of $69 each. They were serialised with an electro pencilled number at that time.

Anyway, I had mentioned on a thread that I wanted one of these, and a few months later a PM showed up that another gunnutz member had seen one at the Ontario gunshows. He had offered to procure it for me. He called me from the show to let me know the price (which was quite favourable) and I told him to buy it for me.

Unfortunately, the Liberator has a 102mm barrel, which makes it a 12.6 prohibited handgun. I do not have 12.6, so I worked out a deal where it would be sent to a local gun dealer's on consignment so I could make the necessary changes to it.

It took a while for the Ontario paperwork to go through, since the gun had to be transferred to the new owner first, then forwarded on to my dealer's. Once at my dealers, I went down to give it a good looking over to decide the course of action. After looking it over for almost an hour, I decided that by drilling out 8 spotwelds on the top, the barrel could be separated from the grips, which I assume would be the registered frame. A quick run out to the dealer's welder and a pin was installed through the barrel, since it could be interpreted as a prohibited device.


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This was done at the dealer's, and I brought the upper home. A couple quick cuts to the barrel and it was seperated from the breech.

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I looked over the project at home, and with some quick measurements decided that an old sten barrel could be used to make the new barrel. The outside diameter was almost right, and the steel would be a good enough quality for the project.
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The 9mm barrel was drilled out to .451, which was the bore of the Liberator barrel. I was going to clean up the bore with a reamer, but quite frankly, it looked as good as the original, and lacked the pitting. I ordered in a chamber reamer from Brownell's and cut the chamber
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[
The next step was to weld the barrel back in to it's bracket.
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After welding in the barrel, slight deformation occurred in the chamber. A few turns with the reamer fixed that.
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A quick run back to the dealers, and the use of his mig welder, had the barrel back onto the frame. This will just be temporary until I get a chance to get it properly spot welded.
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The barrel now is 106.75mm. The safety of Canadians is no longer in jeopardy.
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The dealer sent in the new verification of the gun, and it has now been classed as restricted. The transfer to me was approved last week, and I'll head out this week to pick it up once I get a short term ATT.

Now I know there will be those that will dislike the modification of such a piece of history. The tech in Ottawa didn't seem to like that I was messing with such a piece. Then again, he didn't offer to put 12.6 onto my license either. I guess my alternative was to deactivate it. Anyway, it will be a nice piece for that last shot at the battle of the bulge match.
 
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Shame you had to bother, but 'fricken cool!!
I remember those liberators when they were imported, I was going to buy one at the time but thought "Naw, what would I ever want/need something like that for"
(bent over & kicking my own arse right now)
 
I was REALLY hoping that you didn't dewated the liberator.

Glad to see you saw the light and are saving these old war horses.....

Welcome to the dark side Rob.:D

Russ...
 
Best of luck hitting the stop pin with that at the BOB shoots. Good work though Rob, it looks great!

Yeah, I know, it's a needle in a haystack. But my plan is to pull the cardboard box out of my smallpack, pull out the Liberator, the dowel, and a couple rounds. Then time permitting (I'll have to look at where the other team is at the time) I'll peruse the comic strip, load the one round, and fire it at the pin. If I miss, the other two teamates can let fly with the Inglis Brownings.

After all, the BoB is as much about seeing different vintage milsurp rifles fire as it is about winning. I was considering the Boys rifle for the match as well. It shot excellent at the Gunnutz shoot in Selkirk the other week. I would just hate to punch holes in those new and expensive targets I just made. But in the end, I think the Boys rifle and the M1919A4 would prove to be too much of a load to drag through the obstacle course.
 
Yeah, I know, it's a needle in a haystack. But my plan is to pull the cardboard box out of my smallpack, pull out the Liberator, the dowel, and a couple rounds. Then time permitting (I'll have to look at where the other team is at the time) I'll peruse the comic strip, load the one round, and fire it at the pin. If I miss, the other two teamates can let fly with the Brownings.

After all, the BoB is as much about seeing different vintage milsurp rifles fire as it is about winning. I was considering the Boys rifle for the match as well. It shot excellent at the Gunnutz shoot in Selkirk the other week. I would just hate to punch holes in those new and expensive targets I just made.

Yeah, the Boyes might be a little much. The Liberator will definitely be cool though.....
 
Nicely done. What you did is certainly a preferable alternative to deactivating the gun. The Liberator is my personal favourite gun design and concept, and I too hope to have one someday ... but I'd like to build my own from scratch.
 
Rob

Glad we were able to get it all worked out! FYI, I know where there is another one!:D:D

Just think about it; one on each hip! Have a gun loader by your side to reload them for you and you will be all set.:D

LI
 
Rob

Glad we were able to get it all worked out! FYI, I know where there is another one!:D:D

Just think about it; one on each hip! Have a gun loader by your side to reload them for you and you will be all set.:D

LI

If any more Liberators need saving, please let me know. I have my 12(6) and a male heir.;)
 
Rob

Glad we were able to get it all worked out! FYI, I know where there is another one!:D:D

Just think about it; one on each hip! Have a gun loader by your side to reload them for you and you will be all set.:D

LI

Couldn't have done it without you. Thanks. I also could not have done it without my local dealer, who can chime in if he wants to be identified.

I suspect you will get a few PMs now that you have revealed the presence of another one being available. There was one showed up at the Calgary show this year. Owner wanted $750 for it.

I still have to get those welds replaced with some proper spot welds. I hear these things kick pretty good.
 
I've passed on 3 reasonably priced Liberators in the past year. It never occured to me to convert one, but now that I see it, it would be a SNAP to do with the machines I have on hand.

Next time I see one, I won't pass on it :)
 
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