Show us your Guns!

carebear · Mar 26, 2010

The beauty of the .45 ACP is it is a low pressure round that maximizes its case capacity. You have to work to overfill the case (with a too fast powder) to the point the chamber will fail.

Working in a range for several years I've seen bulged barrels from shooting into hand-load squibs but never a catastrophic failure.

One of the lesser reasons I'm consolidating my "arsenal" of handguns down to the .45's.

Diamondback · Mar 26, 2010

Almost all of the Old School 1911's ('50s-'60s and prior) are forgings; castings and MIM didn't come along until later. A forged frame, carried much and shot little might take that kind of abuse for a while...

When I do my scratchbuilt 1911's, I'm planning to machine them out of solid slabs of steel. (Better would be carving a hunk of titanium out of a Russkie Alfa-class sub's hull and using that...)

LocktownDog · Mar 26, 2010

matrioshka said:
LocktownDog,

I think you'll find those soldiers in the photo are Danish. The rifle on the bottom right, the one lying on the ground, is a M1889 Danish Krag. If you look real close, you can see the loading gate on the left side of the reciever in front of the bolt handle.

M

I see I was misinformed. Thanks for the correction.

Story · Mar 26, 2010

John in Covina said:
*********
I do know that many guns can be overstressed and treated poorly to cause failure. I just thought that the gangsters had actual gunsmiths as amourers that did some rather interesting work. I don't know a lot about the Colt manufacturing back then but I think that if the 1911 was use in full auto as a survival weapon and not in constant use /abuse I don't think it would be a real failure threat. Were the 1911's forged,back then. Forging in supposed to be the hardier tougher frame and slide. As an aside i do recall reading that that some of the "name" gunsmiths would not work on the Auto Ord 1911 as they are cast but not forged and that affected their ability to do precision work some what.

Ignoring the internet experts whose sole experience is regurgitating what they've read online, there's nothing wrong with decently-cast 1911 frames (like those made by Essex).

The biggest complaints about machine pistols (which is what the fully-automatic converted 1911s are, technically) is that their good for short ranged spraying only. When you're an outlaw, that's not a big deal. *

Note that most machine pistols (see
http://world.guns.ru/handguns/hg137-e.htm) have detachable buttstocks.

In the days when a 1911 could be had for $13 and a Thompson (or Bergman or 712 Mauser Broomhandle) was $250 or more and not easy to procure, gangsters were going to go with the next best thing.

The gangsters were converting 1911A1s in .38 Super - why? Because they tore up auto bodies, engine blocks and period body armor.
http://www.sightm1911.com/lib/history/hamer_guns.htm

Furthermore, look at the actual weapons - they're not hack jobs.
This is the generally accepted '20 round magazine' Dillinger 1911A1
http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Dillinger-38-Super.jpg
This is also supposed to be 'his', albeit in .45ACP. [huh]
http://www.vincelewis.net/myimages57/38super-dillinger.jpg

Check the button out, at the upper rear of the right handgrip.

[/img]

Elsewhere on the interwebz, someone pulled the relevant comments about Dillinger's Super 38 machine pistol from articles in Man At Arms For The Gun Collector. From "The Pre-WWII Colt Super .38 Automatic", Volume 31 No.3:

The "Roaring Twenties" were partially symbolised by the Thompson submachine gun and the Colt automatic pistols, which were being used by mobsters from Chicago to New York. Recognizing the need for greater firepower, police departments in Burlington, Vermont, St Louis, Missouri and Escanaba, Michigan, started buying Colt Super 38 pistols. The ability to penetrate car bodies and bulletproof vests became important and did not go unnoticed by the infamous gangsters of the 1930s - John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Homer Van Meter, and many others. Dillinger and Nelson had saddle maker and gunsmith Harold Lebman of San Antonio convert Colt pistols into fully automatic submachine guns complete with extended magazines and Thompson foregrips.

Colt's engineering department submitted similar design prototypes, in both .38 Super and .45ACP calibers, to the US Government for consideration as military weapons.

So apparently Baby Face Nelson had his own machine pistol, not just Dillinger. Also, the magazine has a picture of one of the Colt-made machine pistols. It has a detachable stock similar to the style used on the Artillery Luger, a fairly straight wooden foregrip and a simple compensator, and a very long magazine. Most interestingly, it has a change lever on the right hand rear of the slide.

Volume 31 No.4, letter to the editor:

This letter concerns your article in Vol. 31 No.3, 3009, pages 34-43...espescially the paragraph in the center of page 35. (The text in question noted that gangsters "Baby Face" Nelson and John Dillinger had gunsmith Harold Lebman convert their Colt Super 38 pistols into fully automatic submachine guns complete with extended magazines and Thompson foregrips - Editor)

My father was Hyman S. Lebman (his name was not Harold, as quoted in the article), and I worked with him from the time I was 10 years old (1937) until he developped Alzheimers in 1976. He passed away in 1990. He told me many stories about the customers who he later found out were John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson. He thought they were charming, wealthy, oil men who were interested in guns, and even invited them to his house for his wife to make them dinner when I was about 3 or 4.

Our shop had a firing range in the basement, and when he was experimenting with a model 1911 on full automatic, the 3rd or 4th round went off directly over head, through the floor, and I was visiting above at the time. It scared him so much tha he invented and installed a compensator on the muzzle to control the recoil. At one time much later, when I was visiting Washington, DC, I made an appointment with the FBI, and they were happy to bring out their collection of my dad's guns for me to see.

Sincerely, Marvin Lebman

* There's actually an e-book on the topic -
http://www.hlebooks.com/ebook/col5load.htm

Early developments of "Machinepistols"

- In the confines of the WW I trenches
- Luger pistol with the 32-round drum magazine
- Machine fire carbine version of the Mauser C96 pistol
- Schmeisser's design known as the "Maschinen Pistole 18"
- Spanish selective fire copies of the Mauser C96
- Bestegui Hermanos (Royal) & Unceta & Cie (ASTRA)
- Mauser C96 with a selective fire capability

Early Browning type pistols with selective fire

- Himan S. Lebman's prototypes
- John Dillinger and Baby face Nelson
- Star or Llama selective fire Browning designs
- Star Model D
- Llama Model "Plus Ultra"
- French UNION Model "Rafaleur"

carebear · Mar 26, 2010

Just one point.

Most of the Thompsons and BAR's used by organized crime were in fact stolen in bulk from poorly secured and often isolated police and National Guard armories.

The Thompson and Monitor just weren't stocked in enough quantity (due to their cost) to make onesie-twosie stealing or purchase from the odd gun shop cost effective.

John in Covina · Mar 26, 2010

I recall reading about such armory raids but also thought if they robbed banks and had plenty of dough now and again they might actually spend some of that money. Maybe even on guns? Buying a gun in a lot of places wasn't very complicated from what I understand. You might have to fill out a form, or just the info for a bill of sale. There was no picture ID except for a passport maybe.

I always figure the joy of money is first in the having but mostly in the spending.

Stearmen · Mar 27, 2010

Hardware Stores

Al Capone had his Tommy Guns for his boys bought from a hardware store in Denver! Totally legal in those days, no paper work, just hard cash, which was in abundance. Clyde stole his BARs from armories, then sawed them off him self, they seemed to work just fine! Of course, most law enforcement back then had to by their own fire arms, so they were hopelessly out gunned. A lot of the Gangsters were ex service men, and new a thing or two about fire arms. On a side note, Machine Gun Kelly got his Tommy Gun when his wife bought it for him at a hardware store, rumor has it, that he could hardly shoot the thing straight, but the press loves a good nick name!

Levallois · Mar 27, 2010

I wish we knew more about Hyman Lebman, the gunsmith. He was also a well known leather craftsman but it was his stint as a firearms inventor and modifier that I'd like to know more about. Between his full auto pistols, full auto heavily modified Winchester Model 1907 rifles, and Thompson SMG work, there so much of interest to the 1930s firearms historians among us. I know that there have been recent attempts to interview his son, Marvin Lebman, but he's in poor health and has been unwilling to talk since his wife died about a year ago.

Here is what a Lebman-modified 1907 rifle looked like with a compensator on the muzzle and a painted metal forearm with a Thompson vertical grip and 10-round factory magazines. This is a semi-auto replica - the real ones are owned by the Tucson Arizona Police Department and the FBI.

carebear · Mar 27, 2010

John and Stearman,

Thanks for that info. I'll have to revisit my sources, they all emphasized the raids due to the volumes involved and the Thompson/Monitor not being a stocked item in most stores.

PKM101 · Mar 28, 2010

Many years ago I was lucky enough to get to shoot one of the Dillinger Thompsons captured in Tucson. I was at the armory helping the armorer at that time with an issue. I was given a tour of the walk in vault and I commented about a Thompson in the rack. He told it was one of two they had from the capture, one was on display down at the main PD office at that time and I had recalled seeing it.

Wasting no time, I found some .45, loaded her up and gave it a spin or three....

I mean.....what else was I supposed to do....

John in Covina · Mar 28, 2010

carebear said:
John and Stearman,
Thanks for that info. I'll have to revisit my sources, they all emphasized the raids due to the volumes involved and the Thompson/Monitor not being a stocked item in most stores.

Thinking about it, that makes sense as you said, if they wanted "quantities" they'd go raiding. Thompsons were expensive guns, expensive to manufacture so I do doubt many places stocked but one or two at a time. And it wasn't really considered the choice household firearm, but more a police item. So while we hear about how you could buy them at the local hardware store, in truth who actually stocked them for sale. Also think I did hear the National Guard type armories were poorly guarded in a lot of places so a raid might have been easier.

John in Covina · Mar 28, 2010

Capone may have had the store contacted and pre-ordered what they needed from Denver.

Stearmen · Mar 28, 2010

Hardware

John in Covina said:
Capone may have had the store contacted and pre-ordered what they needed from Denver.

I should have added that part, just forgot! Thompson did try to market them through hardware stores with a small bit of successes. This is my favorite add from them, like any cattle rancher really needed a Thompson! Incidently, just try to use a Tommy gun as a Chicago Type Writer! You might mange an I.

John in Covina · Mar 28, 2010

Ralphie with Thompson: Alright Black Bart, now you're gonna get yours!

Lear · Mar 28, 2010

I don't have a gun, in fact I've never handled a gun; living in the UK where guns are illegal. I posted this pic on Style Forum. Here it is again:

Lear (the ugly one)

carebear · Mar 29, 2010

Guns aren't illegal in Britain, just (very) heavily regulated. I know a doctor over there who's a trap champion.

Definitely harder to get a bunch of friends together to make an intentionally humorous and self-mocking picture though.

Diamondback · Mar 29, 2010

One of my all-time favorite Gratuitous Gun Pix. I wish I had neighbors like that...

PKM101 · Mar 29, 2010

Here I am providing instruction to some of our finest...

They would not let me take this one home... [huh]

I had to sight all these in that day....long hot day...

Tuning the subcals...

A couple not often seen...

Oldies from the east...

John in Covina · Mar 29, 2010

Japanese Nambu's?

Diamondback · Mar 29, 2010

And Walther P38's, I'm guessing. Some kids get all the fun toys...

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