I have seen the USMC stamp on the three cell 30 round magazine pouch, were the 50 round drum pouches also marked USMC ?Attachment 56231Attachment 56232Attachment 56233
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I have seen the USMC stamp on the three cell 30 round magazine pouch, were the 50 round drum pouches also marked USMC ?Attachment 56231Attachment 56232Attachment 56233
I've never seen a marked 50 round cover for an M1 Thompson mag. The 50 round of the 20's and 30's gangsters mags didn't work on the basic M1A1 in WWII.
Harlan, this is the 50 rd pouch I was talking about, issued during WW 2 for the MODEL 1928a1. Were any of these pouches marked USMC Attachment 56283Attachment 56282
Hi RCS. I have never even seen those pouches. The military accepted full scale production of the simplified M1A1 in 1942. It used the same 30 round mag as the earlier Thompson but it didn't accept the earlier 50 round drum mags.
PS - I have a demilled M1A1 and I cannot believe how heavy they are. Mine has an empty straight mag... A full 50 mag would be incredible.
I had active guns, both 1928 and M1...yes Harlan, the 28 with a full drum is heavier. About 12lbs I think. But on the bright side, it gets lighter while you shoot. So, you shoot more...
Jim and Harlan, imagine the weight of this loaded 100 round drum on your Model 1921 ?
While not really a military item, it was used by the USMC to guard the trains during the 1920's, plus the IRA and South American usage.
This example may have some history from use during 1933. If there is any interest - I will find more photos ?Attachment 56305Attachment 56306
R.M.Co made a U.S.M.C. marked L-drum pouch in 1942 . Very rare and the only maker / year I know of .Quote:
Originally Posted by RCS
HTH , Chris
Oh , and a note to what has been said above.
There are l-drum Mills pouches dated 1918 , several years before Thompsons were even around . Prob'ly made for Lewis or some such.
'21 and '28 Thompsons used 50 and 100 round drums and 20 rd sticks . There were no 30 rd sticks.
When the M1 came out , they deleated the grooves for the drums , but designed the 30 rd stick to make up for it.
They continued to issue orders for 20 rd sticks right up till the 30s started arriving . The 20s were produced for about another 6 months just to be sure there was no problems with the 30s as they didn't want to be caught short of mags.
Contrary to popular belief , '28s did not magicly go away when the M1/M1A1s arrived . Both served side by side till the end and beyond. Photo evidence shows the 50rd drum continued to be used in great numbers right up till the end , too .
Chris
I think the weight was 17 lbs fully loaded. Or was it 15...? That means it could deliver 3.25 odd pounds of lead on target in about 3 seconds...yes, all three were still in service really. The 21's and 28's and some M1's in the Commonwealth and I should think the same for US. The Marines had '21's to start. Ex Postal service guns that had been re-routed. They wouldn't have just gashbinned them because of time???Quote:
Originally Posted by RCS
Reference the "L-drum pouch" mentioned in Post #7:
Russel Mfg. Co. (usually marked R.M. Co.), Middletown, Conn., manufactured "Cases Magazine" on USMC contract NOM35953 Jun 1942 - Oct 1942 paid $124,000.
Harian Stitching Co. (usually marked HARIAN or H.S. Co.), Haverhill, Mass., manufactured "Cases Magazine" on Army contract W431QM10634 Oct 1942 - Jan 1943 paid $88,000.
So...are these drum pouches marked USMC?
If that question was directed to me, I don't know. The Marine Corps generally had the contractor print U.S.M.C. on their equipment, and if collectors are reporting examples of this item that they believe are genuine marked U.S.M.C. then they must have been. The Army contract items would not be marked U.S.M.C. and if marked would have been marked U.S. I'm not certain what a "Case, Magazine" is. I have enough trouble resolving examples of field mess equipment against contract information and I'm not into the Thompson SMG and accessories.
I provide the contract information to assist collectors to decide whether a piece of equipment they have is genuine, and properly marked. For example if you have a Case, Magazine that was manufactured by Harian Stitching and it's marked U.S.M.C. more than likely someone marked it to enhance the sale price. Unfortunately neither the specification number or pictures are provided with the raw contract information, so it takes some investigation to determine what item was manufactured. Another confusing factor in this is what I call "collectoreze" that is the accepted collector nomenclature, that has nothing to do with the military nomenclature for an item. I think collectors prefer to ignore the military nomenclature for equipment, but if they had ever been in the military and tried to order something without the correct nomenclature they would have soon learn what a TOE, an equipment catalog, stock number, and nomenclature was for.
To add to the confusion of collecting apparently equipment was manufactured for Lend-Lease that was not marked, and is now being brought onto the collectors market. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if some of these examples were being marked U.S.M.C. to enhance the sale price. It's a dealer's advantage over the uninformed and unwary. U.S. Militaria Forum is overstocked with people that will buy anything that even remotely resembles something military and then post a picture hoping that they "found" something collectible, and haven't got a clue that acquiring reference books and looking at a lot of equipment and photographs is helpful in identifying equipment.
Yes, I had been asking you...what I'm thinking from way out here and much after the fact is that the USMC would mark it's equipment it's self. That would explain the lack of it showing up as new in surplus...
Here are some official images that may be of benefit to this discussion, and some other images are included for general interest, that I forgot I have until this discussion. These images scanned from an ordnance department binder, Record Group 111, located at the National Archives. The two images not from the binder were in Record Group 156 (Chief of Ordnance) files at the National Archives.
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Here's a link . See near the end thereof.
Thompson Canvas Items - Thompson Submachine Gun Message Board - MachineGunBoards.com Forums
Chris