Back in January, just before the 2016 SHOT Show, the Cabot Guns company − a Pennsylvania-based company known as the manufacturer of what were called "the Rolls-Royce of 1911 pistols" by renowned gun writer S.P. Fjestad − announced that a portion of the famous, 4.5 million years old Gibeon meteorite, purchased in 2015, would have been used in the coming months for something never tried before: the manufacture of a matched pair of perfectly operational handguns made entirely out of space material.
At the 2016 edition of the NRA Annual Meetings & Exhibits, the Cabot Gun Company announced that the endeavour had been successfully concluded: the Big Bang pistols set is finally a reality.
Deep in their hearts, very few in the gun industry and among the gunwriters' community really believed that the Cabot Guns guncraftsmen and metallurgists, as expert as they may be, could indeed succeed in their attempt: the structure of the ferrous Gibeon meteorite seemed to be less than ideal for the task at hand.
And indeed, after a series of X-ray and laser scans of the meteorite fragment and a thorough 3D modeling of the parts to be obtained out of it, all components were obtained through electron-beam welding and EDM wire cutting − effectively turning a chunk of inert space materialin a patched pair of right-handed and left-handed 1911-type semi-automatic pistols, both perfectly functional and firing.
Features of Cabot Guns Big Bang pistols set
Most features of those two pistols − namely those regarding the caliber, the barrel length, the trigger pull, and so on − are basically the same as a standard 1911-A1 variant; the same can't be said about its unique aesthetic features, so unique indeed that it would take too long to describe them here. The pictures illustrating this news article speak for themselves, though: Cabot Guns did an excellent job in acid-etching the Gibeon meteorite pieces to bring out the outstanding Widmanstätten/Thomson crystalline pattern.
In order to make the Cabot Guns Big Bang pistols set fully operational, not all their contents were machined out of the Gibeon meteorite chunk: the barrels, springs, sears, hammer struts, pins and screws, and slide rails, are all manufactured out of steel. But the twin pistols were test-fired by Cabot Guns head engineer Mike Habor − by hand, not on a Ransom rest! − and they proved not only to be perfectly operational, but also just as safe as any other standard Cabot Guns 1911 pistol.
The success of the test was a huge satisfaction for the expert gunmakers at the Cabot Gun Company who had spent months working on a material that could fracture or explode in any production phase − so much, indeed, that Cabot Guns first realized two stainless steel clones of the matched pair, in order to test its manufacturing procedures and avoid any potential disastrous mistake.
The Cabot Guns Big Bang pistols set is the result of such a titanic, once-in-a-lifetime effort − and potentially, one of the highest achievements in gunmaking history.
A unique set, finely crafted like a jewel, the Big Bang pistols set is completed by a special and likewise unique case and display created for the Cabot Gun Company by George Dante − a world renowned environmental artist who has been called the "Michelangelo of Taxidermy" by National Geographic.
And indeed, the lucky owner will be just as unique as this set.
After the announcement of the "Meteorite pistols" project, a yet unnamed collector offered Cabot Guns up to one million dollars; today, the purchase price for the Cabot Guns Big Bang pistols pair has been set at 4.5 million dollars. Talk about a Holy Grail!
For further information, visit the Cabot Guns website
