Of all the guns he got to shoot....

FlSwampRat said:

The PD had a lot of guns in their armory. Of all the ones Dad got to shoot the one I'm most envious of never having been able to fire is this one. I think White Rook knows why judging by his avatar pic.
And yeah, Dad was left handed.

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Cool photo. You can still rent one at some ranges. I haven’t shot one. I know I would enjoy it. I know you would too.

I've handled real Thompsons but never shot one. My avatar is a dummy Thompson which consists of a aluminum dummy receiver with real Thompson parts attached so it of course cannot work, but hefting it shows they were actually somewhat clunky weapons (the M1 Carbine IMHO was a far better WW2 longarm).
I'd like the oportunity to fire a real one if it could be done conveniently.

Oh...and, White Rook; I know where THAT AKA came from. I liked that tv series too.

When I was about 18, the father of one of my hunting buddies had a huge gun collection and there was a rumor that he had a fully automatic Thompson which was 100% illegal back then. Even my buddy couldn't or wouldn't confirm if the rumor was true. On his 16th birthday his father gave him a few guns out of the collection and took us out to shoot them. A couple of rifles and shotguns and one old beater 1911. When we were about to call it a day, his father pulled out the rumored Thompson. It was a thing of beauty! After about 15 minutes of swearing us to complete secrecy with every threat known to man if we ever talked, he gave both of us a fully loaded drum and let us shoot it. I remember popping off a couple of short burst and then saying what the hell and let the rest fly! I will never forget that feeling vibration and recoil. It was pointing at about 45 degrees upward when it clicked empty. You couldn't tell me squat right at that moment. Never liked his day, but for about 15 minutes, he was my hero. It was absolutely amazing and I'd love to relive that moment again. And yes, we did keep the secret. To the point that even we never spoke of it between ourselves. His dad is long gone and I guess my buddy wound up with all of his dad's collection. I've not seen him in probably 40 years, but if I ever do run into him, I'll have to ask...….

Cool picture! My local range has a BAR and Thompson’s for rent. I’ve always wanted to try them but it’d cost me about $200 for approximately 5 minutes of fun, and that’s if I intentionally reloaded slowly.

I have shot them...as well as a few "machine guns" and I can say a few things on them.

I can see why they built the M3 and Sten....they had to be super expensive to make.....just fantastic metal work on them....real art.

They are a bit porky.....reminded me of the weight of a Uzi...first thing I thought about both of them was where is all the meat....this thing is heavy.

Very easy to control.....almost....well not almost....as easy as a modern 223 rifle is to control.....I think the weight helped.

If you ever get a chance to, do it. I don't know how much it costs to rent one, but for me unless it was north of $200 I would pay to play with one again.

I have also got to shoot an MP40, what shocked me at that was how fast it got hot. And how much got hot. There is no way in those war movies they are doing mag dumps and then just grab a new mag and go again....it is just too darn hot to hold. I don't remember the thompson getting that hot like that....I want to say it seemed like a slower rate of fire, but I did not shoot them back to back more like years apart, so it could be just old man memory.

I shot a Thompson and an MP40 a few times at The Gun Store in Las Vegas. It was a lot of fun, but what was exponentially more fun was blasting Coke cans out of the water with them.

John Ross, author of Unintended Consequences, did our Missouri CCW training, and that included a trip to his private range — a quarry in Illinois. After the qualification he cooked us lunch then broke out the machine guns. I spent a couple hundred dollars extra that day but it was well worth it.

Hi...
I have shot several automatic weapons at the Knob Creek Machine Gun shoot in Kentucky, including a Thompson sub machine gun.
Great fun...it is a heavy weapon but very controllable.
Much more fun was shooting a BAR...very heavy but some serious firepower.
I also enjoyed shooting an MP40 and a belt fed .30cal. machine gun.
Great fun but a tad expensive...IIRC, if you paid to shoot 4 automatic weapons you got to shoot a fifth for free.
My son and I both spent several hundred dollars to enjoy that experience.
I highly recommend a trip to Knob Creek for the machine gun shoot. Great fun!

My grandfather carried one in the Pacific and hated it. Too heavy. Which makes sense and my AO Commando semi auto is 13 lbs unloaded. Sure does tame the .45 though...

Grandpa said he always just aimed at the left ankle and let recoil do the rest.

I got to shoot the St. Paul (MN) PD's M1A1 Thompsons right before they turned them in for M16A1's. I was 11 at the time, and the Armorer was a good friend of Dad's. Called him up on his day off, and said to come on down and help him shoot up all this .45 ACP instead of turning it in. My sister was with my Mom that day, and Dad had me. So I tagged along. I had to fire a whole 20 round mag semi first, then they let me shoot bursts. I had a grin that made this look lame for about a month.

Only chance I had to fire a Thompson, something broke inside it. One of my high school friend's grandpa had a Class 3 and when he found out I joined the service, invited me out to their land to get familiarized. He shot everything first to 'warm 'em up' and it seized up hard on the first mag.

Still got to handle one, and ended up shooting an MP-40, STEN, Uzi, AK and M-16 (3 prong no forward assist) that day and it only cost me two hundred bucks for the grin I have right now thinking about it. Told me to hang onto the .45 ball I'd brought and a couple weeks later invited me back out to burn it up in his M3. He was seriously the coolest grandpa any of my friends had.

I did Knob Creek one time, it was fun, a little pricey. But i figured when was the next time I'd be able to shoot full auto, and went for it. I don't miss the money now, but I still remember the enjoyment, so there's that.

I shot a Thompson, a belt fed .30, and a I think it was a Czech sub machine gun, a skorpion.. Here’s the menu at one booth.

FlSwampRat said:

Growing up in the 60's I was an impressionable 10 years old when Combat! came on the air. Thought Chip Saunders was the coolest. Him marching through France and fighting the Nazis made quite an impression on my young mind.

Fascination with the gun had nothing to do with Warren Zevon's song about Roland.

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Yup, my favorite show of all time. Have Gun Will Travel is a close second. I have tried an MP5, but not a Thompson. They are still beyond cool!

One of my grandpa’s older friends was a WWII veteran who kept his Thompson, 1911, and a captured PPK. I got to shoot the Thompson when I was 14. It was the most fun I had ever had until I discovered girls - even then the Thompson is better than many...

It’s a cool SMG, but I’ve shot a few and my favorite is the MP5. UMP45 is also up there. It’s truly amazing what SMGs started as and where they are now. For me it’s the ultimate NFA item - an MP5 at least.

I’ve shot more SMGs than I ever expected to during my time with the Second Mar Div. SAWs, M-249, H&K, Thompson, PPSh-41 are the ones I remember the most.

They all very in rate of fire, muzzle flip, and bullet weight. One of the best balanced platforms was the H&K.

The SAW (M249) is not an SMG. (though the Para version isn't much bigger, just a lot heavier!) I liked shooting the MP5SD3's some Marines brought up to Ft. Ord to train on kicking doors in our shoot houses. They helped me and the S-4 shoot up the M203 chalk rounds we had left, and they let us kick a few doors with them. I was very impressed with the MP5SD3.

I have played with a bunch of them Over the years, I think this one is my favorite.

Most fun ever was a converted 10/22 at knob creek. It was slightly more fun than the Thompson. I don’t care if I have a 10/22 though, but I really want an AO thompson. The slow recoil would make it easy to do a bump run on so I see no issue in it not being FA

USAS Daewoo full automatic 12ga at a private range a few years ago. Friends Coonan .357 pistol. I'm not counting the firearms I was allowed to use while in the Army 50 years ago.

My BIL was a class 3 dealer and I was an Infantryman and Infantry Officer so I got to shoot a lot of selective fire and suppressed firearms.

The most interesting was the suppressed M10 Ingram SMG. It was just a lot of fun. My BIL had Thompson's but I never shot them.

I remember being assigned to an Armor unit in 1980 that had M3A1s in the armory that looked like they had never been fired. I would have loved to break those in.

I’ve shot an MG42, BAR, Thompson, AK47, and the best was an M249 out of a helicopter in Las Vegas. The belt feds are definitely my favorite, the MG42 left quite a grin on my face. The SAW itself wasn’t as fun as the MG but firing out of a helicopter made up for it!