Cabot Guns has been producing premiere, state-of-the-art 1911 style pistols constructed to aerospace precision standards since 2011. Now the company has commenced work on extra-terrestrial pistols and will offer a mirror image set constructed from a 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite.
“We wanted to raise the bar again,” says Cabot founder and President Rob Bianchin, “The pistol set will be a modern work of functional art and the ultimate set of luxury guns.” The out-of-this-world pistol set consists of two precision manufactured guns. The twin right- and left-handed 1911-style semi-automatic .45s tentatively to be called “The Big Bang Pistol Set.” Cabot previously introduced pistol grips constructed from meteorite, but the idea of constructing a complete set of guns from meteor is unprecedented.
Earlier this year, Cabot acquired from famed meteor hunter and expert Robert Haag, a 35 kg portion of the prized Gibeon meteor that met the size characteristics for the project. The meteor, dated to an age of 4.5 billion years, was first discovered in 1838 in the sub-Saharan part of Africa now known as Namibia. It is believed to have landed on Earth during pre-historic times. Not only is the age and metallurgical composition of the Gibeon meteor fantastical, it is considered the Cadillac of meteors in large part because of the aesthetic Widmanstattten pattern exhibited in the meteorites grain pattern once acid etched. Tiny portions of the valuable Gibeon meteor has been used by jewelers such as Rolex, but the scale and complexity of the pistols is ambitious.
“It’s both romantic and fascinating to imagine that this meteor traveled across the heavens for four billion years before landing on Earth and is now being transformed into Cabot pistols,” states Bianchin.
Cabot displayed a sampling of gun components made from meteorite at the SHOT Show, and The Big Bang Pistol Set will make its public debut during the NRA Annual Meeting and Convention in Louisville, KY, in May.
The pistols will likely be sold at auction and without a doubt will be the crown jewel of any museum or private collector interested in either meteors or firearms. Cabot has been offered $250,000 from a collector based on concept alone, but estimates on the value have ranged from $500,000 to over $1,000,000.
The scale and use of the material to this extent of making a high precision functional firearm has never been attempted before. Meteorite is hardly an optimum material for firearms, so numerous technical matters have been overcome to construct the pistols using advanced aerospace techniques to make the pistols fully functional.
To merely cut the meteorite, a three-dimensional laser scan of the meteorite was created to plan the cuts required to make each component of the pistols in a process analogous to cutting a rare diamond. George Dante, a world renowned taxidermist and environmental artist who has been called the Michelangelo of Taxidermy by National Geographic has been retained to create a special gun case and display for the pistols.
Cabot pistols have already garnered an elite following of owners who include royalty, prominent foreign heads of state, celebrities, rock stars and 1911 enthusiasts alike. “We’ve had a meteoric rise to the top of the luxury firearms industry,” says Bianchin tongue in cheek, “and it’s only appropriate that we now make pistols made from a meteor.”
Scott Mayer
www.tacticaltshirts.com
www.john1911.com
“Shooting Guns & Having Fun”
In 2008, Mayer returned to the editorial side of publishing, this time in the digital field, as Editorial Director for Guns & Ammo, Shooting Times, Handguns and Rifleshooter online magazines. After a brief stint in 2011 as the Digital Media Director for an ABC TV affiliate, Mayer returned to the outdoors industry and Safari Club International where he is currently Assistant Publisher and Multi-Media Communications Editor.
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