series of shotguns of Liberator
When it comes to Liberator, it is easy for us to think of the simple pistol that office of strategic services of the United States dropped on the guerrillas behind enemy lines during World War II. This pistol is made of a large number of metal plates, and its barrel has no rifling, so it can only be fired with a single shot, and it can only fire a.45 45ACP pistol. Guerrillas in wartime can use this single-shot pistol to shoot enemy soldiers at close range and snatch standard weapons. On the other hand, even if this pistol is seized, because it is too cheap and simple, the loss is not great, and it is worthless to the enemy regular army.
then in the 196s, Robert L. Hillberg, an American gun designer, designed a "rebel weapon" with a similar idea, but this time he designed a shotgun. This "rebel weapon" was later put into production by Winchester Company of the United States, which continued the name of "Liberator" and named it Winchester "Liberator" shotgun.
The historical background of Hilberg's idea of "rebel weapons" is the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, especially the "special war" that the United States carried out in Vietnam in the early 196s, that is, the United States sent out weapons, instructors and special forces to support the South Vietnamese armed forces to fight against "Vietnam". Hilberg believes that it is necessary to design a simple weapon under the background of the Cold War. It must be simple and easy to operate, meet the minimum performance index of killing people without killing themselves, and be extremely cheap. It should be mass-produced when necessary and secretly provided to the rebel forces behind the enemy lines, so that it can seriously disrupt the ruling foundation behind the enemy lines without paying a large cost, grind people like a dog skin plaster, and conceal the source of the weapon without causing trouble in diplomacy.
Hilberg's idea of "rebel weapon" has attracted the attention of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the US Department of Defense and Winchester Weapons Company. They cooperated with Hilberg to launch Winchester's "Liberator" series of shotguns. The name "Liberator" must be a tribute to the "Liberator" pistol in World War II, because the former inherited the design idea of the latter guerrilla simple weapon.
Winchester "Liberator" series shotguns have three models: Mk.I, Mk.II and Mk.III. They are characterized by four parallel barrels, of which Mk.I is 2 caliber, Mk.II is 16 caliber and MK.III is 12 caliber. This series of shotguns strive to be cheap, and the cost is required to be kept within $2, so a lot of cheap materials are used and the processing is simple. According to Mk.I, Mk.II and Mk.III, the technical characteristics of this series of shotguns are introduced respectively.
Mk.I
Winchester "Liberator" Mk.I is the first model in this series, leaving nothing but drawings and wooden models. This type of gun is characterized by no stock, double grips at the front and rear, and a large trigger with full hands. The casing is made of die-casting aluminum alloy, and four barrels are wrapped in the aluminum alloy casing. The filling method is folded in the middle.
Mk.I's four barrels are arranged in a diamond shape, and four rounds of 2-gauge shotguns are pre-packaged, packed in a plastic cartridge and loaded into the gun bore, which is a patented design of Hilberg. The adoption of No.2 caliber can reduce the bore pressure to prevent the aluminum alloy die-casting gun body from being unbearable, and the second is to reduce the lateral size of the pre-packaged bullet holder. However, it was later felt that the overall size and mass of the No.2 shotgun packaged together were still too large and inconvenient to carry.
Therefore, starting from Mk.II, this kind of pre-sealed ammunition was cancelled, and four rounds of shotgun were filled separately, and the barrel arrangement was also changed to a square section.
Mk.II
Mk.II is a prototype gun in Winchester's Liberator series, which is produced in small quantities. This type of casing is made of aluminum-magnesium alloy, and four thin-walled steel barrels are cast in the aluminum-magnesium alloy casing in a square arrangement, and the caliber is changed to a slightly larger size of 16; The gun has a very simple steel wire butt, which can be installed at the rear to shoot at the shoulder, and can be disassembled and installed when not in use. At the front, the left and right legs cling to both sides of the box for storage.
The barrel tenon of MK. II is located at the top of the case, which is somewhat similar to the barrel tenon of the "Webley" folding revolver. After pressing the tenon, the barrel can be folded forward to open the breech and loaded with 4 rounds of 16-gauge shotgun. The gun is a hammer rotary firing, pure double action. Pulling the trigger four times in a row can fire the bullets in four barrels one by one, and then the barrel is pushed out again, and the throwing shell in the center of four barrels automatically pops back, throwing four empty shells.
the positioning method of casting four thin-walled steel barrels in the aluminum-magnesium alloy casing adopted by Mk.II seems novel, but in fact it has many shortcomings. It is very difficult to accurately position the four barrels first and prevent displacement and deformation during casting, so Winchester abandoned MK. II and got the Winchester "liberator" Mk.III.
MK.iii
The output of MK.iii is the largest among the three models of Winchester Liberator, but it is not much. Compared with Mk.II, Mk.III abandoned the fixing method of casting the barrel in aluminum-magnesium alloy, and changed it into an exposed barrel, and the front was fixed with a fixed plate stamped with steel plate; The trigger gave up the large trigger pressed by the whole palm on Mk.I and Mk.II, and changed to the ordinary trigger; The hammer is changed to the exposed type, but the double-action firing is still used. Pressing the trigger four times in a row can fire the bullets in four barrels in turn.
When the Winchester Liberator series launched Mk.III, the original orders from the military and intelligence departments had not arrived, and the opportunity to act as a "rebel weapon" seemed to be gone. Winchester Company planned to expand the marketing scope of the gun, trying to sell it to law enforcement as a police riot shotgun, and also advertised that it could be used as a pilot survival gun, so that they could change the caliber to the more common No.12.
however, as a police shotgun, the Winchester "liberator" Mk.III has no special advantages over the traditional pump-driven shotgun, and the barrel length of the gun is less than 18 inches, which is an NFA three-level controlled weapon restricted to civilians and cannot be sold to the civilian market.
finally, in the dilemma of neither military orders nor law enforcement orders, Winchester Company completely lost confidence in "Liberator" Mk.III in 1965 and terminated this project.
After Winchester completely abandoned the "Liberator" series, Hilberg's idea of "rebel weapon" was mailed, but I didn't expect Colt to come to eat this bowl of cold rice and cheat the corpse once.
In p>1967, Colt Company took a fancy to the design of Hilberg multi-barrel shotgun, and made a shotgun with eight 2-caliber barrels and a tear gas barrel in the center, which was called Defender.
"Defender" tried to open the market of police weapons, as a multi-purpose weapon that can fire both deadly grape-shot and tear gas, but like Winchester "Liberator", Colt "Defender" was not recognized by the market at all, and finally only made a few sample guns, but sent them anyway.