American company Cabot Guns has recently unveiled a pair of “extra-terrestrial pistols” made almost entirely from a piece of Gibeon meteorite that crashed on Earth approximately 4.5 billion years ago and was discovered in Namibia, in the 1830’s.
“It hasn’t been done before and that’s the kind of thing that drives me,” Rob Bianchin, founder of Cabot Guns, said last year, when the company first announced its intention to forge twin 1911 handguns out of Gibeon. “Meteor is rare, more so than terrestrial precious metals and I wanted to create a set of guns that were formed from a material that had intrinsic value,” he added.
For the last five months, the expert gun makers at the respected company that many refer to as the “Rolls Royce of firearms” have been hard at work, trying to cut as many necessary pieces from the expensive lump of meteorite. It was a tougher job than most people realize, or as Bianchin puts it “we were sweating bullets. That first cut, when we sliced the meteorite chunk in two, was really scary.” Luckily, the team had some experience after using Gibeon to craft meteorite grips for one their standard 1911 handguns. That first success inspired them to push the envelope and create the world’s first meteorite firearms.
Nicknamed the “Big Bang Pistol Set”, the two firearms were created using X-rays, 3-D modeling, electron-beam welding, EDM wire cutting, and a lot of care. To minimize the risk of the expensive piece of Gibeon cracking or even exploding during the manufacturing process, Cabot Guns first built a stainless-steel clone to test its production techniques. The slides, frames, triggers, magazine release, and grips of the unique pistols are made of pure Gibeon, and the only parts that could not be fashioned from meteorite are the springs, sears, barrels, hammer strut, pins, screws, and slide rails.
Making the guns was a very sensitive process that required the utmost care, but testing them when they were finished was no easy task, either. “I shot one freehand,” Cabot’s head engineer Mike Hebor, who is right-handed, told Robb Report. “I held the gun with my left hand, with my right hand behind my back—you know, just in case.” Lucky for him, everything wen smoothly.
The Big Bang Pistol Set is not only a one-of-a-kind, never-to-be-repeated achievement, it’s also a stunningly beautiful work of art. The handguns were acid-etched to bring out the Gibeon’s Widmanstätten crystalline pattern famed as the most desirable among iron meteorites. To emphasize the characteristic meteorite look of the pieces, Cabot also left the bark (outer surface of the meteorite) visible on certain components, like the trigger.
Even before Cabot Guns made the first meteorite cut, everyone knew their creations were going to be very expensive. Last year, CNN estimated that they were going to fetch up to $1 million at an auction this year, which is what a collector offered the company for the Big Bang Pistols. However, Cabot set the price at $4.5 million, which, if met, would make them the most expensive guns in history.
Photos: Cabot Guns
