Hurridale

Before you go, did you ever get your drums from Sportsman's? Just curious..

I've learned to stay away from oven cleaner, too. Again, mixed results and I've had some wood crack using it. Something that's worked for me is to scrub it off as best you can using detergent, rinse, then run it thru the dishwasher with regular dishwashing detergent (just don't use any heated drying.). Let it dry for few hours, sand down the raised grain, then oil it. Steel wool (0000) between oil coats, finishing off with buffing with some old nylons. Does a great job of stripping down to the wood and raising the grain -- in fact, TOO nice of raising grains if you want to preserve cartouches. I got the idea after seeing what the dishwasher did to my wooden handled knives.

Dan, Add my best wishes to the list, along with gratitude that no one was hurt. Having a set of your excellent woodwork on the Colt in my safe makes this fire more personal to me. The outstanding work and service you provided during our deal made me really feel this misfortune. This is not just a personal loss to you, Dan, but it should be regarded as a loss for the Thompson community. You do first-rate work and are a valuable resource to keeping these fine old pieces in an honorable condition. It's good to read that it sounds like you'll be back on your feet soon. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and you can get that new shop up and running soon. In the meantime, a word for those who may have had their replacement wood delayed by the fire: Hang in there -- the wait WILL be worth it! Regards, and wishes for the best of holidays, DC

Is yours newly manufactured, or an old one? Interesting site for those with inquiries and lust for pictures: http://www.gardnerguns.com/Products.htm

Ken, Best of luck today -- 'been thru too many funerals myself, and every one is hard. The good news is that, unlike Life, the memories he shared with you will not pass. Regards and best wishes, DC

I won't ship UPS or FedEx for the reason Grey Crow mentioned: they just dropped off the packages on my DOORSTEP and left, even though they had been marked "Adult Signature Required"! Nothing like coming home to a Colt Thompson on the step (and the Bren, a couple Lugers, and probably a half-dozen rifles). Yup, it's happened that often, despite calls and letters to stop. (All my calls did was to make me very unpopular with my local delivery driver). USPS REGISTERED is the way to go, IMHO. As mentioned above: USE PAPER TAPE. That's not some silly government reg: they stamp every seam of tape with an anti-tampering seal. The ink for the stamp is compromised with plastic tape. I believe (could be wrong) that registered service includes insurance up to $25k. The package is under lock and key the whole way. Each package is signed for at every transfer. It is my understanding that in the history of registered service, there has NEVER been a missing package. USPS does not ship handguns between private individuals, but that's not what this thread is about. I'm also curious if anyone in this thread has seen published firearms policies at any of the shippers that say ANYTHING about full-auto. I never have. Handguns, yes, but it seems they consider just two types of firearms: handguns and the rest. Tell the counter person it's an "unloaded collector firearm, disassembled to prevent function" (or whatever adjective you want, unrelated to rate of fire), "not a handgun." The counter is not the place to brag about shipping a machine gun! Sure, it would be great if those counter people knew all the regs backwards and forwards, but they don't (this is more true of UPS, FedEx, etc than for USPS, who has longer-term employees. Shoot, a lot of people at UPS are hired just for the holidays!). They will take the easy route and just say they can't ship it. Imagine a counter person refuses to accept your machine gun, you complain, and that person gets called onto the carpet with their supervisor. What do you think the super will say? I imagine more likely than not that the counter person will be informed of the regs, then told that they did the right thing. These guys are after the easy buck, not bound to provide service to a VERY SMALL number of people who ship machine guns. It's easy to avoid the hassle of "liability" by just refusing service. If I sell a gun, I leave it to the buyer what they'll pay for. My choice? USPS registered.

??? So if they are NOT "excepting orders", does that mean that they ARE ACcepting them? No wonder their drums don't work! I can hear them now: "Isn't '0.050" ' a half inch?"!

Walter, Bush attacked IRAQ for something SAUDIS committed while living in AFGHANISTAN, then said that SADDAM had NOTHING to do with 9/11. You're right -- we know how Bush responds to terrorist attacks on this country! When you heard the news on 9/11, did it take YOU seven minutes to GET OFF YOUR ASS to respond? C'mon, WAKE UP!! BTW, they BOTH have the EXACT SAME POSITION on the AWB: Bush has said over and over he will sign a renewal into law. Make no mistake, Brother: whoever wins this election, the AWB will be back. Buy 'em now! As for what Kerry would have done, the irrefutible fact is Kerry went to 'Nam, Clinton and Bush didn't. At least Clinton didn't go AWOL!

George W. would have been at D-Day, but the Guard unit wasn't called up, and he was AWOL anyway ( think he was out on a re-election campaign, or on another vacation). At least Hitler really DID have WMDs!

Chris, Do you chat often with the owner of all those Tommies in the picture? Please let him (her?) know that I am interested in doing some trading. I don't have many guns I'm willing to part with, but do have a spare kidney. DC

JTinIN, I crewed tanks in the mid -70s and agree with TSMGuy that the M3 was considered junk. We had both M3's and M3A1's. A Sten has more class (though not more clout). Having carried one in the military, I have no idea why they command such high prices in the collector market. Sure, they're semi-rare, but so are my old toothbrushes, and nobody's offering $15k for those. We used to adjust the rate of fire by how much LSA we put in them. I used to carry two bottles in my ammo pouch (we were issued M16 ammo pouches for our M3's and 1911's. Go figure...). We fired them only for familiarity. I think the requirement was annually. We'd pour in the LSA, and let 'er rip. Normal rate of fire was around 400 rpm, and the oily guns seemed to go more like 600 (I wanted to say 700, but decided to be conservative). Smoke would just be rolling off them (the oily ones), and we made no friends out of the next shooter on our right, whose back would get sprayed with LSA. Messy, but fun. And we didn't even have to buy ammo! Yes, they're reliable and cheap, and made good sense at the time (WWII). But collecting isn't about making sense (I guess that answers why they're so expensive!). Compared to a Thompson, including an M1, the M3 is almost Soviet in design: crude, cheap, not much to look at, but did an OK job for what we were willing to spend on them. Those aren't the qualities I look for in a collectible firearm. Those are more like the qualities I'd look for in a date. http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/wink.gif My $.02 would be Thompson first choice, MP40, then do some bargaining to see how much he'll pay YOU to take that M3 off his hands. One of my tank commanders used a grease gun in Vietnam and really liked it. He used it to shoot at something other than paper (which is all we did -- kind of like the Texas Air National Guard at the same time). He'd know better than I how good a weapon they were in combat. Sorry if I've offended anyone who owns grease guns; it ain't about owners, but about the official replacement for the Thompson. Yeah, it replaced the Tommy in the TO&E, but not the heart. (Put both on a table at a gun show and see where the crowd goes first...)

That was quick. Either somebody bought it, or Buddy zapped it. Fortunately, I got a copy: Original Thompson SMG metal spare parts box in excellent condition. This is the rarest of all Thompson acessories. $4,500 Ph. 1 (928) 565-4575 I believe the name was Don Hall, but am unsure.

http://www.sturmgewehr.com/webBBS/nfa4sale....cgi?read=48211 Not even a picture! http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/sad.gif

Oops. Who's flip-flopping now? http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...erry_vietnam_dc How about we move this to the appropriate forum?

PhilOhio, With all due respect, try re-reading my post with a more open mind. It just pointed out that a more appropriate board exists under the ThompsonSMG/General Info heading for "AOW - Politcal - Laws - Rants - Jokes - Whatever!". You sound like one of my students who wanted to wear a "F*** George Bush" T-shirt to school, and I wouldn't let him (I'll use the *'s because you seem so sensitive to being explicit). The kid claimed I was censoring his First Amendment rights. I pointed out that the school has guidelines for appropriate dress and behavior, and he was violating them. I told him he could wear it all he wanted, just not in that forum. Because he still COULD wear it, just not in school, his rights weren't censored. As for your comment "It's about being reasonable and tolerant...and not intentionally provocative," me'thinks you should try re-reading your OWN posts, and see how "reasonable and tolerant" they are! I'm reminded of Matthew 7:3, "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" Can we get back to Thompson's now? Yes, I'm now guilty of what I was hoping to avoid. I only responded in this forum because you directed your comments to me by name in your post in this thread, and are entitled to a reply. I've written all I'm going to on this. Time for some self-policing. My apologies to those who were hoping for a Thompson post.