Shooting the Liberator Pistol

In actual use, it would have definitely been a one shot proposition, you either succeeded with your first shot, or you were dead. About a million were made over a period of eleven weeks, which comes out to something like one complete pistol every six seconds or so, twenty four hours a day, for eleven weeks. It's often said that it takes longer to reload a Liberator than it took to make one. Even for as short a time as they were made, there are at least five distinct variations known, including a prototype two shot version that had a sliding breech block which held two rounds.
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The Liberator program was initiated by the Army and later became an OSS project that was supposed to be coordinated with the French underground. The goal was to drop the pistols into France no more than 3 days before D-Day. The guns would allow partisans to obtain rifles and ammo from German troops to aid in disrupting Germany's effort to repel the invasion. But by late '43, it was evident from reports that the resistance fighters were having little trouble obtaining arms - from the Germans themselves.
liberatorPak.jpg

FP-45 "Flare Projector" Liberator Pistol with instruction sheet

Liberators were never dropped en masse over Europe. Instead, after D-Day, they were transported to the Pacific Theatre (PTO) to support MacArthur's upcoming return to the Philippines (Oct '44). Oddly enough, secrecy was the downfall of the Liberator program. The invasion was planned and US commanders knew it; the Japanese knew an invasion was just a month to six weeks away; even the Philippinos knew it was coming. But planners worried that by air-dropping Liberators into the densely forrested islands 48 hours before the invasion, the enemy would not be taken by surprise.

After the Liberation of the Philippines, the Liberator pistols had no real further value. They were deemed unnecessary and ships were ordered to dump them off shore of the islands. Most likely the few surviving specimens were those that were (ironically) "Liberated" from cargo ships inventories by individual sailors. There are reports that some Liberators made their way to China, but that documentation is sketchy.

Re: Manufacturing
I've heard that the GM guide lamp division assembled one pistol every 6.6 seconds. the 23 parts were fabricated out of stampings, barrels cut and the parts organized for assembly, then one gun was produced about every 6.6 seconds, mostly by women employed at the plant. The workers in the plant were told the name of the weapon..."Flare Projector" Caliber .45 (FP-45) as a security measure.

Planned Use:
According to reports compiled by the OSS, French citizens often had personal encounters with German occupiers. Frequently these were Identity Checks, French "servants" of occupiers and others. With the relatively small, flat size of the Liberator, the general idea was to get as close to a soldier as possible and shoot him to get his rifle or pistol and ammo. Once suitable arms were taken, the pistol could be passed on to another person if needed to repeat the process (or to be the surprise gun, backed up by others using captured Wehrmacht guns).

Re: Variants
In the 1960's, another "Liberator" type pistol was made for the CIA. It was not made in the same mass production but one thousand were made with a 16-page instruction book written in Vietnamese.
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AMF "Deer Gun" - 1960's Liberator Replacement Pistol

According to an article by David Truby, the Deer Gun was designed by Russell J. Moure, Chief Engineer for American Machine & Foundry's Special Firearms Division, at the request of the CIA. His mission was to design a replacement for the Liberator Pistol. The cost of the pistol was to be under $4.00. After examining Moure's prototype the CIA ordered 1,000 pistols and gave AMF a development contract for $300,000.00. The article says only 1000 pistols were made in the 1962-1963 time frame. This puts the cost at $300.00 each. Moure said that if they had received additional contracts the cost could have been $3.95 each. There are two possible reasons in the article for the name Deer Gun. One does not check out and the other is an opinion, made by an individual. It has been estimated by Keith Melton that about 15 to 20 of these pistols have survived.
 
A gov't zip gun basically. I would think you could make one in your own garage if you could find the proper sized tubing for a barrel. Or perhaps use that old shot out barrel in your junk box. (If you would want to for some reason. I guess if you wanted to you already thought of it.) I say it is just a museum piece. I would not pay a huge sum for something like that, myself. Just happy enough to see one online or in a museum, and the test fire report is good enough for me, I don't need to try it myself. Might compare it to something like a 19th century smoothbore pocket derringer. Those were used as last ditch defense or such and seemed effective for the job, even though much less powerful and harder to load.
 
Thanks for a great post, never has any success finding one ( without giving my 1st born LOL). Love to see these forgotten by many, pieces of history. Maybe I'll get lucky one day and run up on a deal.:cool:
 
I bet as many krauts fell to a head shot when the soldier was actually going for COM...:D
I am guessing the 1 foot at 20 feet would be close to POA/POI with 50 or so feet.
Cool to see the old tin pistol still hacking holes in stuff!
Brent
 
The prices ranged from around $1700 to $2250 on five of them, and almost four thousand on the sixth because it had all its original accoutrements; Gun, outer box, inner box, ten rounds of '42 FA factory ammo, cardboard ammo box, instructions, ejector dowel, and spacer block. The spacer block was just a small block of wood that kept things in place inside the box.
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This was posted in 2005, I wonder how selling prices on these look today?

History, for sure. You've got to be a hardcore collector to have one of these pieces in your collection. Either you bought it ($$$$$) or you have it, knowing you could sell it for $$$$$$.

I'd definitely shoot one if someone offered it up for a shot. If I found one or was gifted one, I'd have that SOB sold ASAP. :)
 
Heh, GB has two current. Cheaper one is $2,000, nicer one is $3,000. Niether has box or goodies. The $3,000 one looks new.
 
It has been fired once more since this write up, by a friend of mine from Michigan, and that will likely be the last shot until it eventually passes on to someone else.

I had a second one, a factory cut down, that was used to show workers and military/government liaisons how it went together and functioned. It was owned by George Hyde after the war, one of the original designers of the gun, and was one of only two confirmed to have been cut down at the factory and used as such. A collector in Indiana made me an offer I couldn't refuse, so it is no longer with me.

I also have thirteen of the original FA42 headstamped .45 acp rounds that were packaged with these, and one original instruction sheet.
 
Thanks for sharing with us. Since these guns were probably designed and assembled by "workers" and not gun people, I suspect they were never even
test fired, hence the fact that the sights are so far off was never really discovered. I note that all of my BP revolvers and pistols shoot high-9-12"-for me, and my Star Model B also shoots about 6" high.
 
When i was young & dumb I was dragged to a small gun show way north of my town of Pittsburgh, Pa my friend was a avid parker, lefever shot gun guy. Would scour the small out of the way gun shows in local fire halls. Me being a pistolero I check out some of the pistols. one table a old timer had the liberators one nice two other with surface rust and pits we chatted about them as a veteran I knew about them from books but had never seen one in person. Im guess this was about 1980 or so. the old fellow eyes lit up when he saw I was intrested. the price tags read the best one $65.00 the other two rusty ones $30.00 and $25.00. I had no idea how rare they were thought about buying the nicest one. then decided no way!! But I was thinkin offer pap $100.00 for all three he might have went for it! Young and Dumb!!:confused:
 
That's really neat...you are like one of those historian investigators that put to test historical technology to gain a better understanding of how things really happened.

But I'm stunned that a rudimentary zip gun, with a smooth bore barrel, displayed such precision and obtained a sub 2" 5 shot group at 20 feet!
 
Both guns,Liberator and Deer gun are rare to find these day's. I my self have never fired ether. My grand father Russel James moure past down the liberator pistol and deer gun to me and my brother Bradly moure. When he passed away in 1984. Along with an extensive collection of blue prints and designs. I'm very proud of my grandfather and love the history behind these guns.
 
As you may have heard, there's an outfit in KY, Vintage Ordnance Company (www.VintageOrdnance.com) that is making a replica of this pistol. Price is $599.50, which is a fraction of what you'd pay for an original. It's made from better materials than the original, and has the BATF-required rifling and discretely marked serial number and manufacturer's name and address, plus exact replicas of the original box, instructions, "ejector" dowel, etc. Given the design's inherent lack of safety, the maker strongly recommends that it not be fired.
 
I have wanted to shoot a liberator for so long. It's basically a dream of mine. But it's funny how that gun only shoot's .45ACP at 900ft/s.
 
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