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THOMPSON SMG

S

SHOOTER13

Guest
This firearm acquisition was the realization of a childhood dream...growing up watching TV series like The Untouchables back in the 60's...then seeing that series made into a movie...and then recent movies like Miller's Crossing and Public Enemies. Tommy Gun action at it's best...

THOMPSON 1927a1

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Re: SHOOTER13's 1927a1...

I have always wanted to shoot a Tommy gun but haven't had the pleasure of doing so yet.
 
Re: SHOOTER13's 1927a1...

Ahh man, Sweet!!! I too have always loved these! My fondness began when I studied Military History. One of the stories going back to WWII was that Britain had purchased a number of Thompson sub machine guns for their Green Berets. The guns were EXPENSIVE for the Brits and when the Special forces guys returned from a mission, before a muster was taken, the men were asked how many Thompsons returned! The guns were always collected upon return.
 
I got this quite a while ago at my favorite Pawn shop. they made me a deal I just couldn't refuse. There's a funny story that goes with it, but you've got to bear with me to see where it end s up.

A very long time ago my last name was Loser. It's pronounced just like Low Sir, but none the less I hated the name and really hated being called loser whenever somebody wanted to be smart. Somewhere around the time I turned 30 I decided to change my name altogether, so I dropped the last name completely. A couple of my brothers saw that I changed my last name without too much fuss from the family, so they changed the spelling of the name closer to the way they pronounced it. Two of my brothers changed the spelling to Lozier. And that was just the way it was. Now to the end of the story.

When I bought the rifle the sales girl went back to get the accessories that came with it. She told me that it was from a vet that lived in the area. He had pawned this rifle for years, in and out, whenever he fell short of much needed cash. Shortly before I got it he decided to sell it to the shop for much more money than they had ever offered him in pawn. So it sat there being looked at by many customers, but when they saw the high price tag they passed on it. One day I walked in and asked to look at it. When I realized exactly what I was holding, I just had to buy it. They made me an offer that was many hundreds of $$ less than the tag to take it home, and there were a bunch of accessories including a case that go with it too. So, I made the deal and bought it. On the case was an old worn out piece of tape that had the vets name name on it. the name is Lozier believe it or not. I thought if it was destiny for me to have it or not. I don't know, but it's a really cool coincidence that it went from him to me.
I showed it to my wife when I got it home. Her response to seeing it was "And what are you going to do with that?" I told her "Shoot it, and then lock it away in the safe"
Enough chatter, here are the pics.









And my wife with it in hand. Not quite Bonnie Parker, but a woman that loves guns, and isn't afraid to shoot them either.


Regards,
Gregory
 
I love the old Tommy's.

I owned one of the old 60's models, but fell short of money and with my first born on the way, I had to let it go. Wish I still had it though.
 
We decided a long time ago that if we ever get so broke that we're considering selling any of the guns, we'll sell off one of our vehicles instead. Between my wife and I we have 5 vehicles. One is a classic 66 VW beetle that is worth a small fortune, and we have a Ford F250 HD that we only use a couple time a year. One of those will go before the guns or ammo does. And then we'll go looking for a 2nd job after that.
This particular Tommy has only four digits to the serial number, and has been appraised at well more than I ever thought it would have been worth, even after being used. I've since picked up 4 more stick mags, so the setup is pretty nice now. I love shooting it, but cleaning it is a bear.
 
I didn't realize they made any semi-auto versions before the 70's, then again in the 90's when Kahr took over Auto Ordnance.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
The one I had was an open bolt semi. Very cool gun.

I didn't do any extensive background history on the gun, but I was told that it was a 60's gun according to some collector book a guy my Dad knew.
 
This is a closed bolt rifle for sure.
My gunsmith has a Stemple that fires from an open bolt and it's something to behold when it's being fired full out. It sounds like a really loud sewing machine, and the brass flying out is just a blur. I was amazed how quickly I went thru $60 worth of 45 ACP ammo too. That was way too much fun for a single day.
 
The Tommy was originally designed with an open bolt, and the one I had was certainly a semi with an open bolt. I'm not entirely sure when they were redesigned to fire from a closed bolt, but I suspect that it was in the mid 80's not long after the Volkmer/McClure Act was rammed through Congress and signed into law by Reagan. I know that's when a lot of Mac manufacturers went out of business because the ATF deemed they were too easy to convert to machineguns with the open bolts.

I'd imagine that the Stemple 76 was a hoot to shoot. They come up for sale occasionally on some of the specialty websites. Usually under 5 grand and are considered one of the entry level machineguns due to them being on the low end of the price range for registered machineguns.
 
Mine dates back to the 60's from what I could gather. I read somewhere that the 1927-A1 was a closed bolt design, so I assumed that was the case. Is it possible it's an open bolt rifle, and I don't know it? How would I tell if it is or not?

If you cock the gun and the bolt stays back until you pull the trigger, it's an open bolt.

The open bolt function is really simple.

You cock the gun and the sear keeps the bolt back until you pull the trigger.

When you pull the trigger, the sear releases the bolt, which then the bolt moves forward due to the op rod spring, stripping a round from the magazine on it's way toward the chamber, chambers the bullet and the fixed firing pin strikes the primer when the bolt is in its' forward most position, which causes the bullet to go off and the gun blows back the bolt rearward until the sear catches it again and the process starts over again.

The big difference in open bolt machineguns is the sear doesn't catch the bolt when the trigger is pulled. The trigger itself does and if the trigger is below the bolt surface ( the gun is firing), then the bolt just keeps moving back and forth freely until you release the trigger which raises up in line with the bolt effectively blocking it, or until the mag empties (or the gun jams or some other type of malfunction, but that is not in the scope of this subject).
 
I fired a Thomson Submachine Gun once, back when I was in the Navy. There was a public range in Millington, Tn. and I rented a WWII M-1 and burned up one 30-round magazine just to say I did it LOL. Still have the target lurking about at my late Dad's place. That was my only experience with anything full auto so far, I found that I would have felt adequelty armed if issued one. Not too bad of recoil, just a steady push-back when I let off a burst. Then again, I'm trying to remember back to 1989 LOL!!!
Mark
 
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