Non-Firing & Display Replicas

Most Liberator replicas ever made cannot fire, and for most buyers that is the correct choice. A non-firing replica is not a firearm under federal law — no 4473, no FFL, no legal fork — and it delivers the thing most people actually want from a Liberator: the object, the silhouette, the story on a shelf. This volume surveys the real non-firing market as it stands: cast resin, machined dummies, cutaway study models, and 3D-printed props. It names the vendors and prices confirmed in research, is candid about the ones that could not be confirmed, and — because the audience is a builder — flags exactly where each of these is useful as CAD-reference geometry and where it is a dead end.

3.1 What “Non-Firing” Actually Means Here

A non-firing Liberator replica is a firearm-shaped object that physically cannot chamber and discharge a cartridge. In practice the vendors achieve this several ways: a solid or blocked chamber, an undersized chamber that will not accept a .45 case, no firing pin, and often a smoothbore or no real bore at all. Because it bears no functional firearm component, federal law does not treat it as a firearm.¹ State “imitation firearm” rules and the federal marking rules under 15 U.S.C. § 5001 can still apply to realistic replicas — the general legal-ethics framing in ../../../_shared/legal_ethics.md covers that layer — but there is no NFA question and no rifled-vs-smoothbore fork, because there is no bore doing any work.

These are good for display, film and theatrical props, reenactment, and — importantly for this series — as reference geometry for CAD and toolpath planning. They are not good for anything involving a cartridge, and none of them should ever be “converted” to fire.

3.2 Cast-Resin and Dummy Display Replicas

IMA-USA / Tactical Pro Gear — “U.S. WWII FP-45 Liberator Resin Display Pistol.” The best-documented non-firing replica in research. It is a cast-resin model made from a silicone mold of an original FP-45, produced 1:1 scale, airbrushed to mimic a stamped-steel finish, and weighing close to the original’s roughly one pound. It ships with a reproduction waxed-cardboard box and a wooden dowel (the original’s included cartridge-poking rod). It is marketed to collectors, theatrical and film prop use, and wargamers.² Because it was molded off an original, its external geometry is the most faithful of the cheap options — which also makes it the most useful as a visual and dimensional reference. The same product is mirrored at tacticalprogear.com.

Horse Soldier — “Dummy Non-Firing Liberator Pistol with Box.” A non-firing display dummy sold with a reproduction box.³ Straightforward collector/display piece.

Denix-style dummy — category confirmed, brand not. Non-firing dummy replicas of this exact pattern clearly exist commercially (Horse Soldier and IMA-USA above prove the category), and a “Denix” branding for an FP-45 repeatedly surfaced in search summaries. But no live Denix product page for this specific item could be pinned down in research. UNVERIFIED: treat “Denix FP-45” as a plausible but unconfirmed SKU — do not order against a Denix part number that has not been seen on an actual page.

3.3 The Vintage Ordnance Advanced Study Model

Vintage Ordnance — the firing-reproduction maker from Volume 2 — also made a non-firing Advanced Study Model, a cutaway/study piece. Its catalog now lists it as discontinued as a standard product; the company notes the original three study models sold at $500 each, and that it made a small additional batch on request around April 2025 due to demand.⁴ For a builder, a cutaway is the single most instructive display object of the lot: it shows the internal relationship of striker, cam, and breech that the factory drawings (Volume 7) describe in the abstract. If one can be found, it is worth more as a build reference than any solid replica.

3.4 3D-Printed Display Props

The 3D-print world has settled on one widely mirrored non-functional display model:

• Thingiverse — “LIBERATOR FP-45 (Historical Prop)” by user mussy. Explicitly non-functional: the hammer can be cocked and dropped for display, but there is no firing pin and the chamber is undersized so no round can be chambered.⁵
• The same model is mirrored at Cults3D⁶ and a comparable non-functional prop is on MakerWorld, whose page states plainly “This upload is a non-functional replica/display prop only.”⁷

• Individual sellers list printed props on eBay (“Fullsize 1:1 3d-printed Liberator FP-45 Historical Replica”; “Replica 45 Liberator 3D Printed Prop Gun For Fantasy & Cosplay”).⁸ These are one-off sellers, not a stable maker — flag accordingly.

For a builder, these STL files are useful as shape references for visualization and rough toolpath planning, and nothing more. Every one is deliberately built to be non-functional — undersized or blocked chamber, no firing pin, no real bore — so none is a build file for a firing gun. Never print one and try to machine or drill it into a functional pistol; that is neither safe nor, if done smoothbore, legal (Volume 4).

One critical disambiguation. None of the above is Defense Distributed’s 2013 “Liberator,” which is a completely different single-shot .380 ACP 3D-printed pistol merely named in homage to the FP-45.⁹ DEFCAD hosts files for that separate design. A DEFCAD library page titled “FP-45 Liberator Blueprints” might refer instead to the genuine 1942 Inland factory drawings (Volume 7), but the page could not be fetched to confirm which gun it covers. UNVERIFIED: the DEFCAD entry’s contents — it could be the 1942 factory drawings, the 2013 gun, or both. Do not treat “DEFCAD Liberator” as the FP-45 blueprints without checking; the verified blueprint source is survivorlibrary.com (Volume 7).

3.5 What They Are Good For — and Their Limits

Table 1 — What They Are Good For — and Their Limits

Use case	Best non-firing option	Notes
Shelf / collection display	IMA-USA resin or Horse Soldier dummy	Molded off / styled on originals; cheap
Film / theatrical prop	IMA-USA resin (1:1, right weight)	Realistic; mind 15 U.S.C. § 5001 and state imitation rules
Understanding the mechanism	Vintage Ordnance Advanced Study Model (cutaway)	If findable; best internal reference
CAD / toolpath visual reference	Thingiverse/Cults3D/MakerWorld STL	Shape only — never a firing build file
Prototyping fit before cutting metal	Print the STL, or your own CAD	Non-load-bearing mockups only

The limits are the whole point: a non-firing replica is an object, not a gun. It will not chamber a round, it has no functional breech, and its “bore” is decorative or absent. For a builder using one as a reference, the external geometry is genuinely useful, but every internal and load-bearing dimension has to come from the real factory drawings, not from a resin casting or a display print. Those drawings are the subject of Volume 7, and the build that uses them is Volumes 5 and 6 — beginning, in Volume 4, with the legal posture that decides how you are allowed to build at all.

3.6 Bibliography

Footnotes

1. FP-45 Liberator. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FP-45_Liberator ↩

2. U.S. WWII FP-45 Liberator Resin Display Pistol. IMA-USA. https://www.ima-usa.com/products/u-s-wwii-fp-45-liberator-resin-display-pistol — cast resin, silicone-molded from an original, 1:1, reproduction box and dowel. Mirrored at https://www.tacticalprogear.com/products/u-s-wwii-fp-45-liberator-resin-display-pistol/ ↩

3. Dummy Non-Firing Liberator Pistol with Box. Horse Soldier. https://www.horsesoldier.com/products/firearms/handguns/10344 ↩

4. FP-45 Liberator Pistol Advanced Study Model (Discontinued). Vintage Ordnance Company. https://vintageordnance.com/product/fp-45-liberator-pistol-advanced-study-model-discontinued/ — cutaway study model, $500 each, small 2025 batch. ↩

5. LIBERATOR FP-45 (Historical Prop), by mussy. Thingiverse. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3060548 — non-functional; no firing pin, undersized chamber. ↩

6. Liberator FP-45 (Historical Prop). Cults3D. https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/game/liberator-fp-45-historical-prop ↩

7. Liberator. MakerWorld. https://makerworld.com/en/models/2286988-liberator — “non-functional replica/display prop only.” ↩

8. Individual-seller 3D-printed prop listings. eBay. https://www.ebay.com/itm/165029710426 and https://www.ebay.com/itm/388319952605 ↩

9. DEFCAD library entry (contents unverified, HTTP 403 on fetch). https://defcad.com/library/b095cf47-751b-4d2b-b362-b1195826e1f8/ — not to be conflated with the 2013 Defense Distributed .380 “Liberator.” ↩