FP Liberator .45!
You can buy the replicas here, to comply with modern regulations the smooth-bore pistol is now rifled, has a serial number and appropriate markings. They’re a little spendy, but if you want a really good replica that indeed shoots that’s the price to pay!
Is it Mass compliant?
😉
Snerk! Not just “No” but “HELL NO!”
GLOCKS and XD pistols aren’t Mass compliant….you think these would be?
The originals cost, what, $5 a piece? Now the reproductions are sold for $500 or $600 (with a box of extras). The real ones are museum pieces–interesting concept and an idea that people who live in areas with strict gun control should know about.
It’s all a matter of scale. Sure there’s a bit more cost associated with the new ones, better steel, rifled barrels, serial numbers, and identification stampings,(the serial numbers don’t add much, but it does take a bit of man hours to log and process them with the FFL) but the big factor is the US made these things in per-existing fabrication plants in the order of millions over a short time, vs now where its a small boutique industry….and the lights need to be kept on even when work isn’t steady, so that costs too. Also labor was cheaper back then. It all adds up. Plus the tragic story of the FP 45 was that they made a gun that nobody wanted, vintage arms is making a gun people want, so that adds up too!
If you get one of these, don’t expect it to hold together if you shoot it more than a couple of times. Even with better metal (really?), the design is very marginal, strength wise. It was intended to be used to acquire a better gun from the enemy. Tests in the war showed cracks developed pretty quickly, and the most rounds fired was maybe 50. The ten rounds included with it would be a good data point for safety, I think.
Most of the WWII FP 45s weren’t safe to fire after more than 10, and this design is stronger and better…but still not a design meant to last a lifetime, and the company is open about that.
I suspect it isn’t much fun to shoot anyway, as that was never its intention.