First off was a thorough examination of the old gal to make sure she'd hold together. There are two holes in the frame, one on each side, that must either be alignment holes for the stamping press, or jig holes for assembly. Using a jeweler's loupe and a "grain of rice" light bulb inserted through one of the holes and hooked to a D cell battery, I could see the sear surfaces quite plainly and they looked to be in excellent condition, as did the main spring and control rod. The reprint blueprints I have spec the sear and trigger to be C.R.L. (Cold Rolled Steel), and case hardened. There didn't appear to be any defects in the bore, and although I didn't mic or slug the barrel, a 230 grain FMJ bullet could be pushed through with hand pressure only. It was a tight fit, and took some effort, but there was no need to pound it through with anything. A week ago I loaded up some rounds consisting of a standard garden variety 200 grain cast SWC sized to .452" over 3.5 grains of IMR Trail Boss and primed with a Yep, a There's no reason that I would have used anything but a standard pistol primer, but what I wrote on the box was CCI-200, which is a large rifle primer. Hmmmm. They don't appear to be high, so I think I just made a typo in my notes, but maybe not, more on that later on.
First I "sighted in". (OK, it's a staged shot, play along)


Next, I scouted out the local hamlet and buddied up to one of the local Nazi occupiers, one Herr Rolf. A nice kid really, too bad he got caught up in this mess.


Uh oh... well, Herr Rolf, as long as I missed all five times, can't we all just be friends?

The distance was twenty feet, and had I taken a couple of practice shots in the basement of our resistance fighter's ghetto apartment before I went out on the street to meet up with Herr Rolf, I could easily have placed one right in his ear from my hiding spot behind the garbage can. The five shot group measures about 1¾", center to center, and is slightly to the left and about a foot high. The bullets showed no signs of tumbling at this range. Three of the five rounds didn't go bang the first time... CCI primers are notorious for being hard, and it's possible that I mistakenly used rifle primers. (Or maybe when yer hunting Nazis, you just load whatcha got!)

Although it's a smooth bore, hence no torque, all five shots resulted in the cocking block rebounding on recoil, which was expected, but it also turned to the right as shown. A common complaint among those that have shot these things is that the web of your hand gets pinched between the cocking block and the frame on recoil, which usually draws blood. Learning from other's mistakes, I held a little lower on the grip to avoid this.


When the rounds did go off, the firing pin left an impressive dent in the primer, even perforating one. This could just as well be due to the low pressure load not expanding and gripping the chamber and allowing the case to be forced back onto it too. The three that didn't go bang the first time around did not have much of a dent in them the first time. All five empties fell out easily with the push of a dowel.



If this specimen is any indication of Liberators as a whole, it would have been a very effective pistol for its intended purpose.

COOL Report!!!!!!

Now that you took a couple zero's off the value of the Liberator, CAN I HAVE IT?

Nice Haircut BTW........

NO! It had been fired before. There was an obvious brass smear/imprint/whatever on the loading shutter thingie.

You are probably the ONLY person who has ever tested one of these things and then wrote it up! Bravo.

BTW and FWIW, RIFLEMAN recently had an article about primers in which they said that "hard primers" were a myth and that there were OTHER reasons for folks to think that CCI primers were "hard." What I know is that when I was loading 1000s of round for PPC matches I would NEVER use CCIs nor did anybody else. Federals all the way it was.

Also, didn't you see the illustration in your "user's guide" showing that the muzzle has to be either INSIDE the helmet, or TOUCHING the belt buckle? Bon chance, mon maqui!

That is so cool. I'll bet Herr Rolf would be in trouble at spitting distance.

Wunderbar!!

Hey Jbar,
Do you suppose 230 grain loads at the normal load would have shot lower then the 12" high you experienced with the light 200 grainers?

Well... I dunno. All things being equal, the heavier boolit is going to hit higher, but I was loaded to a greatly reduced velocity, so... I'd say it's likely that the rule of thumb would be reversed in this case, and the lighter boolit would hit higher due to the considerably lower velocity. I think it's highly unlikely that these things were assembled uniformly enough that they all displayed similar sighting and point of impact characteristics. The one six seconds ahead of this one might have printed a foot low and two feet right and the one six seconds behind it might have been dead on. Who knows.

Well, since you can't hit schitt (get it, the German spelling? heheheh) you might as well send it to me.

That's Herr Schitt to you!

I didn't know hair did that!

You've obviously never seen dredlocks.

Way cool report JBar!!! That is so awesome you found one to play with.

I love the name, LIBERATOR!

If we had to depend on the accuracy of the piece, as tested, ve vud all be shpeaking mit un funny axxent, by gott!

Kool...VERY kool.

Got a blunderbuss you can test now?