Thank you, the price has somewhat doubled now.
Thank you, the price has somewhat doubled now.
Nice!! What did serving soldiers prefer ?Stick magazine or drum?
Nice! Whenever I see one I think of Vic Morrow as Sgt. Saunders from the Combat series.
Looks like a very good example. As most collectors won't be able to buy a fully functioning "Tommy gun", this is about as good as it gets. It would be welcome in my collection. Lew07; the drum magazine was abandoned fairly early on by military buyers in favour of the stick magazine.
What I had read was that the drum was to noisy, So the magazines were used. Not sure how true that is, But I read it on the internet, So It Must Be......by Anderson
I have shot a 28 with the 50 and 100 round mag. They do rattle a bit when shaken..
The other I shot was a 21 with Postal markings, That one was a beauty for it's age, Both of these belong to my SOT Friend.
Semper Fi
Phil
I believe the drums tended to jam
It was more to do with weight, the Thompson being heavier than the standard military rifle... the model 1928 weighed 10 lb. 10 oz without a magazine. With a fully loaded 50rd drum magazine it weighed 15 lb. 4 oz. With a fully loaded 30rd magazine it weighed 12 lb. 9 oz... a saving of almost 3 lb. for just 20rds less. And with a fully loaded 20rd magazine it weighed 12 lb. The handling of the weapon when fitted with a 20rd magazine was vastly improved, the balance being much better. But British special forces seemed to prefer the 30rd magazine.
As already stated the box mags were preferred for a multitude of reasons. Another one that hasn’t been mentioned is that the drum was harder to load ( leading to jamming) and the fact that the drum was an absolute paint to clear a jam as opposed to the box mags which were pretty easy to clear.
The original M1928 and M1928A1 could be feed by a drum or 20 rnd box magazine. 20 rounds was not considered enough so a 30 rnd ( and a 40 rnd, but the 40 rnd never made it past testing I believe) box mag was introduced. The M1 and M1A1 Thompson would only accept the box magazines.
The drum magazine was actually quite straightforward to load. You push off the locking/winding key, lift off the lid, and then start loading the cartridges in an anti-clockwise direction, starting from the feed opening. Replace the lid and push the key into position and give nine to 11 winds to put the ammunition under tension. A person used to loading one should be able to accomplish it within 60 to 90 seconds. There never was a 40rd magazine manufactured as such. For the tests which were conducted in December 1941, two 20rd magazines were welded together back-to-back. The problem with high capacity submachine gun magazines is the tension that the cartridges are placed under when filled to capacity, sometimes the bolt was not able to overcome the force of the spring pushing the cartridge into the magazine lips and this would lead to jams. I would suspect that this was just one of the reasons why the 40rd magazine was never put into production. The WW2 British soldier was rather wisely taught to fill the Sten magazine two rounds below the capacity of 32 to ensure that there would be no feed problems. The same rule was applied to Bren magazines... 28 rds loaded instead of 30. Other causes of jams were damaged magazines, and sometimes weak loads in cartridges.
Guys i have asked Bill (the mod) to either delete this thread or merge it Harry the moles, this is the guy who has all the knowledge and information anyone would want to know about the Thompsons in general, his Thompson that was posted around the same time as this is not getting the attention it and he deserves, thanks.
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