[Shattered]

Any Thompson yahoos out there? Check out what my buddy cobbled up for my AO M1A1.

That's a 9 mm barrel blank freshly machined to look the part and a Suomi drum with an adapter made up to insert into the original stick mag mount. Bolt SHOULD be done today. The beauty of this is with only a barrel change, it'll go to 7.62x25 with an appropriate mag and adapter. And he was talking about another barrel to use the Swede 5mm practice ammo.

 

[30calmachinegunner]

very nice job, be sure to let us know how it works, that ought to stir up the Thompson crowd.

 

[Shattered]

Bolt's done, a longer ejector and IT'S RUNNING.

Loaded up 10 rounds in the drum and fired a couple in semi, shrugged and snapped it to rock & roll. Talk about a slow fire... buddy, this thing is only running at about 500 rpm. The gun doesn't move.

Two Suomi drums are done and working, Steve's working on 4 Suomi 50 round "coffin" mags now and located a donor Springfield '03 barrel for the 7.62x25 conversion. He also suggested a Ruger 10-22 barrel for the Swede 5mm practice ammo.

This is going to get interesting.

 

[tommygunner06]

Runs slow because its made for .45,,,,,Why run 9mm in a Thompson?If you want it faster you will need to make the bolt lighter I would think.Also spring might need some work for less power.

 

[Rory]

Runs slow because its made for .45,,,,,Why run 9mm in a Thompson?

but really, why not?

 

[Shattered]

Runs slow because its made for .45,,,,,Why run 9mm in a Thompson?If you want it faster you will need to make the bolt lighter I would think.Also spring might need some work for less power.

Yeah, I know. Already thought that out, but we did just get it running, and we're gonna leave it alone till after the Eden Shoot.

Why run 9mm in the Thompson? Well, because I can, now. Not to mention a cheaper round. Try pricing a Thompson drum compared to the Suomis or the PPSH's. Those drums can be had for $140 for 10 vs $600 for one Thompson drum. Same with the 7.62x25 ammo. Cheap as hell.

Not to mention it's like getting another complete full auto gun for about $2-3 hundred.

 

[Pvt.Joker]

My only question is, "ONLY a barrel change"?!?!? Maybe yours was a lot looser than mine, but when we SBR'd my West Hurley 1927 and put on the original length barrel (with the paperwork done all legal-like, of course) it was a BEAR to get the old original 16" barrel off. "Only" is not exactly the word I was choosing at the time...

 

[Shattered]

Of course not. Bolt's been modified, as well as the ejector and the mags need an adaptor to enable them to mount up.

Hey... it took us ALL of three days to do this

Six hours to machine up the barrel out of a blank, at least 4 hours on the bolt and two or three hours on the ejector and mag adaptor, spread over three days.

Also the Thompson has had a quick change barrel system for the last two years, so it's able to go from one caliber to another in about 3 to 4 minutes.


If you look even closer, you'll notice the M1A1 was also cut for a Thompson drum.

This thing is a total hoot.