Robert Hillberg
Robert Hillberg was an American firearm designer, primarily known for the Hillberg Insurgency Weapon, but also an employee of the Olin Mathieson Corporation in the early 1960s and the former head of High Standard Manufacturing Company. Hillberg developed a variety of insurgency weapons, primarily multi-barrel shotguns, which could be covertly distributed to partisan forces fighting in the United States' national interests.[1] His designs included the folding shotgun stock, the Whitney Wolverine, the Wildey .45 gas-operated pistol, and the four-shot COP 357 Derringer.[2]
Gun Digest editors have described Hillberg as a "national treasure".[2]
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History
Hillberg worked initially at Colt's Manufacturing Company where he began to learn about how firearms are designed. He moved on to Pratt & Whitney and later Republic Aviation. During World War II he worked on adapting weapons designed for use on the ground to aircraft use, with all the challenges inherent in that problem. While at Republic Hillberg designed several automatic pistols, including, for the first time in the gun industry, solving the problem of having interchangeable barrels for multiple calibers in the same gun.[3]
After the war Hillberg went to work for High Standard as head of research and development.
See also
- Browning BPS shotgun[4]
- COP 357 Derringer
- Colt Defender Mark I
- Modern pepper-box rifle
- Winchester Liberator
- U.S. Patent 3,260,009
Partial list of patents
Hillberg holds numerous patents for firearms, including:
- 1974 U.S. Patent 3,798,819 for a folding gun stock
- 1980 U.S. Patent 4,221,066 for a firearm grip assembly
- 1980 U.S. Patent 4,208,947 for a firearm hammer block safety mechanism
- 1981 U.S. Patent 4,291,481 for a firearm magazine safety mechanism
- 1982 U.S. Patent D262,567 for a new break-action rifle design.[5]
- 1983 U.S. Patent 4,416,078 for a handgun strut assembly
- 1983 U.S. Patent 4,400,900 for a multi-barrel handgun firing mechanism
Sources
- ↑ Hillberg Insurgency Weapons: The Winchester Liberator - GunTech.com, September 2010}}
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Shideler, Dan (2010). Gun Digest 2011. Krause Publications. p. 91. ISBN 978-1440213373. "Robert L. Hillberg... is a national treasure, being one of the few surviving masters of post-WWII American firearms design"
- ↑ "The Oldest Name in Guns Comes Back". Guns Magazine: 24-27,66-69. August 1956.
- ↑ Bodinson, Holt. Space gun Redux: return of the Whitney Wolverine. Guns Magazine, July 2009
- ↑ Patent #D262567
- Hillberg Insurgency Weapons at travellercentral.com.
