How a Dirt Cheap $15 WWII Gun Became the Most Indestructible Handgun in History

Описание: The $15 Gun That Outlived Every Gun America Ever Built is the legendary, A daring World War II creation born from desperation and ingenuity. In 1942, as Axis powers gripped Europe, American engineers crafted this ultimate disposable weapon: a single-shot .45 ACP pistol stamped from sheet metal and steel tubing, costing roughly $2.10 to produce (while a Colt 1911 ran $15).

Crude, unrifled, and brutally simple, the Liberator weighed barely a pound a ghostly flare projector in name only, designed to be air-dropped by the millions behind enemy lines. Resistance fighters were meant to grab one, creep close, fire once into an occupier’s chest, then seize his rifle and vanish into the shadows. No sights. No elegance. Just raw, one-chance defiance.

A million were rushed into existence in weeks, packed in waxed boxes with cartoon instructions and a wooden dowel for ejecting spent cases. They whispered of Woolworth’s bargain-bin rebellion, cheap enough to flood occupied lands with hope wrapped in stamped steel.

Most were never fired in anger. Yet the Liberator endures: a haunting icon of guerrilla warfare, outlasting sleek M1 Garands, Thompsons, and every polished American masterpiece. In museums and collections today, it still fires the imagination, proof that sometimes the humblest tool of resistance becomes the most immortal.