What is the most useless handgun design?

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The Kimball .30 Carbine pistol gets my vote as being the most useless handgun design as it was totally unsafe to ever shoot it. Nothing more useless than pistol that can't even be fired. Honorable mention goes to the Gyrojet, the Dardick, the ZiP.22, and the Japanese Type 94 pistol.
 
Not to split hairs, but.....

It's interesting that reportedly no Liberator .45acp guns were deployed.
You'd think if the munitions companies produced 1000s of them the OSS(Office of Strategic Services) or the UK's SOE would drop a few just to see if they worked.
In theory, the Liberator had merit but I highly doubt a single shot small frame pistol could really take out a trained, alert enemy soldier.

RS
 
RustyShackelford said:
It's interesting that reportedly no Liberator .45acp guns were deployed.
You'd think if the munitions companies produced 1000s of them the OSS(Office of Strategic Services) or the UK's SOE would drop a few just to see if they worked.
In theory, the Liberator had merit but I highly doubt a single shot small frame pistol could really take out a trained, alert enemy soldier.

RS
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I think you over estimate the formidability of the majority of "trained, alert enemy soldiers". The Liberator was intended as a stealth weapon used with stealth to both degrade the moral of the enemy and enable the user to acquire the enemy's better quality weapon. I don't know who it was, but somebody figured out that neither intended use was best accomplished using the Liberator and perhaps also determined that it may have other undesirable military and political repercussions that could occur during and after the war.
 
I would think that just the logistics of having to round up and deal with tens of thousands of these literally falling out of the sky would tie up a fairly large portion of nazi personnel that otherwize would be tending to other war fighting matters
 
Soviet Union & Chi-Com tactics....

Veterans of the dreaded Russian Front & US/Allied troops who served in Korea(1950-1953) know that it wasn't uncommon for 4/5 enemy soldiers to attack them unarmed in the attempt to snatch the firearm or ammunition. :eek:
Chi-Com troops would attack US forces en masse fully ready to lose many soldiers just to over take the positions or obtain the weapons/vehicles/food/fuel/etc.

The military drama; Enemy At The Gates, www.imfdb.org has a few of these scenes. :uhoh:
The Soviet Union army was so large, they couldn't arm or equip every soldier.
 
v35 said:
By weight, that's over 3x the price of gold.
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Yup, they are rather expensive for their size. Here is something to give you an idea of how small they are in comparison to an enormous .22CB rimfire. These are part of my collection.

2.7mm Kolibri .jpg
 
This is going to rile some, but I'm being serious here; 45LC/.410 revolvers. No. I am not trolling.
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I tend to agree. The big Judge/Governor/etc. revolvers are cute marketing gimicks and may be fun (if expensive) plinkers, but as a practical self-defence firearm there are litterally hundreds of better choices.
 
rcmodel said:
I don't think there is any documented proof any Liberator pistols were ever dropped to partisans behind the lines, or ever actually used in WWII.

Of the approx one million made?
Most were destroyed after the war, still in boxes & crates.

That's what makes them so scarce today.

So that does make them one of the most useless firearms ever made.

rc
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The most worthless are the reproduction FP-45 Liberators made a few years ago. It's a glorified zip gun for $600.
 
I tend to agree. The big Judge/Governor/etc. revolvers are cute marketing gimicks and may be fun (if expensive) plinkers, but as a practical self-defence firearm there are litterally hundreds of better choices.
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I've always felt that they might be handy in snake country if'n for some reason you didn't have a .22.
 
JR24 said:
I've always felt that they might be handy in snake country if'n for some reason you didn't have a .22.
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What about a Ruger Blackhawk .357 Magnum 7 1/2''bl., with snakeshot/ratshot ammo?
That would replace that useless(?) Hollywood version revolving short shotgun.
 
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The original "Liberator" pistols were useless; based on an idea in a fiction story, apparently none were ever actually used against an enemy. But even more useless were the recent copies; to avoid possible legal problems from actually firing one, they were made without the firing pin hole drilled through!

Jim
 
Jim K said:
The original "Liberator" pistols were useless; based on an idea in a fiction story, apparently none were ever actually used against an enemy. But even more useless were the recent copies; to avoid possible legal problems from actually firing one, they were made without the firing pin hole drilled through!

Jim
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Amazing! They didn't drill the firing pin hole in the modern copies! I had no idea. Are you sure this is true of all the modern copies? I can tell you I have seen a friend's real Liberator and it is a deadly weapon.
 
The "snake charmer"......a derringer with two barrels, shoots .45 Colt or .410 shotgun shells. Heavy, tiny, and expensive.
 
gazpacho said:
American Derringer Model 8 - Competition Derringer

Seriously? And 8" barreled target Derringer?!?!

However, the most useless handgun I have ever seen was when a "friend" put a PSE AR-15 crossbow upper on a pistol receiver sans buffer tube. :banghead:
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I don't know if it can still be called a derringer in this configuration (large hand filling target grips and 8" barrels) but it looks like a good long barrel target gun.
 
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