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The Deer gun, developed by the
The Deer gun was loaded by removing the barrel and placing a 9mm cartridge in the chamber. The striker was then cocked, and a small plastic clip was placed around the striker to impede the forward motion of the striker to prevent accidental discharge. The barrel was then screwed back onto the receiver. The gun was fired by removing the plastic clip, placing it on the barrel where it would become the
The CIA's New Liberator: the 9mm Deer Gun
Forgotten Weapons Insurgency weapons Single-shot pistols Derringers Military equipment introduced in the 1960s
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
, was a successor to the Liberator pistol. The single-shot Deer gun was intended for distribution to South Vietnamese guerrillas as a weapon against North Vietnamese soldier
A soldier is a person who is a member of an army. A soldier can be a conscripted or volunteer enlisted person, a non-commissioned officer, or an officer.
Etymology
The word ''soldier'' derives from the Middle English word , from Old French ...
s.
Design
The Deer gun was made of castaluminium
Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. I ...
, with the receiver formed into a cylinder at the top of the weapon. The striker protruded from the rear of the receiver and was cocked in order to fire, and a plastic
Plastics are a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic materials that use polymers as a main ingredient. Their plasticity makes it possible for plastics to be moulded, extruded or pressed into solid objects of various shapes. This adaptab ...
clip was placed there to prevent an accidental discharge, as the Deer gun had no mechanical safety
Safety is the state of being "safe", the condition of being protected from harm or other danger. Safety can also refer to the control of recognized hazards in order to achieve an acceptable level of risk.
Meanings
There are two slightly dif ...
. The grip had raised checkering, was hollow, and had space for three 9mm rounds and a rod for clearing the barrel of spent cases. The Deer gun lacked any marking identifying the manufacturer or user, in order to prevent tracing the weapons, and all were delivered in unmarked polystyrene boxes with three 9mm rounds and a series of pictures depicting the operation of the gun. A groove ran down a ramp on top for sighting. The barrel was unscrewed for loading and removing the empty cartridge case. A cocking knob was pulled until cocked. The aluminium trigger had no trigger guard.
Operation
The Deer gun was loaded by removing the barrel and placing a 9mm cartridge in the chamber. The striker was then cocked, and a small plastic clip was placed around the striker to impede the forward motion of the striker to prevent accidental discharge. The barrel was then screwed back onto the receiver. The gun was fired by removing the plastic clip, placing it on the barrel where it would become the sight
Visual perception is the ability to interpret the surrounding environment through photopic vision (daytime vision), color vision, scotopic vision (night vision), and mesopic vision (twilight vision), using light in the visible spectrum reflecte ...
, and pulling the trigger
Trigger may refer to:
Notable animals and people
;Mononym
* Trigger (horse), owned by cowboy star Roy Rogers
;Nickname
* Trigger Alpert (1916–2013), American jazz bassist
* "Trigger Mike" Coppola (1900–1966), American gangster
;Surname
* Bru ...
. At this point, the user would take the victim's weapons and equipment if the opportunity presented itself, and then flee. Later, the user would reload the gun by unscrewing the barrel and ejecting the spent case with the provided barrel rod and following the outlined procedure.
History
One production run of 1,000 Deer guns was made in 1964 as an initial run, with the final cost projected asUS$
The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
3.95 per gun (). Rather than the Vietnam war
The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...
being a small clandestine war, it became a full-scale war where the Deer gun would not be as useful as foreseen. Some Deer guns were evaluated in Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
, but the fate of the rest is unknown. Most sources state that all were destroyed.
See also
*FP-45 Liberator
The FP-45 Liberator is a pistol manufactured by the United States military during World War II for use by resistance forces in occupied territories. The ''Liberator'' was never issued to American or other Allied troops, and there are few docume ...
, pistol manufactured by the United States military during World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
for use by resistance forces in occupied territories
* Liberator, a 3D printed handgun (2013)
References
External links
{{commons categoryThe CIA's New Liberator: the 9mm Deer Gun
Forgotten Weapons Insurgency weapons Single-shot pistols Derringers Military equipment introduced in the 1960s