Million dollar meteorite guns

[barnetmill]

Excalibur blades and meteoric steel. In the bronze age people did recovere these meteorites and hammered blades out of them that were superior to the bronze blades of the day http://www.dierk-raabe.com/history-of-materials/the-iron-age/ . There is a folk tale that Shaka Zulu's "iklwa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iklwa)", a short stabbing spear with a long, sword-like spearhead was made from a meteorite. What is in iron meteorites of certain types is an iron–nickel alloy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron%E2%80%93nickel_alloy) known as meteoric iron (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteoric_iron) and it is not steel. I have no idea what someone has to do to make it to weapons grade steel, Bon Vivant objects do not have to be the very best for utilitarian uses, but having a mystique is likely enough to raise the price and make it an object that others want. So if you want an Excalibur 1911 next year you can put in your bid.


Cabot Guns will fashion a pair of pistols, like the ones pictured here, from a 35-kilogram chunk of meteorite. http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/24/luxury/cabot-guns-meteorite/
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/dam/assets/151224093522-cabot-guns-meteorite-780x439.jpg

[BESEPUL]

"The meteorite will be fashioned into a pair of semiautomatic .45 caliber pistols of the 1911 style. Cabot specializes in the 1911 pistols, which were invented in the late 1800s and used by the U.S. military for more than 80 years, serving through both World Wars, Korea and Vietnam."

Ermmm.... What?

[barnetmill]

"The meteorite will be fashioned into a pair of semiautomatic .45 caliber pistols of the 1911 style. Cabot specializes in the 1911 pistols, which were invented in the late 1800s and used by the U.S. military for more than 80 years, serving through both World Wars, Korea and Vietnam."

Ermmm.... What? They must be super guns if they were invented in the late 1800's but actually first made and adopted in the early 1900's. Get one while they are still hot.

[bog]

It's not mentioned in the article but IMO this project would not be worth attempting if the Widmanstatten structure were not part of the finish of the gun. Widmanstatten structure is a crystal structure only found in iron-nickel meteorites and is brought out by etching with an acid after a cut surface is polished. It's pretty B-A stuff, can't be done other than in nature, I think I heard it's something to do with the extremely slow cooling in the center of a planet (?), just thinking about how that piece of meteorite may have been in the center of a planet that cooled off and busted apart before crashing to earth stretches my mind. I've seen polished slabs and jewelry made out of the stuff. There's some pretty good pictures on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widmanst%C3%A4tten_pattern

[steve_k]

That's some big $$$ for a couple of guns!

[Fjordforder]

I'm waiting till some goon looses a slew of .45 Tulammo through one, hahaha

[barnetmill]

It's not mentioned in the article but IMO this project would not be worth attempting if the Widmanstatten structure were not part of the finish of the gun. Widmanstatten structure is a crystal structure only found in iron-nickel meteorites and is brought out by etching with an acid after a cut surface is polished. It's pretty B-A stuff, can't be done other than in nature, I think I heard it's something to do with the extremely slow cooling in the center of a planet (?), just thinking about how that piece of meteorite may have been in the center of a planet that cooled off and busted apart before crashing to earth stretches my mind. I've seen polished slabs and jewelry made out of the stuff. There's some pretty good pictures on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widmanst%C3%A4tten_pattern I am not a metallurgist for sure, but processing of the iron nickle alloy is required. Currently the meteorite is an iron alloy. Will they not have to make the iron into a steel so that the meteorite iron nickel alloy will have sufficient strength and ductility to make a functioning 1911. Would such processing destroy this Widmanstatten structure. I assume that after heating the iron up with perhaps an induction furnace I assume with a carbon source for reduction that an ingot is cast. The ingot might be rolled/forged into a billet and cut into suitable pieces for machining. It is possible they could directly cast rough blanks of what they need and then machine. I may have bit of the processing wrong but it would seem that the Widmanstatten structure would be altered during this processing.


enigma of Steel
Conan's Father (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0810342/?ref_=tt_trv_qu): Fire and wind come from the sky, from the gods of the sky. But Crom is your god, Crom and he lives in the earth. Once, giants lived in the Earth, Conan. And in the darkness of chaos, they fooled Crom, and they took from him the enigma of steel. Crom was angered. And the Earth shook. Fire and wind struck down these giants, and they threw their bodies into the waters, but in their rage, the gods forgot the secret of steel and left it on the battlefield. We who found it are just men. Not gods. Not giants. Just men. The secret of steel has always carried with it a mystery. You must learn its riddle, Conan. You must learn its discipline. For no one - no one in this world can you trust. Not men, not women, not beasts.

[Points to sword]
Conan's Father (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0810342/?ref_=tt_trv_qu): This you can trust.

[bog]

That's right, any heating or processing above a certain degree would recrystallize the iron-nickel and destroy the structure. From the picture I thought they would cut slabs of meteorite and make the frame and slide without melting or processing. I don't know how safe it would be to fire, it would definitely have to be tested, also I think any finish on the metal like Parkerizing might cover the structure and the meteorite is not stainless so without a finish it might rust. But I still think the project would not be worth doing without having the Widmanstatten visible, however impractical. Just a laymans guess but the gun would probably be fire-able or could be built to that spec, just might not last too long with the different qualities of the steel. Maybe Widmanstatten grips would be the way to go, and much cheaper if put on a production gun.

[barnetmill]

Not sure if this is true or not.

Many late [19th C] krisses have been forged with a fraction of high-nickel meteoric iron.This was not primarily done for magical reasons, but to achieve a superior finish of the blade, after etching the blade with acid. http://www.strangehistory.net/2014/07/20/meteorite-weapons/