Where are the old "Commando" Pistol Carbines?

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kBob

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For a decade and a half I could not pick up a gun magazine without seeing a little 1.5 or 2 inch ad for a pistol caliber carbine that sort of looked like a 16 inch barreled Thompson Sub Machine Gun....but wasn't.

There were several different models and they where available in .45ACP and 9x19mm.

Where are they?

I handled and shot a grand total of one and have seen another bolted to the wall of a local resturaunt. There has to have been thousands of the things just to pay for the advertising.

Now I have to say I was underwhelemed by my experience with the one......but I got to use it after a fair amount of real SMG experience and a good bit of that with a real TSMG, so I was biased.

Anyone out there got one they want to share with us? Want to share your experiences with them?

There was another outfit in the early 1960s that had a PC carbine based on a round receiver that had hardware to make it Thompson looking as well.....Owen? I think. I believe ATF had some issue with that one and it doubling or worse if the safety was not set correctly.

In the 1970s there were a few MAC-10 semi auto carbines. Any of those still floating about?

There was something I believed called the Eagle that resembled a Lancaster or Sterling-Patchet with a wood stock in the 1980's I believe.

Of course there was the JG 68 and the Linda that looked vaugly Uzi-ish or Vz27-ish..

I figure there is little point mentioning the HK94 or Uzi carbine as one occasionally sees one of them, as some survived FOPA86 intact.

Just interested in those old PC carbines.

-kBob
 
Stemple had a number of tube-style full auto kits that were dressed up like Thompsons among others.

Century did a semi-auto Sterling at one point, and this company : http://indianapolisordnance.com/sterling_mk4.html makes a Mk4 kit, sans barrel. I found a couple of de-milled parts kits with 2 magazines on Gunbroker for $700.

There was a Mk7 that was sold as a pistol with a very short barrel, you can find one bidding at $950 on GB.

Masterpiece Arms Mac 10 carbines are floating around out there.

Special Weapons and Southern Ohio Gun made semi auto SW76 clones. They are fairly rare.

Weaver Arm's Nighthawk was another 80's kit bash looking semi auto 9mm carbine.

Uzi carbines (made one the same line as real Uzis) were actually imported in good numbers though they command high prices. Norinco also imported a clone, can't speak to the quality.

They are out there if you look.
 
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When the new Linda folks were here on THR several folks suggested changing to a more common pistol mag.

The Sterling semi autos seemed to get full autoed and bobbed quicker than even the HKs and Uzis. I never got to shoot one that was not converted. Even with the barrel just shortened and the semi auto front end in the tube the Sterling converted guns shot the same as the SMG, nice.

I did an article on the HK94 and caught some flak for HK beating. With the 16 inch barrel from a rest on a table with fore arm rested in palm on a bag it was no more accurate at 50 meters than shooting the P7 from the roll over prone, if that accurate. With that goofy barrel jacket and forward grip in place it was not as accurate as my 12 gauge with cheap foster slugs standing unsupported. On the other hand a converted gun shot was much more accurate so I am guessing it had to do with stresses on that long barrel. The only "long barrel" HK I liked was the SD model I shot with the Frankfurt Spezial Polizi Gruppe. These were used to back up officers making high risk stops and arrest on the street and to back up entry teams. The used a bullet of about 130 grains that was subsonic to begin with and it seemed to have a more rounded or flatter nose than the 124 grain Geco used in the Sig Pistols that day. At 100 metes it was better than 2 moa. Closer to one for at 75 meters the target was a black 25mm target paster on a target back and it was generally at least scratched. No idea what HK or the police did to those guns but they impressed me as did the Stiener scopes in HK mounts. They were quiet enough that a group of USAF NCOs at another part of the range came over and asked if we were shooting air rifles. Some of that ammo cycled a suppressed M45 (Swedish K, Port Said, "green gun") and the bolt clatter was more noticeable than the shot.

I did not get to shoot a semi Uzi at paper but it was minute of soda can at 25. I could not tell the difference between a converted semi and a German issue Uzi as far as shooting went.

I will say this months American Rifleman Article about the VC K50 has me wondering what one of the PPSh-41 semi kits might looked like so chopped up and stocked. Only handled a real one once for a minute or so. I could see how if I was having to live in the wild and carry everything that it would have beaten a PPSh-41 for hadiness and cool factor (Like that matters going up hill in heavy underbrush in 90degrees plus weather in the rain with folks chasing you to do harm)

I certainly like the idea of pistol caliber carbines, especially semi autos.

-kBob
 
A friend of mine owns a pawn shop in Fayetteville NC. About a year ago they ended up with one of the commandos, with no mag. I believe it used a grease gun magazine (M3). Whatever, they eventually got a mag for it and sold it on gunbroker. To me, it look like a very crudely made gun.
 
I had one of the old Thompson look-alike .45 ACP Volunteer Enterprises back in the early 90's in So California.

It worked well. No issues with it at all. Only had 2 or 3 mags for it and I have no idea what other gun (if any) that those mags worked in. Could have been Thompson mags, I dunno. The ones I had came with the gun.

It shot like a gigantic stapler. That's exactly what the recoil impulse felt like. Only ever shot ball out of it.

Kinda cool, but I moved on to AK's in short order.
 
I handled a full sized Uzi with a wooden stock over in Israel. One word: heavy!

Same for an MP40 I handled one time in Sweden. Now I understand why all the German soldiers in the movies carrying them all had shoulder straps.
 
This is were opinions and experience can differ......having been teethed on the M-1 Rifle I thought both the Uzi and MP40 were light and handy. The Uzi is a bit short of 8 pounds empty and the MP40 just short of 9 pounds. Heavy is the MP (StG) 44 yes it is.

I did consider on of the Chinese Uzis when they were available, but the "thumb hole" whole hand wood stock to get around some of the early assault weapons pistol grip bans was just so dang ugly.

-kBob
 
I accummulated a few Commando Arms catalogs in the 1970s. In the 1970s a county deputy let my son shoot his Command Arms carbine carried as a trunk gun. I have seen them at gunshows in Upper East Tennessee for up to $800. One was listed in the classified ads of the newspaper last week at $400. I saw one last fall in the used rack at a gun shop priced in between. So they have been around for four decades and show up every now or then. A couple of decades Washington County Sheriffs Offices had a couple in their confiscated weapons display; drug dealers and biker gangs used them to intimadte their rivals. Most people sought them for the connection to TV shows like "Combat!" and "The Untouchables".

Some random notes accumulated over the years.

The Commando Arms "tommy gun look-alikes" are hard to research. Everything I have learned, it seems, is subject to revision. The Commando models were made by Volunteer Enterprises, later , Commando Arms, and lastly, Manchester Arms

The Spitfire Carbine was manufactured by the Spitfire Manufacturing Co., Phoenix, Arizona. The Spitfire Carbine was a .45 ACP caliber rifle which resembled a Thompson submachinegun in general outline, firing from an open bolt semi-automatic. It was originally marketed as a semi-auto plinker and it reportedly worked great and was accurate.

The Spitfire is very similar to a model called the Eagle which came first..

Spitfire was banned by ATF because it could be easily manipulated to fire full-auto by pressing up on the safety while pulling the trigger. Eventually all open-bolt semi-autos were banned by ATF as "readily convertible" to full-auto. Some however were legally registered as machineguns, apparently converted on Form 1s in the 1960s or 1970s.

The Apache carbine (Apache Arms, Tempe, Arizona) was similar to the later Volunteer Arms carbine: square receiver, closed bolt operation, and the manual included a 16 Jan 1969 letter from IRS Treasury assuring that the re-design was not a machinegun.

A Volunteer carbine copy of the Spitfire was made, followed by a Volunteer carbine similar to the later Commando Mark III. The Commando Mark III used the M3 Grease gun magazine.

Volunteer Enterprises, Knoxville, Tennessee, were the next makers of this Tommy-gun look-alike family. Their first product was stock for the M1 Carbine called the Commando Mark I. It utilised surplus Thompson buttstock wood, was cast aluminim with two pistol grips and a sheet metal handguard. Without a butt, it was marketed as the Commando Mark II.

The Apache carbine was modified for Volunteer carbine and was basicly similar to the Apache carbine made in Arizona: square, stamped sheet steel receiver and fired from a closed bolt and was not readily convertible to full-auto. The .45 carbine was called Commando Mark III.

The Mark III was a .45 ACP caliber semi-auto rifle with a 16.5 inch barrel, peep rear sight, with option of vertical frontgrip or horizontal forearm. Commando MK III used a 30-round M3 Greasegun magazine and was manufactured between 1969 to 1976.
The muzzle brake on the Commando was cosmetic only: it fit completely around the barrel: the muzzle of the barrel was even with the end of the fake muzzle brake. On the original Thompson, the muzzle brake screwed onto the end of the barrel and gas was vented up, to counteract recoil and barrel rise. The slots in the Command fake muzzle brake are over the barrel, do not vent gas and are cosmetic.

The ventilated "barrel" ribs on the Commando were part of the forestock mount, not part of the barrel as in the original Thompson; there were two lengths of ribs: one for the vertical grip and one for the horizontal forearm. The different forestocks were user attachable accessories. Mounting the vertical foregrip required the short forestock mount; mounting the horizontal forearm required the long forestock mount.

The Commando carbines were marketed to police and to civilians as perfect for self-defense.

The Commando .30 carbine stock with a detachable butt was marketed as the Mark IV. The Mark I, II and IV stocks fit only US GI spec carbines (and not the Universal .30 carbine made in Florida). The GI spec carbines made by Plainfield Machine Company were offered in the Commando stock by PMC. News photos from the 1970s occassionally showed police using the M1 crabine in the Commando stock for riot control.

Volunteer Enterprises changed its name to Commando Arms. The Mark 9 was introduced in 9mm Luger. The Mark V was developed from the Mark III in .45 using the Thompson magazine instead of the M3 grease gun magazine used by the Commando III.

A central person at Volunteer Enterprises/Commando Arms was James McCown. He worked at Spitfire in Arizona and then started Volunteer Enterprises in Knoxville TN; finally he went to Manchester Arms located in Lenoir TN. The last Commando carbine was the Commando Mark 45 by Manchester Arms. Manchester also made the Mini Commando Mk45 pistol, a cut-down version of the Mark 45 with a 5 inch barrel with a muzzle brake. I have seen no examples of the Mk45 pistol and do not know if the pistol muzzle brake was functional or just cosmetic like the previous carbine muzzle brake.

The various Commando Arms firearms are of more value as collector's items than as shooting weapons, especially since they are no longer manufactured and spare parts are getting scarce.

[See if these still work]
index.php

index.php
 
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I used to have a Commando Mark III. It wasn't a bad little gun, It functioned pretty well and was fun to shoot. It took 25 rd G.I. stick mags. It was sort of a stamped sheet metal and plastic affair with a plastic mag well but it was about 30 years old and still worked so that said something for it. The thing that bothered me the most about it was it had a plastic feed ramp/throat that was known to occasionally crack. If it cracked there was really no good fix for it and there were ZERO replacement parts available for the parts that tended to break. So, after I played around with it for a while I got rid of it while it still worked.
 
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Carl N. Brown said:
I accummulated a few Commando Arms catalogs in the 1970s. In the 1970s a county deputy let my son shoot his Command Arms carbine carried as a trunk gun. I have seen them at gunshows in Upper East Tennessee for up to $800. One was listed in the classified ads of the newspaper last week at $400. I saw one last fall in the used rack at a gun shop priced in between. So they have been around for four decades and show up every now or then. A couple of decades Washington County Sheriffs Offices had a couple in their confiscated weapons display; drug dealers and biker gangs used them to intimadte their rivals. Most people sought them for the connection to TV shows like "Combat!" and "The Untouchables".

Some random notes accumulated over the years.

The Commando Arms "tommy gun look-alikes" are hard to research. Everything I have learned, it seems, is subject to revision. The Commando models were made by Volunteer Enterprises, later , Commando Arms, and lastly, Manchester Arms

The Spitfire Carbine was manufactured by the Spitfire Manufacturing Co., Phoenix, Arizona. The Spitfire Carbine was a .45 ACP caliber rifle which resembled a Thompson submachinegun in general outline, firing from an open bolt semi-automatic. It was originally marketed as a semi-auto plinker and it reportedly worked great and was accurate.

The Spitfire is very similar to a model called the Eagle which came first..

Spitfire was banned by ATF because it could be easily manipulated to fire full-auto by pressing up on the safety while pulling the trigger. Eventually all open-bolt semi-autos were banned by ATF as "readily convertible" to full-auto. Some however were legally registered as machineguns, apparently converted on Form 1s in the 1960s or 1970s.

The Apache carbine (Apache Arms, Tempe, Arizona) was similar to the later Volunteer Arms carbine: square receiver, closed bolt operation, and the manual included a 16 Jan 1969 letter from IRS Treasury assuring that the re-design was not a machinegun.

A Volunteer carbine copy of the Spitfire was made, followed by a Volunteer carbine similar to the later Commando Mark III. The Commando Mark III used the M3 Grease gun magazine.

Volunteer Enterprises, Knoxville, Tennessee, were the next makers of this Tommy-gun look-alike family. Their first product was stock for the M1 Carbine called the Commando Mark I. It utilised surplus Thompson buttstock wood, was cast aluminim with two pistol grips and a sheet metal handguard. Without a butt, it was marketed as the Commando Mark II.

The Apache carbine was modified for Volunteer carbine and was basicly similar to the Apache carbine made in Arizona: square, stamped sheet steel receiver and fired from a closed bolt and was not readily convertible to full-auto. The .45 carbine was called Commando Mark III.

The Mark III was a .45 ACP caliber semi-auto rifle with a 16.5 inch barrel, peep rear sight, with option of vertical frontgrip or horizontal forearm. Commando MK III used a 30-round M3 Greasegun magazine and was manufactured between 1969 to 1976.
The muzzle brake on the Commando was cosmetic only: it fit completely around the barrel: the muzzle of the barrel was even with the end of the fake muzzle brake. On the original Thompson, the muzzle brake screwed onto the end of the barrel and gas was vented up, to counteract recoil and barrel rise. The slots in the Command fake muzzle brake are over the barrel, do not vent gas and are cosmetic.

The ventilated "barrel" ribs on the Commando were part of the forestock mount, not part of the barrel as in the original Thompson; there were two lengths of ribs: one for the vertical grip and one for the horizontal forearm. The different forestocks were user attachable accessories. Mounting the vertical foregrip required the short forestock mount; mounting the horizontal forearm required the long forestock mount.

The Commando carbines were marketed to police and to civilians as perfect for self-defense.

The Commando .30 carbine stock with a detachable butt was marketed as the Mark IV. The Mark I, II and IV stocks fit only US GI spec carbines (and not the Universal .30 carbine made in Florida). The GI spec carbines made by Plainfield Machine Company were offered in the Commando stock by PMC. News photos from the 1970s occassionally showed police using the M1 crabine in the Commando stock for riot control.

Volunteer Enterprises changed its name to Commando Arms. The Mark 9 was introduced in 9mm Luger. The Mark V was developed from the Mark III in .45 using the Thompson magazine instead of the M3 grease gun magazine used by the Commando III.

A central person at Volunteer Enterprises/Commando Arms was James McCown. He worked at Spitfire in Arizona and then started Volunteer Enterprises in Knoxville TN; finally he went to Manchester Arms located in Lenoir TN. The last Commando carbine was the Commando Mark 45 by Manchester Arms. Manchester also made the Mini Commando Mk45 pistol, a cut-down version of the Mark 45 with a 5 inch barrel with a muzzle brake. I have seen no examples of the Mk45 pistol and do not know if the pistol muzzle brake was functional or just cosmetic like the previous carbine muzzle brake.

The various Commando Arms firearms are of more value as collector's items than as shooting weapons, especially since they are no longer manufactured and spare parts are getting scarce.

[See if these still work]
Click to expand...


You might be interested in this: https://www.gunbroker.com/item/741216100
 
Carl,

Thanks for a detailed historical response. Answered the magazine questions well. As a kid I saw the stocks as well as Dads Police Auxilery out fit used Carbines and one guy had to "Upgrade" his. I thought it made it heavier and harder to shoot, but I suppose it was intimidating to the uneducated.

Everybody.

Thanks for your responses.

Walnut,

The link did not work for me, but if it was that Commando in Deland with a $150 starting price I already found it and was thinking about it. Almost went to Deland for a gunshow and to show daughter around the college last weekend, but her AP history teacher dumped a load of homework on her.

-kBob
 
kBob

My brother and I went in on a semi-auto Sterling Mk.VI quite a few years ago. Very well made and lots of fun to shoot. Extremely reliable with not only Sterling magazines but with STEN magazines as well (definitely helps to have a mag loader too). Definitely quick and easy to go through 100 rounds of WWB at the range!
 
Numrich has some parts under "Volunteer"
Click to expand...

Yeah, depending on the model, they have a few parts like some grips, triggers and but plates (I just looked again). They also have some pins, springs and screws that you could also probably source generically at Brownell's. Unfortunately, few to none of the unique or critical parts that are typically prone to breakage or wear like extractors, firing pins, the plastic mag well, hammers etc. are available and they probably never will be. The gun is nearing practical obsolescence as far as the availability of spare parts and repairs is concerned. I used to do gun repair for a local shop. When we got one of these in for repair we usually couldn't fix it because the parts required were not available and the cost to make them was impractical relative to the value of the gun. So, unless the owner found a parts gun the rifle became a wall hanger.
 
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