Doug Richardson

posted by mkw Here is the latest thinking on the Bolt Project. When I get back to California, we should be ready to make them. I have partnered with the best machinist (including CNC) that I have ever known to make special Thompson bolts. I consider all of the bolts being made to be of "improved" design. The special features common to all the bolts include: 1) Elimination of the second sear notch at the front end of the bolt body which is useless and creates confusion and sometimes masks a problem with the gun. 2) Inclusion of the sear clearance slot which enables the safety to operate in the "closed-bolt" position. 3) The firing pin is fixed and formed on the bolt face like on M1A1 guns. 4) The rocker slot design is simplified to facilitate manufacture. 5) Bolts are made of heat treated (hardened) 4140 alloy steel. 6) Blued finish. 7) Front corner and shank fillet radii are sized to better fit all receivers. 8) Bolts are finish machined in the hardened state fo eliminate any distortion that might be created by the heat treating process. 9) Bolts are stress relieved after heat treating. 10) All models are available in both .45 ACP and 9mm Luger calibers. 11) Prices are for bolts only. No other parts unless stated. The following models will be offered: 2B: This is the improved version of the 1921-1928A1 bolts. $ MB: This is the improved version of the M1A1 bolt. $ M2: This is the same as MB except that it has provisions for a top mounted handle and will not accept a side handle. $. Add $ for a checkered 1928-style bolt handle installed. BM: This is the same as MB but sized to fit the Bower (Philadelphia Ordnance) Type M blank firing gun. $. B2: This is the same as M2 but sized to fit the Bower (Philadelphia Ordnance) Type 2 blank firing gun. It has provisions for a top mounted handle and will not accept a side handle. $. Add $ for a checkered 1928-style bolt handle installed. 2S: This is a semi-auto bolt for the Type 2 Richardson Semi-Auto Gun. it has provisions for a top mounted handle and will not accept a side handle. Complete with checkered 1928-style bolt handle installed. $. MS: This is a semi-auto bolt for the Type M Richardson Semi-Auto Gun. $. 2M: This is the same as M2 except that the pilot hole is in the 1921 position. It has provisions for a top mounted handle and will not accept a side handle. $. Add $ for a checkered 1928-style bolt handle installed. I do not know what I will do with 9mm bolts. But if we can push the boundries ahead without much effort - go for it. I know how to make a "quick and dirty" 9mm magazine for the Thompson but I am not making any 9mm barrels. Years ago, the late Jim Bannan told me that right after WW2 he had seen a whole bunch of new surplus 9mm Thompson barrels in a war surplus store. I have no documentation as to where they might have come from or why they were made. Since they never surfaced again, I assume they were used as 9mm blanks. It was amazing what uses people found for war surplus stuff back then. Camera stores were advertising 1928 Savage vertical foregrips as camera handles. I always regarded Jim as a credible source so I believe the 9mm barrels did exist.

posted by mkw RICHARDSON RECEIVER MODELS I am not yet accepting paid orders for receivers. What I am trying to do is to determine what Type M receiver models to make at first. I am only focusing on the Type M models while trying to restart production. Type 2 models will come later. I have been trying to perfect the over 1200 lines of code, Master Primary Program. Without changing the default settings in the master program, it makes Model MB receivers. I have used up half my Type M steel supply making the MB receivers. Right now I am at my Belize home until mid-June. During that time I will strip out the program elements for Model MA receivers. When I get back to Los Angeles, we will use up the rest of the Type M steel making MA receivers. By then, I should be ready to start making Type 2 receivers. I have a supply of Type 2 receiver material. I also have two M2 receivers that were started before I shut down a few years ago. We will finish those. I did find a half finished Type M Generation 3 semi-auto Ultimax receiver from the last production. It fits in place of a Numrich/Kahr receiver. We will finish it, so that will be available. I have no plans to make any more receivers to fit N/K frames. At first, I was modifying Kahr bolts for my semi-auto gun. I find that it is counter-productive to get myself involved in any manner with Kahr. The only parts I plan to make to fit the Kahr gun is my detachable buttstock adapter kit. At this time I have included special semi-auto bolts of my design in our current bolt manufacturing project. Once I have those, I will be able to complete my Generation 4 semi-auto gun production prototype. My Gen 4 semi-auto uses a full height receiver which enables it to accept standard TSMG box magazines and properly accepts TSMG drums. Unfortunately, everything I do relies on help from others so I have no control over the schedule. Please study the new "RECEIVERS" page on my www.ThompsonSMG.com website for descriptions and nomenclature of the various receiver models I offer. Then call me at 310-457-6400 to give me your first name, phone number and model wanted so that I get an idea of what to make at first. You may include Type 2 receivers wanted as well. I will want to know if you want only a receiver or you want a receiver with accessories like bolt handle kits, barreled receiver or complete gun. I will call you back when I am ready for a paid order. The biggest problem I have right now is that I have none of the optional parts like Display Pilot Kits, Display Bolt Handle Kits, Screw-On Grip Mounts, Thompson grip mounts, etc. to go with the receivers. I do not want to get myself involved with more partially filled and back orders. So until I am able to make those parts, I will start by accepting paid orders only for bare Type M receivers. I have a lot of parts for making up complete "guns", including early and late Colts, but not all parts yet. When I have all the parts, I will be offering complete "guns" of every model. I have one original 1928 Savage drum so I will be able to put together a really complete and original 1928 Savage gun package. I am sorry that everything is taking so long. I never intended to restart receiver production so every thing has to be done anew. And we are all too old to move quickly or work late. There is still hope that someone will take over my operation. I have some prospects but nothing definite. Unless some one else takes over, I will only be able to offer a fraction of all the Thompson products I developed over the years. Madalon has a new computer so she is now able to update my website. I have already revised the RECEIVERS page. From now on I will be maintaining my website, www.ThompsonSMG.com only and only occasionally post information of a general interest on the Machine Gun Board. So please monitor my website for information about what I am doing. MY LIFE Those people who find aspects of my life interesting may be amused by a current event. I live in a small fishing village on the Caribbean Sea in southern Belize. A few days ago, a large crocodile came out of the Sea and onto the beach. It has been walking up and down the beach in the center of the village which has everyone concerned. It is not the crocodile that is the concern, it is that people believe the crocodile is pregnant and is trying to find a nesting site. The crocodiles do not bother anyone if left alone. They just go about their business, apparently oblivious to every thing else. On a couple of occasions, people doing their food shopping have had to step out of the way of a crocodile walking along the road on its way somewhere. Since there are no good nesting sites where the crocodile is looking, the concern is how to help the crocodile find a better area. Years ago I dug out a swampy area on my property which inadvertently created a great crocodile nesting area. Sure enough, they came and I became the foster father of a lot of baby crocodiles. The question is, how do we get the crocodile to walk across the road to my property? This is more than I can deal with and it is time for me to go into the Sea for my daily swim.

posted by mkw I have been overwhelmed by the response I have received regarding the situation created by my inability to continue making all my Thompson products. So many people have voiced their concerns, suggestions and offers to help that I feel compelled to respond generally. As you who have followed my efforts in the Thompson field over the many years are aware, becoming 80 years old and losing my battle over continuing vision loss forced me to try to find someone to take over as I slow down. I have failed. Many people have offered to buy me out but they know little about Thompson or manufacturing. Doing what I do requires a lot of both. Their response is that they will hire the expertise needed. And, by the way, How long will it take to realize a return of my investment? they ask. In the first place, any one qualified to do it and who could be hired would not share the same enthusiasm and passion for the gun that is needed to keep my business going and improve it. If they did have that they would already be doing it. And, what would you have to pay such a person? I do it for the love of Thompson - not for money although I do not think I lose money as long as I work cheap. No retired machinist would be able to take the piles of tooling, fixtures, programs, etc. that the buyer would take from my shop to some new location and make much sense of it. I just spent about 300 hours trying to restart M1 receiver production. How long, if ever, would it take someone else at a different location to do that? And dont forget, I am the one that created it all. No, that is not possible or economically viable. Well, we will send someone to your shop for you to train. they reply. Train to do what? Learn to be a machinist? There are schools for that and years of necessary experience required. Besides, how does a blind person like me teach someone to be a machinist much less do what I do? I got to the place I am in now by years of schooling and experience. I started out as a kid interested in making things. My father built a little work bench for me along side his. Together, we worked on all sorts of projects. As a teenager, I was always working on one car or another including many custom engine installations. I even put a V-8 Oldsmobile engine with a LaSalle manual gear box in my 1954 Corvette in place of the 6 cylinder engine and automatic transmission. As an engineering student at the University of Illinois, I applied for a job as an antenna designer even though I knew absolutely nothing about antennas. My joy of getting the job soon turned into terror as my first day on a job I could not possibly do approached. I showed up for work and was immediately turned over to the supervisor of the Engineering Machine Shop. He handed me a broom and told me to clean up the shop. I asked what had happened to the antenna job. He said they immediately realized that I knew nothing about antennas and had a good laugh at my expense. But, I was so enthusiastic that they decided to hire me anyway. I could either turn around and leave with what little dignity I had left or do the best job of sweeping they ever saw. I chose to sweep. After a few days there was nothing left for me to sweep. I asked the supervisor what he wanted me to do. He asked me if I had noticed the old lathe in a back room. Of course I had noticed it. I had studied it intensely as I swept. He offered to teach me how to use it and give me simple jobs to work on if I wanted. I was on that machine in a flash. After a couple of weeks he said I was better than the old lathe. He moved me into the main machine shop and on to a newer lathe. He kept giving me more and more difficult jobs to do. He also told me not to touch the other machines especially the new Tree milling machine they had just bought. It was the policy of the shop to give each employee a key to the shop and allow them to do jobs for themselves on off hours but almost no one ever took advantage of it. I did. I made Thompson parts but I mostly made Luger barrels which I could sell. Even though I had not been trained on the other machines or officially told I could use them, I did anyway, except for the sacred Tree. Who would know? No one ever went in at night. Very late one night, the supervisor walked in. His timing could not have been worse. I had two of the mills going with automatic feeds while I was making gun barrels on the lathe. He went from, machine to machine studying my set-ups and work. He never said a word. He just left. I figured I would be fired the next day so I worked all night to make as many parts as possible. The next day I pretended that nothing had happened and I started work as usual. Then came the dreaded call to go to the supervisors office. I walked in. He just stared at me for a while and then asked how I had learned to operate all the machines and make complicated parts. I said I watched the machinists and I used my imagination. He handed me a pile of drawings and told me to get to it. I was still an engineering student at the U of I. I learned machine design, stress analysis, metallurgy, heat treating, cutter design, drafting and all about machine tools. After graduation, I worked for Douglas Aircraft but my passion was to design and develop my own products. I would get others to do the machine work because I did not have any machine tools. I ran into a guy named Edmond H. De La Garrigue. He was running a gun smithing business out of the back room of a gun shop in Culver City, California. We hit it off and he offered to let me come in and use his lathe and mill which I did for some time. He wanted to make miniature guns and I wanted to make Thompson's. Things progressed to us forming the Universal Precision Corporation for the purpose of making one half size Thompsons. Many of you are probably aware of those guns as they were featured in several gun magazines and appear at gun shows every so often. Now you know where they came from. Someone should write an article about that. That business soon came to an end but I kept on designing and developing products that I would sell by mail order. I relied on others to do the machine work. I contracted with a shop to make parts for me at a greatly reduced labor rate as long as they could do my work during slack times. The last job was two 1928 Thompson frames. I supplied the drawings, material and all special cutters and fixtures they needed to make them as efficiently as possible. They said they did not need any special cutters or fixtures. That was a red flag to me because special cutters and fixtures almost always pay for themselves even with short runs and I was gearing up to produce frames on a regular basis. They finished the job but both frames had mistakes that rendered them as scrap and they had spent 20 hours making each one. It was obvious that the shop did not grasp the concept of production and that subcontracting my jobs out was not a good idea. I purchased a Tree 2UVRC milling machine and began frame production in my garage. I acquired special cutters and made special fixtures whenever I saw the need. My first two frames took me 10 hours each and were good. That operation was where my famous Adaptor-Frame came from. That frame made Numrich very unhappy with me. They said they liked me before I started selling that frame. But since it was a slide-on conversion that turned their 1927A1 semi Thompson into a select fire machine gun, they were not real happy with me any more. Later they offered to sell me their Auto-Ordnance Corporation for one million dollars. I said they had a deal if they had $10 million worth of surplus Thompson parts. They did not. Since they were not successors in interest of the real AOC, their AOC was worth about $200 as the cost for me to form my own Auto-Ordnance Corporation. They said it included their 1927A1 semi gun but I had already designed a better one. So there was no deal. A few months later, they sold their AOC to Kahr. Kahr apparently believed they had actually purchased Colonel Thompsons AOC. They were not happy when I told them they had been had. Later, I did try to purchase the original AOC from the real owners but they just did not care about their old company. I had intended to put the 1921 gun back into production but those plans were foiled by the 1986 gun law. I figured that was the end of Thompson for me, so I packed up everything and put it in storage. But then the parts kits started showing up. If I could make the whole gun, I could sure make just the receiver, so I started making receivers on my Tree in my garage. I had made a fixture that allowed me to machine three receivers at a time. One evening a machinist friend came by to visit when I was rounding the top edges of 1921 receivers. To avoid any possible mismatch caused by changing set-ups, I cut the edges from the bottom up with the receivers upside down. My friend brought a guy with him who, I noticed, was intently studying what I had been doing. I asked what he thought about it. He replied that what I was doing was very poor practice. You never should cut from the bottom up., he replied. I asked what credentials he possessed to support his opinion. He said he taught adult education machining at the local college. I replied that he was teaching his students to lose out to guys like me by teaching them old ways while we were pushing the envelope. Today, cutting from every direction is the norm. You have to innovate to be competitive. The way things used to be wont cut it. It was people like me who should have been teaching his class. He had not run a mill for 20 years. It soon became obvious that the demand for my receivers was too great for a manual milling machine. At that time Vertical Machining Centers (VMCs) were appearing in the shops. I contracted with a shop which had a Fadal 2040 VMC to rent their machine with the owner operating the VMC. I would direct at the machine. I provided all cutters and fixtures and directed him to program the VMC in accordance with my wishes. That went well. We were soon turning out lots of receivers. I was learning to program the VMC by watching what he did. One day he said I did not need him any longer. We renegotiated the arrangement so that only I would run the VMC but he would be on call if I got into trouble which I did a lot. He never believed the demand for receivers would last. He did not think I would be returning from Belize or making more receivers, so he sold the VMC. When I returned to find the machine gone, I contracted with another shop, which had the same VMC, to make my receivers. I set up their VMC with all my fixtures and cutters and programed the controller. I made a couple of receivers to show them how to do it. The program ran about 60 minutes. They called me when they were finished. When I picked up my stuff and paid them, they informed me that they did not want to do the job again since it was taking about two hours for them to make a receiver. That cut their income per hour in half. I could not understand how that could happen because VMCs are controlled by the program and mine ran about 60 minutes. It did not matter because they were moving out of state. I did not like being at the mercy of others, so I purchased two newer Fadal VMCs and moved them into the original shop where the sold machine had been. As an owner of the Fadals, I was entitled to attend the Fadal factory school where I was taught to operate and program the machines. I went on to take their advanced programming training. On the job training is good but getting trained at a school by factory experts is the best. Since I got to know all the instructors, I was on the phone with them on a regular basis trying to advance as far as I could. The point of all this is to try make it clear what was involved to get where I am. I greatly admire all the people that want to come to my shop as apprentices, even at no pay, and learn from me. It is too late for that. I can not teach someone to do what I used to be able to do. Today I have trouble even seeing the machines. There is no way I can watch what someone else is doing at the machine. It would be dangerous for them and counterproductive for me. I need some one like me who knows how to do things. All I can do now is answer questions and write programs. If I did not have my original associates here doing what they have done hundreds of times before, there is no way I could continue on at any level. If there were a machinist in the area who needed a shop for his own business, I would be willing to trade shop time (no VMCs) for working on my jobs. That would really help me and is a realistic possibility. I would also consider selling the shop without the Thompson component and then partner on Thompson products. With no good options in sight, I will just keep making receivers and some supporting products as long as my associates wish to carry on. As far as my Thompson tools are concerned, that aspect of my business could be broken off. I did offer to sell all my tool products along with a Trac bed tool room mill with 2-axis CNC control, automatic tool holder drawbar closure, Cat 40 arbor and a custom table that must have cost $5000 to make, all for $25,000. I value the mill alone at $15,000. Maybe that is something to think about. Then there is the crate full of tools and dies for making drum magazines that I have for sale. Does someone want to go into the drum business? Go on my website www.ThompsonSMG.com for more information or call me at 310-457-6400. Since I can not read normal font, I do not follow board postings. If you like this sort of article or not, you can let me know by phone.

Posted by mkw I am now in the production stage of making Type M receivers. That includes models M1, M1B, M2, M3 and M3B. The M1s and M3s are standard WW2 style receivers. The M3 is an M1 with the bolt handle slot on the left side as was done on at least one WW2 receiver. Both will be marked as M1 or M1A1. The others are my improved versions which accept my Screw-On Grip Mount that can be removed without removing the barrel. They also have the frame rails extended all the way to the rear for added strength and rounded corners on the extractor slots. Prices are unchanged from before. Visit my web site www.ThompsonSMG.com for details. I will be offering complete guns as well. The problem at the moment is that I do not have any grip mounts. I will be making more Screw-On mounts and I will make Thompson-style grip mounts as soon as I can get to it. I still do not want any money at this time. If you want just an M1 or M3, you can write me or call me to get on that list. I just want your name and telephone number only if you want a standard M1 or M3 receiver. I do not want to think about the other receivers until I can provide the Screw-On Grip Mounts. ADDENDUM Since posting the above message, I have decided to make a change in the rear sight fastener holes in all receivers. All receivers will now be drilled and tapped for special sight mounting screws that are the same diameter as Thompson rivets. By doing it this way rather than form the rivet countersink and thread the straight section as I did during the last production run, maximum thread engagement is provided. This means that it will be possible to screw the sight on even shooting guns as many people have wanted to do. This is the way I used to do it and it worked very well. This will also eliminate riveting which causes a lot of people grief. If it is desired to rivet the sight on, the threaded holes can be drilled out and countersunk to use rivets. If you want to use rivets, be sure to use real Thomson rivets. Suppliers have claimed to offer Thompson rivets but then supply some standard rivet that does not fit the Thompson. Real Thompson rivets and special rivet hole cutters are available from me. I keep making changes in order to make the best receivers possible. I am ordering a new special cutter now and modifying the primary program which has now exceded 1200 lines of code. Except for the inevitable change now and then, I will be turning my attention to making grip mounts, bolts, display handles & pilots and rewriting the programs for the 1921/8 and 2M2 receivers.

posted by mkw I recently finished all the planning needed to manufacture Thompson grip mounts. I need to make more of my Screw-On Grip Mounts, so while thinking about that it seemed to be a good time to make Thompson-style mounts also. I have the luxury of being the design engineer, manufacturing engineer and manufacturer of my products. That thought got me thinking about the old days when the manufacturing engineer was not the norm. Since so many of you responded favorably to my little article about what went on during the first stages of the receiver manufacturing that I am restarting, I thought some of you might like to hear about manufacturing engineering. When I graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in mechanical engineering with the major of machine design, I had never heard the term manufacturing engineer. As far as I knew there were the design engineers and the manufacturers. The designers drew the part they wanted and the shop had to figure out how to make it. Before my generation (I am now 80), people who had shop experience often migrated to the design side. They designed products that the shop could make because they knew how to make things. By the time I graduated, more and more people were entering the engineering field who had never made anything and they did not know how. Most of the engineering schools had shop set-ups where the students were taught how the machines worked. That was the first, last and only time I ever saw a shaper working. I believe I was in the last class at the U of I to have experienced that because the student shop was closed down. Graduates today do not know the difference between a jig bore and a gear hob. I was lucky because I grew up working in shop environments. I also worked while I was a student as a machinist in the University Research Machine Shop. We machinists were allowed to use the shop after hours for our own projects. I manufactured Luger pistol barrels at night which I sold for extra money. That is where I made my first steel Thompson receiver in 1957. After graduation, I was hired by Douglas Aircraft and shipped to California to be a designer on the A4D fighter plane. By the time I got to Douglas, the A4D contract had been cancelled. I did some design work but because I had a lot, of shop experience, Douglas made me what is now called a manufacturing engineer. This was because there was a growing problem between the design section and the shops. The shops were being given drawings that in many cases were either unmakeable or too expensive to make. Things had gotten almost to the verge of war between the design engineers and the shop people. My job was to review designs flagged by the shop and make them manufactureable. I had to work with the designer whose pride was on the line when I started suggesting changes to his design and the shop people who felt they were being accused of being incompetent. I understood the conflict because, since I was also doing design work for Douglas at the beginning, I shared the engineering frustration when the shop screwed up my designs. I retaliated against the shop by adding MIL-TD-41" to my drawings. Douglas was a defense contractor so everything was controlled by military specifications. When the shop called me in desperation because they were unable to find any such specification in the reference manuals, I clarified things by telling them that MIL-TD-41 was not a military specification at all. It meant Make It Like The Drawing For Once!. Needless to say, when the shop people found out that I was now in charge of resolving disputes between them and engineering, they were not happy. A smart-ass, 22 year old college kid was not what they needed. I did make it work. When the shop people realized that I was a machinist before I became an engineer and I red lined a lot of drawings in the shops favor, they were constantly on the phone to me for help. Regardless, the handwriting was on the wall as they say. The manufacturing engineer became the bridge from the designer to manufacturing. Now, very often the shop doesnt even see a drawing. The manufacturing engineers have already reworked the design, designed the tooling and fixtures and written the programs that control the machines. Since I am all three (designer, manufacturing engineer and manufacturer) of my products, it is a smooth and efficient flow from the inception of the product idea to mailing out the product. It also enables me to make instantaneous improvements that is not possible when many people and departments are involved. As far as I am concerned, 95% of the work has been done by the time I load a piece of metal in a machine. Actually cutting metal is almost an after-thought. Receiver production is still in the manufacturing engineering stage. I have expanded the program so that without moving to another program, I can make all Type M (M1, M2 amd M3) receivers with all options in both full auto and semi-auto and in both Ultimax (semi-finished)A and Gun (functioning) by changing machine switch settings. Hopefully, when my associate comes on Friday, we can make the first 2017 receiver without any glitches and then I can turn production over to him. If you have ever tried to make anything, you have been a manufacturing engineer without realizing it.

Both of the Vertical Grips are sold.

posted by mkw We got Madalon a new computer but it will not be until April that she will get it to Belize and running. Therefore, I will continue to post news here until she is able to update my website (www.ThompsonSMG.com). Chips have started flying as Type M (M1, M2 & M3) receiver production is underway. Even so, we all got older and slower and my main associate is only available to help me make receivers 6 hours on Monday and Friday. Now that I have done all the receiver engineering, I am turning my attention back to my various other projects that I have partners for. They include: making my Screw-On Grip Mounts, Thompson grip mounts, special bolts, special frames and my semi-auto Thompson gun. I also want to get the workshop manual I wrote back in print. Apparently there are a number of you who are fascinated by the process I follow to make receivers as indicated by the number of questions people phone me and ask. Right now I am completing the primary machining of the receivers, so I will describe that much of it. Here is how that goes: I start out by ordering at least a ton of the proper steel alloy. The steel comes in bars approximately 12 foot long. I have it delivered directly to a saw shop where they cut the bars into receiver length segments. The saw shop delivers the segments directly to my vertical machining center (VMC). The VMC is a large automatic milling machine enclosed in a cabinet and run by a computer/controller in the VMC. The tool magazine in the VMC is loaded with cutters mounted in tool holders. The first stage of the manufacturing, which is what I am doing now, requires 25 different cutters. About half of the cutters are custom made. The other half are available as standards from a number of suppliers. The table of the VMC has a number of specially made fixtures mounted on it. The fixtures are designed for making receivers. The fixtures are never removed from the VMC because it would require too much time to remove and reset-up. This is one of the ways how I am able to keep my costs down. Most shops would use a number of universal work holding vises and and other devices. That is OK for making a few of a part at high cost. I make a lot of parts. Unless everything I use is custom designed for just making receivers, the cost of making a receiver would be too great for most people's budget. The other down side is that to reduce the cost, many manufacturers eliminated many of the details found on the original receivers. Years ago when there were several people making receivers, my competion would tell prospective buyers that the reason their receivers were not as complete as mine were was that my receivers were illegal. That back fired on them because all it did was send the customers running to me. The one I remember most had to do with my receivers having fully formed and properly flat feed ramps. A guy in Nevada claimed he did not do because it was illegal. He did not do it because he did not know how. I have a special machine that does nothing but make feed ramps on the receivers. The primary stage of receiver manufacturing that I am doing now uses two of the mounted fixtures which I call the "blank" fixture and the "primary" fixture A segment is mounted on the "blank" fixture. A program that is permanently loaded into the VMC controller is then run. The VMC selects the proper cutter from the tool magazine and uses it to perform the operations called for by the program. When the VMC is finished with the cutter, it returns it to the magazine and selects the next cutter. In the case of the "blank" fixture program, there are 100 lines of code in the program for the VMC to follow. The result of this program is to create a "blank" by roughing out the receiver height and prepare the segment for mounting on the next ("primary" fixture). The "blank" is then mounted on the "primary" fixture. The primay program is over 1100 lines of code. At the end of this program, the blank looks like a receiver. About 90% of the work necessary to make a receiver has now been done. This is the end of what I am doing now. The main reason that my receivers are so accurately made, is the 1100 lines of code the VMC follows without the receiver being moved. Moving a part is when errors start to cummulate. From the "primary" fixture, the receiver moves on to another VMC and four other machines for various secondary operations.

(posted by mkw) Hopefully, today (Monday) I will be able to start cutting steel to begin actual 2017 Ultimax M1 Thompson receiver production. Getting restarted was a whole lot more difficult than I had anticipated. This was caused mostly because I did not properly shut down when I discontinued production in mid 2014. One machine broke down and I just decided that was a good time to quit. Unfortunately, some information was lost by the breakdown. Madalon will not be able to update my website for several months. It is mostly good except for the Colt stuff. Most of my Colt items have been sold. I do still have my two 1921 guns and some box magazines. All three of my Colt "C" drums have been sold as well as the shot mags. I have one frame parts set (all parts to a Colt frame) left. At best, I am only going to be able to offer a few of all the products I used to offer. Gearing up to restart receiver production has shown me that unless someone takes over my shop and I am there to help, no one is going to be able to continue my operation.

Posted by mkw I have both original and my manufacture Colt Actuators. I also have 1921 recoil springs. For those needing a 1921 Colt Pilot and Buffer, I offer a bushing that adapts a 1921 Recoil Spring to a 1928 Pilot. There is no way to tell the difference between my 1921 Actuator and an original one except for the appearance of aging. I stamp my Actuators with a small "R" to prevent resellers from passing off my Actuators as originals.

posted by mkw Unfortunately, Madalon's computer is out for repair so I have been unable to update my website or post blogs regarding progress on the 2017 production of Ultimax Thompson receivers. I will provide a summary here. I can not improve my receivers so I focus on the manufacturing. To that end I am very pleased to say that the M1 primary program rewrite is finished. It finished out at 1020 lines of code. It is the best program I ever wrote or could imagine to write. Because of improvements in manufacturing, I will be able to offer the new receivers at the old prices even though many of my costs have gone up. My associates are back and are able to start where they left off. The machines have been put back in service, programs loaded and new tooling installed. At the end of today, we were ready to start cutting metal. We are all older so we will not be working as before so things will move more slowly. I am focusing only on M1 style receivers in blued steel or natural aluminum until I have everything going smoothly after 2-1/2 years of no production. I will offer original M1 receivers just like those made during WW2 except that the finish will be much better. I call those the "A" version. I will also offer my improved versions which I call "B"s. The "B" versions are the M1 and M3. M3 is an M1 with the bolt handle on the left side. "B" versions have the frame rails extended all the way to the back for extra rear end strength, rounded corners on the extractor slot and will accept my Screw-On Grip Mount which greatly simplifies barrel installation. Other models will follow but this is what I can offer now. I will also be able to offer barreled receivers and complete guns soon. All Type M (M1 style) receivers are $685. Standard WW2 production markings add $150. Standard 6 digit serial numbers (either yours or mine) are $45 extra. Sight mounting screws or rivets are $6 per set of 4. HIS is $18. Refer to my website www.ThompsonSMG.com for more information on Ultimax receivers. This is an advance notice. Please do not try to order receivers until I announce that they are ready to ship. Because of my failing eyesight, I can not deal with more than just M1 and M3 receivers at this time. I am trying to avoid back orders and other complications which I can not handle. Please do not write or e-mail me because I can no longer read most writings. You may call me at 310-457-6400 after 10am and before 8pm California time. I really appreciate all the nice words regarding my receivers. I never realized I had such a following. It is because of all you great Thompson people that I decided to to try to keep things going a while longer.

posted by mkw A couple of months ago or so, I posted a notice that I was re-starting Ultimax receiver production and that more information would follow. Unfortunately, I lost my internet service and so was unable to communicate. Regardless of the silence, I have been busy with the re-start. As most of you know, I had quit making anything after the 2014 production ended. My age (now 80) and my vision problems lead me to the decision that it was time to let someone else take over. Although there was no shortage of people who wanted to do it, there were few that had enough passion for Thompson, a lot fewer who had the manufacturing & engineering expertise and almost no one with adequate Thompson knowledge. There is also the issues of money and time. Some people think they can over come the problems by simply hiring the expertise. Maybe, but unless the plan is to lose money, people are only willing or able to pay a limited amount for a receiver. My receivers are not cheap as is and I think they offer exceptional value at the price. I do not think they can be better than they are, so just adding to the price will not work. I believe that the only practical way for someone to take over my business would be to buy it as is, where is and have me partner with them at least until they could go on their own. Even I underestimated what it would take to re-start. At the end of the 2014 production, the power supply and extended memory failed on one of the vertical machining centers (VMC). I had the VMC repaired but it still meant that all the programs in the VMC controller and the machine parameter settings were lost. Parameters are the instructions the VMC retains that tell it how to respond to various program commands. I am prepared for that possibility. I re-set the parameters. Then I up loaded the last version of the M1 receiver program. I got a big surprise when I studied the program. There was no way that program would make a receiver. Apparently, I had been making some changes to the program when my vision went bad or something happened that prevented me from finishing the program. So, I formatted my computer to "archtectural" to give me maximum width, increased the font size to 19 point, got out my magnifying glass and started re-writing the program. To put this in perspective, you need to understand what it takes to make an M1 receiver. There is what I call the "Primary" program that utilizes the "Primary" fixture on the VMC. Then there are 7 subprograms that utilize other fixtures on the VMC plus operations on other machines. The Primary program is the largest. It consists of 1002 lines of code. Each line of code can have as many as 7 or 8 commands that tell the VMC what to do although about 3 or 4 commands is average. That means that I had to review and, in many cases, re-write about 4000 commands all by hand using my magnifying glass to see what I was doing. I finished the first 3 drafts but there were still some commands that the VMC did not like. I figured I would finish it up in Belize where I went for the holidays. If I needed any more convincing that it would be impossible to just sell the business, ship everything to the buyer and expect him to be able to hire someone to sort it all out, this experience was it. The second day in Belize the computer power supply went bad. Now, three weeks later, the replacement part arrived and the computer is now fixed. Hopefully, there is still time to finish the program before I return to California in 10 days. I spent a lot of time digging in all the corners to ferret out all the Thompson parts I have. I still have a lot of stuff for sale, most of which is on the www.ThompsonSMG.com website. I found enough parts to make about 150 Thompson gun kits (every part of the gun including the receiver) of every Thompson model although most are M1/M1A1s. Gun kits will include 1921 Colts using original Colt frame (trigger housing)assemblies. My plan is to focus on making M1/M1A1 receivers asap. Once I have those on the shelf, I will put M1 and M1A1 gun kits together and develop pricing. Then I will start making 1921 and 1928 receivers and then those kits. I believe that is doable with the vision I now have and the help I can count on. I really want to make some of the special items I have been working on for some time. That includes the "Richardson Semi-Auto Gun" version of all the Thompson Submachine Gun models, both authentic and my special designs. There is the Model "B" improved frame design I have been working on as well as the folding stock "Tanker" and "Paratrooper" models. All models to be made of steel or aluminum. All of these items rely on me getting the help I need. Because of my poor vision, I can not go any farther on these items on my own. I have mentioned my vision several times. The status of that is that I am now stable. I had the forth cornea transplant 4-1/2 months ago. Everything is going well and my vision improves every day. However, because of progressing deterioration of my optic nerves, the best vision I can expect, unless there are new complications, is very poor. That is why I still hold out hope for Thompson that I will find someone to take over but it has to be as I described. If that were to happen (I have a couple of prospects), then everything and a lot more is possible.

Posted by mkw Doug Richardson announces that Ultimax Receiver production has been restarted. Watch for more information to come. Website: www.thompsonsmg.com

Replying again to Bridgeport28A1 by mkw From Doug Richardson I really don't appreciate comments like this. Two days ago I left a message on your phone that I had sent you a refund but that the envelope had been returned to me because I had made an error on the envelope. The refund was resent two days ago. Look folks, I am blind I do the best I can, if I fail to do something call me and tell me. Don't send me piles of paper and engage in petty bitching. No one has ever lost one dollar with me. It is stuff like this that discourages me from enduring the extreme difficulty it is for me to continue doing Thompson products.

Replying to Bridgeport28A1.... I just saw this and will bring it to Doug's attention. mkw

posted by mkw THOMPSON SUBMACHINE GUN WORKSHOP MANUAL 2 The second edition of the Thompson Submachine Gun Workshop Manual is finished. It is a substantial improvement over the first edition. At the time the first edition was published, my good eye had rejected the transplanted cornea. I had the worst vision I have ever experienced. I was almost totally blind. There was no way I could finish the Manual. I felt badly because it was so long in the writing and so many people were waiting for it. Others took over finishing what I had done in order to get the Manual published. They were neither Thompson experts nor manual makers. But they got a lot of information out to a lot of people who needed it. At the time there was no certainty that I would ever be able to do it. A new cornea and some luck improved my vision enough for me to rewrite the Manual. I have included everything I think useful to a Thompson owner and gunsmith. The gun models and parts are identified. Assembly and disassembly are covered along with a section on special repairs necessary to make the parts useable. Other sections include magazines, possible modifications and parts interchanges that are possible, manufacturing a receiver, finishing an Ultimax receiver, analyzing functioning problems, checking out the gun, shooting and maintaining the gun. An appendix includes the instructions for all the special tools I designed. This is not a story book. It is a working manual with information not available in any other book. Make one mistake when working on your gun and this manual will have paid for itself probably many times over. I want everyone to have this Manual because I am tired of hearing the horror stories of what people or incompetent gunsmiths have done to the guns. Even if you will never work on or shoot your gun, you can show this Manual to anyone you have work on your gun for you. It is 204 pages which is 21 pages more than the first edition in addition to many original pages which were replaced. It is 8-1/2" x 11", soft cover, with a Perfect binding. I am autographing every copy because so many people ask for that anyway. Price is $35. I will ship it for the special cost of $6 if sent by itself. Since it completely fills a Priority Mail envelope, there is no room for much of anything else. Because of the circumstances involving the first edition, which sold for $25, and my desire that everyone have the best information, I will give full credit of the $25 to anyone who trades in their first edition for a second edition. The Manuals are prepackaged in stamped envelopes so they can (if I am not in Belize) be sent out the day after I receive an order. Manuals are available from: Douglas W. Richardson 9705 Owensmouth Ave., Unit 2 Chatsworth CA 91311 Telephone 310-457-6400 or 818-993-1753

posted by Mkw For the first time in 2 Years, I have run out of 1928A1 Ultimax receivers. I am also sold out of 1921 Ultimax receivers. I have a few M1 & M1A1 Ultimax receivers. I also have 1 2M2 and a few M2s but no Screw-On Grip Mounts for them at this time. There are some 1921 Pre-Ultimax and a couple of M1A1 Pre-Ultimax receivers available. I have discussed this situation with my associates. We have tentatively agreed to make one more run of receivers before I quit for good. They will all be Ultimax . If you want a receiver and what I have in stock does not meet your requirements, fill out the receiver order form in the RECEIVER page of the website and send it to me. Do not send any money because it might not happen. Every good thing comes to an end. By the time this is finished, I will be 80 years old. I intend to shut down most all of my activities by then. Call me anytime at 310-457-6400 but no e-mails. E-mails are too difficult for me so I don't even look at my inbox anymore.

posted by mkw It was a miracle that the Manual got finished in time for the Phoenix SAR show but it did. I thought I had taken more than enough Manuals to last the show but I was sold out the first day of the 4-day show. I was overwhelmed by the response. I only hope that people find it helpful. No matter though, there will never be enough photos and illustrations to satisfy me but the reality is that there is not enough of a market to justify even what I was able to include. I will never make a profit on the Manual unless I work for free but it had to be written. The first person to contact me after it was published had damaged his gun because he did not have the information in the Manual. I had heard that story so many times before so I feel bad that I was not able to finish the Manual a long time ago. The Manual is 184 pages. It was just too thick for me to use my standard comb binding. So I went to Perfect binding which worked out well. The Manual is $25. I had originally priced it at $35 but I want everyone to have one. $7 Shipping. There is enough room in the Priority envelope for another of my books or small stuff.

I am at the Phoenix Show and have my new book for sale...finally...a large supply of receivers available for sale. I just found out at this late date I would be able to attend.

posted by mkw I was unaware that Bob Bower had gotten some drawings from an FOIA request. That probably makes him the first, last and only person to accomplish that feat. But like he said, microfiche never blows back up with the original detail. That is why I have steamer trunks full of hundreds of full size drawings. I tried to make them available to everyone but I had to give up because of the time involved. People did not understand that a simple request for the pivot plate drawing, for example, means a drawing for the trigger axis, another for the sear access, another for the plate, anorher for the assembly and another for the material, heat treatment and finish. As far as the Model of 1922 TSMG is concerned, one which I discovered, inspected, took apart and photographed belongs to the French Government. Another belongs to the Russian Government and was inspected and photographed for me by my friend, Tom Nelson. A third one belongs to the Danish Government and was inspected and photographed by a friend. A fourth one is at West Point but it has been so modified as to be useless. It was undoubtedly used to develop the Model of 1923. Then there is a vintage photograph of George Goll demonstrating the gun to what appears to be foreign dignitataries. It seems that the model was developed to sell to foreign militaries and probably rejected because it had no provision for a bayonet. Since I discovered this gun and documented it (See my book "MODELS".), I felt that I had a right to name it. But, obviously, the only reasonable conclusion is that it doesn't exist. Regarding the Model of 1923, the evidence is that only one was made, never sold and finally broken up for parts.

posted by mkw Drawings In response to the recent subject of why Numrich could not get the dimensions right on their guns, someone made the statement that he could not understand why because the "drawings were readily available". Let me comment about that. I made my first steel Thompson receiver in 1957 from drawings I made by reverse engineering the gun because I could not find any original drawings. I contiued reverse engineering the gun and searching for original drawings. We used the drawings I made to manufacture the 1/2 scale Thompson guns that were featured in a number of gun magazines. I continued spending a lot of time and money trying to find original drawings. My efforts finally paid off in the mid 1980s when I hit the "mother load of drawings". I then had most of the drawings. Again during the late 1990s, I located the missing drawings. So, it wasn't until about year 2000 that I had all the drawings. Some of the drawings were stolen from me and appeared on the internet. But every original Thompson "readily available" drawing came from me as far as I know. I have every drawing for every part of every model Thompson gun with the exception of the Models 1922, 1923 and 1927 and some prototype models. I also have the drawings for most of the accessories. Tracy Hill did uncover some early versions of some of the drawings. After what I went through to aquire the drawings, I did get a bit of a chuckle over the assumpton that the drawings were "readily available" in the 1950s. If Numrich had any drawings, they must not have known it.

posted by mkw Numerich either did not have the drawings or refused to use them, what they would do when they wanted a part made is send out a sample to a local machine shop and have the shop try to reverse engineer the part. I know this because they tried repeatedly to get me to make parts for them. In each instance I would insist on a drawing, not once did they provide a drawing. Years later Ira Trast tried to sell me the business. Part of what they had according Ira were hundreds and hundreds of drawings. He said had no idea of what the drawings were about.

Posted by mkw Glad you like the sound effects.

posted by mkw Today I finalized all the illustration pages of the Workshop Manual I am writing. There are 64 which is more than I had anticipated. I am trying to include illustrations of every part of every model Thompson gun so no one comes up with a part they can not identify or know where it goes. There are a lot of illustrations of repairs and every modification to the gun I can think of. Now I will go back and rewrite all the text pages. That is a good job to work on when I go back to Belize which should be this month. The book will probably end up at about 130 pages unless I think of more things I think people would like to know about. My goal is to have the manual available at the SAR show in Phoenix in December at the latest. New Website I hope everyone likes the new website that Madalon has been working so hard on. www.ThompsonSMG.com . After sending out about 8000 Catalogs, the time has come to discontinue the print Catalog and go to an internet catalog. I could not do it before because so many of the Thompson machine gun people were not able to use the internet because they are generally older. We are trying to make the site as simple as possible because, like me, older people have trouble with most websites. When I go on a website the first thing I do is look for a phone number. I learn so much more by a phone conversation than I could ever get from a website or e-mailing yet it seems that no one wants to talk to anyone any more. I suppose I will lose some of them but the time has come to move on. If anyone has any suggestions or criticism of the new website, please make them known to me.

West Hurley Thompson Literature Collection Items in new condition except as noted. $150 (have some duplicate Catalogs @ $25 and Flyers @ $5 all postpaid A) Catalog No. 4": General catalog, 2-color, gloss paper, center stapled 11" x 17" sheets folded to 8-1/2" x 11" to create 16 pages. Features 27A1, 27A3, 27A5, 27M1, 1928/.45 & 1928/.22 Catalog - 12th Edition: General catalog, full color, gloss paper, center stapled 11" x 17" sheets folded to 8-1/2" x 11" to create 20 pages. Features 27A1, 27A5, 27M1, 1928 & M1 guns C) Catalog - No. 2": General catalog, 1976, 2-color, gloss paper, single 11" x 29-1/2" sheet folded twice to form six 8-1/2" x 11" pages. Feature 27A1 gun. D) Flyer: Auto-Ordnance Presents/M1" 8-1/2" x 11", single sheet, full color, gloss paper. Features 27M1 gun. E) Catalog - 1983" General catalog, full color, gloss paper, center stapled 8-1/2" x 22" folded to create ten 9-1/2" x 11" pages. A little worn on edges. Features 27A1 & 27A5 guns. F) Catalog": General catalog, 2-color, gloss paper, single 11" x 29-1/2" sheet folded twice to form six 8-1/2" x 11" pages. Features 27A1 gun. G) Catalog: General catalog, full color, gloss paper, center stapled 11" x 17" sheets folded to 8-1/2" x 11" to create 14 pages. Features 27A1, 27M1, M1 & 1928 guns. H) ) Catalog: General catalog, 2-color, gloss paper, center stapled 11" x 17" sheets folded to 8-1/2" x 11" to create 10 pages. Features 27A1 ,27A3, 27A5 and 1928 guns. http://www.thompsonsmg.com Posted on Website under NON-COLT THOMPSON SCARCE, RARE & COLLECTABLES

The photo shows one of my Parts Boxes fitted out with the last recommended spare parts. The price for the package is $434. The Box was included with FBI cases. It was held in the case top by leather straps. This plus the FBI Cleaning Rod which I also offer for $110, are the missing parts in most FBI cases. The box was made to the same dimensions as a 20 cartridge capacity box magazine so it also fits in the 1921/8 canvas gun cases and magazine pouches. A nice touch to any Thompson collection. www.thompsonsmg.com. 310-457-6400