[littledude]

i just bought a commando mark1 made by plainfield machine in dunellen n.j. and i`m trying to find as much info as i can on these guns. it has plastic covered alum. forestock with thompson machine gun style hand grips and wooden rear stock. it has an m2 reciever minus the disconnector parts. aside from the shells jamming every time it fires, the gun is perfect and i want 3 more for my wife and daughters. light weight ,easy to hold and fire ,no kick, very accurate. the only problem is that i can`t find any info on this gun and i don`t know where to find more of them. please enlighten me

[JohnBT]

From oldguns.net -

"Answer:
Jason, The Plainfield Machine Company of Dunellen and then Middlesex, New Jersey, assembled M1 Carbine replicas from assorted GI and commercial parts with varying stock features and finishes starting in the late 1960s (around 1967). Rifles were available in both 22 and 30 M1 Carbine calibers and over the years they were in business, Plainfield marketed many different M1 Carbine configurations. Some had ventilated sheet-steel handguards and lacked the bayonet-lug assembly beneath the barrel. The Commando or Paratrooper Model had a forward pistol grip and a sliding skeletal butt. The M1 Sporter had a military-style butt without the sling bar, and the M1 Deluxe Sporter (later known as the 'Plainfielder') had a special half-stock with a Monte Carlo comb and a checkered pistol grip. Plainfield was acquired by Iver Johnson in 1975 and carbine production continued thereafter under the Iver Johnson name. There is little or no collector interest in Plainfield firearms, and retail value is probably in the $250-350 range depending on condition."

[dfariswheel]

The Thompson "look-alike" stock was a rather limited option on the Plainfield carbines.

The receiver and forward section was aluminum, usually with a black crackle finish coating, with the Thompson-like forward hand grip made in one piece and finished with the main body.

The rear grip was wood and resembled a Thompson gun grip.
The butt stock may actually have been a WWII M1-A1 Thompson stock.

A bit of history about the Thompson-look Plainfield is, the BATF in those days didn't want any firearms made that even resembled a real Thompson gun, and nearly prevented Plainfield from selling even a Carbine with a Thompson-like stock.

When George Numrich designed the Auto Ordnance 1927-A1 semi-auto Thompson carbine, he had to threaten to take the BATF to Federal court after they tried to stop him from selling the guns.

littledude, you are aware that if your Carbine is stamped "M2" it's an illegal automatic weapon unless it's officially registered with the BATF?

It makes NO difference if the Carbine has full-auto parts installed or not, the mere fact that there's an "M2" stamped on the gun makes it a full-auto gun as far as the Federal government is concerned.

[littledude]

thanks guys, thats the info i was looking for. i can`t see why there is no interest, or why the value is so low. everybody wants to buy my gun just from seeing it, without even firing it. i only gave 250. and have been offered 3x`s that by several people. i could`nt find any m2 stamping, and was going by the fact that the receiver has a removable pin where the select fire switch goes and assumed that it was a m2 receiver . i still want several more of these for my wife and daughters. anybody out there have any for sale at a decent price?

[Jim K]

Hi, Dfariswheel,

I think there was a bit more to the M1927-A1 story than just looking like a sub gun. The first version, IIRC, fired from an open bolt, which has pretty much always been a BATF no-no since it is only necessary to remove the disconnector to have full auto firing. (The original M1927 semi-auto was that way; it differed from the M1921 only in that the rocker and selector switch cam were modified so that the rocker would not go into the full auto position. It still fired the same way as the M1921, from an open bolt; the bolt stayed back on each shot until the trigger was pulled.)

BATF demanded that the M1927-A1 fire from a closed bolt and that took quite a bit of redesign, plus they wanted a receiver and trigger housing that full auto parts would not fit.

The same problem surfaced with several other guns of the period. Plainfield used the "Commando" name, but another company also marketed a "Commando" carbine that used an alloy receiver and was made much like a STEN gun, although it was hoked up to look like a TSMG. It fired from an open bolt and could be made full auto by breaking off the disconnector. BATF squelched that also, and confiscated the ones they could find.

Jim

[littledude]

i said the receiver has the pin but i meant the trigger housing. on the left side in front of the flip saftey is a hole with a pin flush with the surface. i assume that is where a select fire switch would go if it had one. as you can tell , i don't know much about guns but i'm learning every day. i don't know about open or closed bolts. could an open bolt be why i'm having problems with every single shell not loading itself ? is there a way to tell without just pulling the trigger and holding it ? there is not anything on there to mount a scope on and the top is flat and smooth. is there any way to mount a scope mount and scope on the flat part ? will it hurt to drill and tap it there ? what type of mount would work best for that if it is possible ? even though the gun is very accurate it is too hard to use the peephole sight that it has for any serious hunting.

[Jim K]

I can't determine what is causing the jams without looking at the gun, but magazines are always a good bet on failures to feed. You should be able to mount a scope on the flat top if it is thick enough to hold screws.

Can you post a picture? I am not sure which gun you have, and the description is not jibing with what other folks are saying. The receiver doesn't sound like an M1 carbine of any kind. I think you have the other Commando.

I can answer the open/closed bolt question, though. Most submachineguns, including the Thompson, fire from an open bolt. The bolt is first retracted, then locks back until the trigger is pulled, at which time it runs forward, picks up a round from the magazine, chambers and fires it. The pressure blows the bolt back, where it stops, runs forward again, and so on. This continues until the trigger is released or the magazine is empty. If the gun has selective fire, a switch can be set that will keep the bolt locked back each time, until the trigger is released and pressed again.

As you can see, the only difference between full auto and semi-auto is the switch/disconnector, so a semi-auto made that way is very easy to convert to a full auto weapon.

A SMG-like gun firing from a closed bolt, on the other hand, will chamber the round, after which the trigger must be pressed to release a separate firing mechanism to fire the round, a more complex system and one that is much more difficult to convert to full auto fire.

Jim

[littledude]

i'll try to have a picture of it on here in the next couple of days so everybody can see what it looks like. we love the hand grips because it makes it so much eaiser to hold and to fire . the military did'nt want handgrips on anything besides machine guns because it is easier to use guns as clubs if they don't have hand grips in the way. the gun is an m1 carbine and all my m1 stuff looks like it will swap right over. i hope it does because i already bought spring kits and stuff to rebuild it and my universal m1 parade gun. i'll post a picture of both in a couple of days.