15 Aug 2022 M14 Picture of the Day

[Mark in Rochester]

Information

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[Ovidio]

Is he aiming with the left eye?
I can’t see any front post…

[browningautorifle]

No he's going to have to do Kentucky windage with no front iron, he's just looking along the barrel. The PVS wouldn't be very effective by day.

[rcathey]

I’d like to read more about that suppressor.
Can anyone point me on the right direction?

[Bob Seijas]

Sionics, part of Quantum Ordnance Bankers... boy, have I got a story on that!

[browningautorifle]

boy, have I got a story on that

And we'd love to hear it...

[Bob Seijas]

In the early 70's I was nuts to have a silencer. A book was published showing Special Forces in Viet Nam using M16's with silencers, and I was wild to have one. At that time, I knew a guy on the NYSE, Jack Pershing who was the grandson of General Blackjack Pershing and an SF guy in Nam. I brought the book in and asked him if he ever used one of these in VN, hoping to get a lead on one that was smuggled back home.

"Yes," he said, "we used them all the time in night operations. In fact," he added, "I'm a part owner of Sionics, the company that makes them. I think you know the guy who runs the company... remember George Whipple, the former Chrysler specialist? He left the stock exchange to devote full time to the company."

GEORGE WHIPPLE? George was among the super-rich, had the finest P-51 Mustang in the country and the G5 of the day, a Beech Queen Air. His wife was even richer, their family lawyer was John Foster Dulles. "They are trying to raise some money right now, are you interested?"

Am I interested? You bet I am! Maybe I was about to get a long-coveted silencer after all!

Jack came back and said, "How about tomorrow afternoon at 4:00? Their offices are here in Manhattan." "Done!" I said.

They needed $300,000 and although they didn't expect it all from me, they would take anything I wanted to put in. As nuts as I was in those days, I wasn't completely insane... I knew that I would take one look at all that stuff and my checkbook would be out, so I called Buddy, my best friend and the smartest hedge fund guy I knew. I asked him to come along and look at the numbers, because I knew he was the best at that and he couldn't be swayed a millimeter by emotion.

So up we go to an office on Madison Avenue, to a suite of mahogany panelling and a cryptic logo that only says "Q.O.B". That stands for "Quantum Ordnance Bankers," the holding company for Sionics, Ingrham, and several other far out gun companies. George Whipple comes out to the super-elegant reception area and escorts us to his inner sanctum, chatting gaily about people from the Floor that we both know.

When we get into his office, he begins to show us some of the stuff they are making, waaaay out weapons: a briefcase that conceals a small machine pistol that shoots through a camouflaged hole in the side when you press one of the catches a certain way, a Hav-A-Tampa aluminum cigar tube that shoots one silent round when you squeeze the "A", the MAC-10, a small machine gun not much bigger than a pistol, and of course, the silencers. I am absolutely up a tree.

Buddy and the CFO go into another room to look at the numbers. George opens a desk drawer and pulls out a .22 pistol. He says, "Now here's what this sounds like without a suppressor (the "in" term). BAAAM! He fires the damn thing into his wastebasket, which I belatedly notice is filled with sand. In the enclosed office, the blast is deafening!
"Now here's what it sounds like with our product." He screws on this long snuffer and aims at the wastebasket again. "Phut" it goes, and all you hear is the bullet hit the sand with a subdued thump. I guarantee his secretary outside the door didn't hear it.

"Now...." he says with a smile as he pulls out the little machine gun, "Here's our .380 MAC-9 with Sionics suppressor. Of course we can't shoot this in here without the suppressor, but you'll get the idea." With that, he aims at the wastebasket and cuts loose. 1200 rounds a minute in one long cough, the 30-round magazine is empty in 1.5 seconds, and all you hear are the clacking of the gun's bolt going back and forth and the long drawn out thump of 30 bullets hitting the sand. Good Lord!

"You want to try it?" he asks. I stand on his chair, slap in another magazine, and rip 10 or 15 into the sand before I can let up on the trigger. One goes through an inch of sand, the side of the wastebasket, and buries itself into the floor. I am ready to mortgage the house.

Shortly, Buddy comes back with the CFO, George and I shake hands, and I say I will check out the numbers and call him in the morning. As the elevator doors close, I look eagerly at Buddy... Well? WELL??

"Not on your life," he says.

"No?? Aw damn, WHY??"

"They don't need $300,000." he says, "They need $3,000,000. Either they don't know that, in which case you don't want any part of them, or they do know that and they're not telling you, in which case you don't want any part of them. No way." Are you sure? I'm sure. OK, that's that.

The next day I call George and tell him it doesn't fit for me. I offer to put in a token just to be part of the gang, but George is very gracious, says they have no problem getting the money, and that he enjoyed showing me the stuff. We promise to keep in touch.

Not much happens for about a year, except John Wayne uses one of their MAC-10's in the movie "McQ" (Hollywood decides it's too quiet to be believable, they jam a poker down the tube to open it up enough to at least make SOME noise). Israel orders 200 for its special ops guys, Argentina orders 100 for the palace guard, Pershing demonstrates it for a dozen countries that are interested. George sells his planes to raise more capital, then his stock exchange seat. When he wants to start on his wife's money she demurs, they split. 18 months later the company goes belly up, all the property is auctioned off to pay down debt.

Epilog: About 10 years after all this, three Floor guys come out of a hockey game at Madison Square Garden and hail a limo for some bar hopping. George Whipple is driving it.

[browningautorifle]

"Not on your life," he says.

And your face fell... I know the feeling and a couple times have just got away with my own shirt.

[Mark in Rochester]

I’d like to read more about that suppressor.
Can anyone point me on the right direction?

This will get you started


Sionics M14SS-1 SUPPRESSOR | M14 Forum

[Bob Seijas]

Jack told me they couldn't silence the rifles because they had no sub-sonic ammo, but the suppressor quieted the sound of the rifle blast so you couldn't tell where it came from. It also totally eliminated muzzle flash so was especially useful at night.

FWIW, QOB acquired the rights to the Ingrham machine pistol and made three versions: the MAC-9 in .380, the MAC-10 in 9mm, and the MAC-11 in .45 They tried to sell them to police departments by going to a local PD and asking for the guy who could almost never qualify... then they put a 50gal drum of water in the field at about 40 yards, handed him a MAC-10 and said, "Shoot the drum." BRRRRRP and the drum was squirting from 5 to 10 holes. Everybody was impressed but they never bought any.