Endangered Earth > Geoengineering
what do you do with a meteorite?
(1/1)
space otter:
hope this is the right place for this
how about you make a gun out of it. !!!!
http://triblive.com/news/valleynewsdispatch/10854503-74/guns-bianchin-meteorite
BY CHUCK BIEDKA | Saturday, July 30, 2016, 11:00 p.m.
Butler County gunsmith crafts 'unprecedented' pistols from meteorite
ric Felack | Tribune-ReviewRobert Bianchin, founder and president of Cabot Guns, holds one of a pair of.45-caliber handguns made from a meteorite. The guns are valued at $4.5 million. Photographed on Friday, July 15, 2016.
Eric Felack | Tribune-ReviewTwo custom handguns at Cabot Guns feature 12,000-year-old wooly mammoth tusk grips. The gun on the left is valued at $10,000, and the one on the right at $11,500.
Eric Felack | Tribune-ReviewCabot Guns also produces custom knives. This model features a tungsten carbide blade from Itally and a meteorite handle, as seen on Friday, July 15, 2016.
Making two pistols from a meteorite seemed like a next natural step for Rob Bianchin.
Bianchin is founder and president of Cabot Guns in Buffalo Township, a 5-year-old company that makes upscale, precision-built and highly accurate pistols in the 1911-style. Pennsylvanian subcontractors contribute parts that are assembled at the company's plant in Fort Wayne, Ind.
The 1911 model pistol was used by millions of GIs in both World Wars, Korea and Vietnam until 1986. Others still use the model.
Cabot Guns made an early splash in competitive shooting circles and, by 2012, a national gun publication called the firm the “Rolls Royce” of upscale guns.
Each year, Cabot Guns offers special models as well as more basic ones used daily by police and the military.
The luxury pistols are blued or stainless steel works of art featuring grips crafted from the likes of Sonoran Desert olive wood, woolly mammoth tusks, and other exotic materials. Pricing starts at about $3,300 for the custom guns and advance to well beyond that.
Bianchin decided the stage was set for the meteorite guns.
‘HE'S NOT A GUN GUY'
Steve Fjstead, editor of the annual Blue Book of Gun Values, said the meteorite gun is “absolutely worthy of the most innovative” gun of the year.
“Rob Bianchin is to gun making what Elon Musk of Tesla Motors is to cars,” Fjstead said.
“He's not a gun guy. He is a marketer and a businessman and a planner. The only thing now is that it will get harder and harder for him to come up with something new. I think he will do it,” Fjstead said.
Jason Brown, a spokesman for the National Firearms Museum in Washington, D.C., said the guns are “unprecedented.”
“As far as our research shows, there are no other production firearm made from a meteorite or any material from space,” Brown said.
Cabot Guns also displays a “remarkable degree of precision,” he said.
The pistols are not just art.
This summer, the Cabot Guns shooting team finished third among 76 teams, just behind the Army team. The same Cabot team shooters took numerous individual top honors at the National Rifle Association's National Pistol Championship.
The pistols are so accurate that one man won the 2012 and 2013 NRA National Pistol Championships using standard production, basic .45s made by the company.
Bianchin said some federal agents, soldiers and police carry Cabot Guns.
Celebrities buy them, too. In fact, each week, actor Joe Mantegna carries a Cabot Guns pistol for his role as an FBI agent on the CBS series “Criminal Minds.” Rocker Kid Rock bought one. So did mixed martial arts competitor Mike “Iron” Chandler.
HEFTY PRICE TAG
The mirror-image right- and left-handed meteorite guns were unveiled at the NRA's annual meeting in May.
Even before the guns were made, a Middle Eastern man offered Bianchin $1 million for one.
“I said, ‘No thanks,' ” Bianchin said.
He wants to sell them for at least $4.5 million for the pair.
“We will likely sell them at auction next year,” Bianchin said.
They are stored in different locations.
“These guns were more than 4 billion years in the making,” Bianchin said.
“We'll never make another set like this,” he said.
The Big Bang pistols will be sold with a special case emphasizing their space origin and a special knife made from tungsten carbide with meteorite handle.
Chuck Biedka is a Tribune-Review staff writer.
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http://triblive.com/news/valleynewsdispatch/10873459-74/meteorite-bianchin-guns
CHUCK BIEDKA | Saturday, July 30, 2016, 11:00 p.m.
Meeting challenges helps Cabot Guns compete
It made good business sense to local company owner to make two pistols from a 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite.
Rob Bianchin is a 47-year-old Butler resident who said he learned that setting challenges and meeting them is the way to strengthen his company in a very competitive high-end gun market.
“I've never liked doing something that someone else has already done. Some firms add engraving and jewels on guns. We made meteorite grips for one pistol the year before.
“No one before has made a mechanical object from a meteorite,” said the successful economist turned gunmaker.
Bianchin decided to make two fully functioning pistols — right- and left-handed — using metal taken from a mostly iron-nickel meteorite found in Namibia, a country on the southwestern coast of Africa.
Bianchin paid about $50,000 for the 77-pound hunk of metal he purchased from a broker who sells such found meteorites.
All but a few parts, such as the barrel, springs and screws, were made from the space rock.
Parts were made by subcontractors, including some from Butler County, and the guns were assembled at the company's plant in Fort Wayne. Bianchin declined to name his subcontractors.
The guns have a luxury price tag because of the raw material used, the engineering challenges encountered in production and because there are only two in existence.
GRAIN PATTERN WELL-KNOWN TO COLLECTORS
Meteorites are known for unique metal grain or other patterns revealed through polishing and etching — just like jewels are known for color and clarity after they are cut and polished.
According to meteoritemarket.com, the Gibeon meteorite Bianchin used for his pistols was found scattered across sub-Saharan Africa and is known for its cross-hatched grain.
“We learned that grain-like pattern happens from the cooling off of the meteorite over a very, very long time. It's so unique in nature,” Bianchin said.
“And there's the notion that this rock has been in outer space,” Bianchin said.
A three-dimensional laser scan showed gunsmiths where to cut slabs from the meteorite. Next, slabs would be further cut for parts.
“The most stressful time was the first cut,” which Bianchin said took 11 hours.
Electronic beam welding and aerospace industry tools were used along with basic gunsmith screwdrivers and hammers. Yet, like all Cabot Guns products, remarkable aerospace tolerances were maintained.
The meteorite pair are a novelty that attracts attention. Nevertheless, the company's close-fitting standards are still part of the guns, said Steve Fjstead, editor of the annual Blue Book of Gun Values.
“That's the remarkable thing,” he said. “The way Cabot Guns are manufactured sets them apart.”
Bianchin said there were many engineering challenges, such as overcoming “galling.”
The 1911 uses a slide to eject empty cases while pushing a live shell from the magazine into the chamber so the gun can be fired again. When using stainless steel, some parts wear because of adhesion. That wearing and binding is called galling.
Cabot Guns gunsmiths found ways to deal with galling as well as the stress from .45-caliber recoil and keeping all parts moving.
Chuck Biedka is a Tribune-Review staff writer
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The Gibeon meteorite
The space rock used by Cabot Guns to make a pair of .45-caliber pistols was named after Gibeon, the closest town in Namibia to where the rock was first reported by Scottish explorer Capt. J.E. Alexander of Britain's Royal Geographic Society in 1838.
The meteorite fell in prehistoric times. Radiometric dating places the age of the meteorite at more than 4 billion years.
Other pieces of the meteorite continued to be discovered into the 1900s.
The composition of the Gibeon meteorite is 90 percent iron and 8 percent nickel. Other materials such as cobalt and phosphorus are present.
Source: meteoritemarket.com
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now you ask yourself where does the original money come from
his dad and uncle stated a company in their garage years ago (1970)
it's now http://www.pennunited.com/
zorgon:
SPLITTING THE HEAVENS: 4 REAL SWORDS MADE OF METEORITES
JAHINGIR’S METEOR DAGGER
Given to him by a loyal tax collector, Mughal Emperor Jahangir had a meteorite forged into a pair of swords and this dagger.
Like his Empire, he saw it as a gift from God. The tax collector said that as his men dug from the meteorite, the ground grew hot and the stone was molten; his men had to wait for it to cool before moving it.
http://www.ripleys.com/blog/meteorite-swords/
zorgon:
It must have been a huge meteorite because Gibeon meteorite pieces are all over the net and made into jewelry
Another on that was huge was the CAMPO DEL CIELO METEORITE
Lots of pieces of that one for sale like this piece
3060 GM. NEW CAMPO DEL CIELO METEORITE ; AA GRADE!! BEAUTIFUL LG. METEORITE
$671.25
700.00 is not bad for that one :P
zorgon:
Lots of small ones on Ebay 1 inch 20 grams size for 10.00 to 15.00
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