Shot a Thompson Machine Gun, Man did that thing climb!

[U.S.SFC_RET]

Fist things first Fully automatics don't do a thing for me, Serving twenty in the Army I had my fill of Automatic fire. They pressed one in my hands and bet me that I couldn't keep it on paper with a 25 round clip. 23 out of 25 aint too bad from thirty feet. When shooting that Thompson with a three and four round burst it had a muzzle climb like nobody's business. As heave as the Thompson Machine gun is I am surprized that it can't handle the recoil of the measly .45 caliber ACP even though it spits em out fast.
The only thing I learned from that thing was when doing any work on 1911 pistols like trigger, sear, hammer hooks or disconnector it is really best to load two rounds in the magazine to test fire.

 

[crankshop1000]

Did it have a Cutts compensator?

 

[Just Jim]

Shot a Thompson Machine Gun, Man did that thing climb!

I shoot with a full auto club. The guys with the Thompsons don't seem to have any trouble at all keeping the gun on target in full auto. One guy has a fifty round drum and after the match is over and we do a "mad Minute" he controls that gun like it was part of his body.

The Thomson does have an odd shape to get used to so I imagine you just didn't know how to hold it.

jj

 

[Nhsport]

I have only very little trigger time on a Thompson but whenever one is shot that is pretty much where the conversation goes.
The one I shot was an old comercial version with the foward grip and Cutts compensator, really a beautiful weapon.
After us newbies all had a pull on it an old hand demonstrated what he described as falling foward then pulling the trigger to keep from falling on his face.We had no formal target set up but he was able to keep most of a 50 round drum in a fairly small area down on the berm

 

[SaxonPig]

I've never fired a Thompson but I have shot a 45 ACP MAC which is must lighter and I experienced very little muzzle climb. Not sure why the Thompson would be worse.

 

[Roswell 1847]

Haven't shot a Thompson since I was a kid and then only a few rounds, All I remember is the muzzle blast since it was dusk.

Anyway like Nhsport says, all the combat footage I've seen of the Thompson fired in combat or training shows that the shooter must lean into the gun.

Switching from familarity with the M-16 to a Thompson for the first time you'd have carried over bad habits from that other very different gun.
A man familar with the Thompson and firing an M-16 or M4 for the first time would likely over control and shoot low.

 

[kenhtake]

SMG's take a little getting used to and figuring out how to accuratly fire one and control the follow shots requires a fair amount of practice. Shooting my M1921 I generally keep a full mag CM in a target. I can usually put a 3 round burst into a steel drum at 100 yards. I would actually say that my Thompson is far more controllable than my Uzi. The secret is to practice, practice, practice. One trip to the range and a hundred rounds of ammo won't tell you a whole lot about a subgun if you don't have much experience with them.

 

[AK103K]

The trick isnt trying to hold it on target, if you do, you will usually get the up and to the direction of the hand holding the grip thing, or for a right handed person, up and to the right.

If you relax, and think of it as riding a high pressure hose, and just keep willing it into where your looking, you can usually dump the whole mag into a fairly tight group with one pull of the trigger. Relaxed is the also the key, and a good, relaxed "fighting" stance, shoulders slightly forward is where you want to be.

This works with just about all of them. I've taught a bunch of people to shoot this way, including a number of kids under the age of 10. My kids were shooting my MP5 since age 5, and had no troubles with trigger control or keeping their 2-3 round bursts on target at about 10 yards. They were shooting a Thompson belonging to a boy we used to shoot with at around 9 or 10 with no troubles. They always shot it from the shoulder at my insistence. In all the time I knew the owner, which was a little over 10 years at the time, I dont think I ever saw him shoot it from the shoulder. At ten to fifteen yards, he tore ragged holes in the target with one pull of the trigger from the hip.

 

[Notch]

The comps on the Reising do a good job at controling the angry .45 round.....

I couldnt "get over" the fun of shooting the MGs any more than I could get over shooting any other type of firearm... If'n I live to be 100 I will still not get enough trigger time!

 

[M60]

If she can do it...



Mark.

 

[WinchesterAA]

I shot a tommy once, it did have a cutts compensator on it, but not surprisingly a quarter ton SMG in .45 didn't kick much.

 

[Archer1945]

I got a chance to shoot a full auto Thompson just a couple of weeks ago and it had no climb to it at all. Got to the place where I as able to hit golf balls and plastic bottles shooting from the hip in 3 round bursts. Was one sweet shooting gun. In fact no one in my CCW class who shot that gun had any problems with it climbing, or the Karl Gustav 9mm smg that was available to shoot.

 

[sturmgewehr]

With a little practice you can shoot machineguns with more recoil than a Thompson and still maintain control of them.

 

[cmidkiff]

I'm pretty surprised by this. My 15 year old, 95lb daughter doesn't have any problem keeping tommy on target!

 

[12Bravo20]

I was one of the few that could actually control and qualify with our issue M3 "grease guns". I had an old timer show me a few tricks and one of them is to lean into it. The Thompson's are fun to shoot.

 

[PressCheck]

I have fired Thompsons numerous times with NO problem with "lift".

 

[myrockfight]

Ammo?

I don't have any experience shooting the Thompson. However, I wanted to bring up the type of ammunition used, since no one else has (maybe for a reason).

So would hotter ammo produce a noticible difference in muzzle climb?

If it did, could it make a big enough difference for the Thompson to not be able to "handle the recoil of the measly .45 caliber ACP"?

Just a thought.

 

[JesseL]

Jeff Cooper on shooting the Thompson:

I note a recent tendency on the part of the unenlightened to hold forth about how difficult it was to shoot the Thompson "sub-machine-gun." After all it was of major caliber and it was fully automatic. We hear people reporting that it took a man of great weight and muscle to hold that muzzle down when firing a hot burst.

As the Thompson fades into the past I would like to point out briefly that firing that piece on full automatic was difficult only if you did not know how to do it. It is a heavy gun, and when one applies some 11lbs of vertical pressure with his supporting arm the piece suddenly unweights itself partially on firing, and the shooter tends to raise the muzzle and continue to raise it with each successive shot. This results in alarming muzzle climb and suggests to the shooter that the recoil is insupportable. In actuality, all one needed to do was to reduce the upward pressure in the left arm upon firing, allowing the piece to "ride on its recoil." This is easy, once you know the trick, and, in fact, it is so easy that one can learn to fire the piece one-handed without the supporting stock in one easy lesson. I guess this information should be filed away amongst the arcana of the middle nineteen-hundreds.

 

[PPGMD]

The climb is there but it's not that uncontrollable. At least that's how it felt to me, but I didn't spend too much time playing with the Thompson, I spent most of my time with the MP-5SD, which is a ton of fun and cheaper to shoot.

 

[chris in va]

I know nothing about the Thompson, but just looking at the angle of the stock makes me think it would transfer recoil up instead of back, like a pivot.

 

[Redd Flynt]

Cooper brings up a good point in that the weight of the gun can work against the casual Thompson shooter. The Thompson also has a long length of pull and the geometry can also work against the shooter.

 

[Funderb]

thompsons with no cutts have pretty ridiculous recoil, it's not
impossible, but it is much more than most fully automatic rifles.
1. it's a recoil operated firearm
2. has very heavy moving parts
3. has a large diameter bore
those would give it a pretty good dispoition towards climbing up.
It's not that it hits hard, it's just that from the design of the gun, it
likes to jump as well as kick.

And sorry, to sturmgewehr, but an m16 or .223 caliber auto does not have that much recoil.
That is one of the more easily controlled autos.

 

[U.S.SFC_RET]

I am willing to bet you "lunch that that thing didn't have a cutts controller on the front if that's what you call it. If I didn't hold that kitty down it would have climbed through the roof let me tell ya. One three round burst and she is very close to being off of the paper. I am reading your posts and these thompsons are very interesting but they climb like packers going up the himalayas.

If you relax, and think of it as riding a high pressure hose, and just keep willing it into where your looking, you can usually dump the whole mag into a fairly tight group with one pull of the trigger. Relaxed is the also the key, and a good, relaxed "fighting" stance, shoulders slightly forward is where you want to be.

High pressure hose huh? full of .45s hosing is more like it but I will pass the word along. Good advice.

 

[AK103K]

High pressure hose huh? full of .45s hosing is more like it....

There ya go

You just have to get into the "Zen" of shoulder fired machine guns.

Think of it as "trying" to control your wife. If you get all tense and try to overpower, she'll resist, and you dont do as well as if you relax, and calmly nudge her along the path you want to go, letting her think its her idea.

I taught my wife to shoot them too by the way, through my kids. Like I said, nudge her along.

 

[Halo is for Kids]

IME felt recoil in order from least to most:
1- PPSH, 7.62x25
2- P90, 5.7
3- H&K MP5, 9mm
4- Colt M16 type SMG, 9mm
5- MP5K PDW, 9mm
6- Thompson, 45acp
7- H&K UMP, 9mm
8- M2 Carbine, 30 carbine
9- Colt M4, .223/5.56x45
10- Colt M16, .223/5.56x45
11- RPK, 7.62x39
12- AK47, 7.62x39