American small arms cartridges during WWII; why so little change?

[Markus Becker]

On 8/14/2024 at 6:26 PM, seahawk said:

 A SMG is of no use for hunting or as a farm gun. It is also no use for carrying around all day and as "tactical cool" was not yet a thing, most will have preferred a shotgun for self defence, if a revolver or pistol did not seem enough. 

I agree but there's the police and so on. But they won't by one 200$ gun, they'd buy a batch. 

Say ten is the smallest practical batch. You could get ten Remingtons for the price of three Thompsons. 

Yeah, not what you like to have but it's ok and affordable. So ten Model 8s please(my WAG). 

[Ol Paint]

On 7/22/2024 at 7:13 AM, Markus Becker said:

Is paying 200-225 hard earned taxpayer dollars per gun for guns that cost sub 50$ to make acceptable? In a depression.

To me this looks like they could not get anything else. Or they were under orders to only buy American regardless of the price. And no one in congress being aware of the vast difference in price and the huge profit margin of AO.

Considering the 15,000 Thompsons were all produced in 1921 and marketed until ~1940 (Auto-Ordnance still had about 4,700 unsold in inventory in 1938) when WWII finally absorbed the stockpile, castigating Colt/AO for profiteering isn't really logical.  Simply storing & marketing the guns over nearly 20 years is going to cost money.   Additionally, I'm not sure where the cost to make of $50 is coming from?  The simplified M1 cost about $42 in 1942, but that's on a production run of several hundred thousand with immediate payment on delivery. 

That's a different scenario than AO paying Colt up front to build 15,000 on spec, then selling 10,300 of them over an 17 year period.  A reality that drove the company to near bankruptcy.  Auto-Ordnance didn't just happen to find a warehouse full of zero-cost guns--they invested money to have Colt to make them, then spent a couple decades selling off the stock to recoup the money.

War production M1928s were costing about $70.  The big British order in the beginning of the war may work out to ~$200/gun, but how much of that went to constructing a production line capable of delivering the volumes required?

One should also not forget that the US defense spending environment in peacetime between 1776 and 1939 is very different than post WWII.  Army purse strings were tightly held outside of wartime (and the Navy's only somewhat less so), so the War Department wasn't the customer with the outsized market influence the DoD has since become.  There was traditionally a strong isolationist faction during the entire time period that would drive decision-making on concern over foreign entanglement.  Then there was the insular defense-industry relationship, considering John Thompson oversaw much of the development while he was Chief of the Small Arms Division of Ordnance.  Lastly, look at the competition in 1920/1921 when the gun was tested and placed in production and the relative novelty of the submachine gun at the time.  In that context, condemning the Thompson isn't as clear as hindsight might make it seem.

Doug

P.S. One more thing, the guns were built in 1921.  The Great Depression started in October 1929.

[Ivanhoe]

Pages of talk about Thompsons, not one reference to the ol' "Chicago Typewriter."

[seahawk]

6 hours ago, Markus Becker said:

I agree but there's the police and so on. But they won't by one 200$ gun, they'd buy a batch. 

Say ten is the smallest practical batch. You could get ten Remingtons for the price of three Thompsons. 

Yeah, not what you like to have but it's ok and affordable. So ten Model 8s please(my WAG). 

The Model 8 is a good reason why SMGs did not become popular in the US. Sure in use against criminals and in urban settings, a SMG has advantages, but as general issue rifle, to also be used against wild animals or in open country, Model 8 offered better choice. I think most people of the time would prefer to take a Model 8 with a 10-20 round magazine into a wood with bears and wolves over taking a 9mm or .45 SMG.

[17thfabn]

11 hours ago, seahawk said:

The Model 8 is a good reason why SMGs did not become popular in the US. Sure in use against criminals and in urban settings, a SMG has advantages, but as general issue rifle, to also be used against wild animals or in open country, Model 8 offered better choice.

In contemporary thinking in the U.S. very few law enforcement officers have full auto weapons other than some special teams such as SWAT. The idea of wide spread use of a full automatic weapon in urban areas by law enforcement could be problematic with the chance of innocent bystanders being killed or injured.

Today most LE that are issued patrol rifles are issued as semi auto only. 

From what I understand back pre World War II and even until relatively recently most urban LE had shot guns. Rifles where more common in rural areas for LE.

I looked up the Model 8. If wiki is to be believed it wasn't made in 30-06. May have needed to be beefed up a little for 30-06, but surprising if it wasn't made in 30-06.

[Markus Becker]

On 8/16/2024 at 3:48 AM, Ol Paint said:

Considering the 15,000 Thompsons were all produced in 1921 and marketed until ~1940 (Auto-Ordnance still had about 4,700 unsold in inventory in 1938) when WWII finally absorbed the stockpile, castigating Colt/AO for profiteering isn't really logical.  Simply storing & marketing the guns over nearly 20 years is going to cost money.   Additionally, I'm not sure where the cost to make of $50 is coming from?  The simplified M1 cost about $42 in 1942, but that's on a production run of several hundred thousand with immediate payment on delivery. 

Ian from Forgotten Weapons. He has several videos on the various versions of the Thompsons and mentioned that the original batch made by Colt for AO was sold to AO for 50-ish. 

50-ish with the Blish lock, cooling fins, front grip equals to ~42 without? 

[Ivanhoe]

On 8/16/2024 at 12:26 PM, 17thfabn said:

I looked up the Model 8. If wiki is to be believed it wasn't made in 30-06. May have needed to be beefed up a little for 30-06, but surprising if it wasn't made in 30-06.

Such a version would weigh quite a bit. Plus, nothing wrong with the .** Remington cartridge designs, and Remington surely wanted to sell razor blades and not just razors.

The .35 Rem has proven to be pretty ideal for hunting east of the Mississippi, i.e. whitetail, hogs, and black bear. I badly want a Marlin 336 in .35 Rem, but neither "Remlin" nor "Ruglin" have been interested in building what I want. The price for used 336s of the JM ilk has gone from Chevy to Lamborghini over the last 5 years or so. 

[17thfabn]

4 hours ago, Ivanhoe said:

Such a version would weigh quite a bit. Plus, nothing wrong with the .** Remington cartridge designs, and Remington surely wanted to sell razor blades and not just razors.

A quick look up of the cartridges that the Model 8 used, seems like most of them were round nosed? Seems like a pointed nose would have improved ballistics. I guess this was in the era when pointed noses were were becoming the preferred?

Going further off topic. The .30 M1 carbine cartridge was designed with a rounded nose. Wouldn't a pointed projectile have been better for this cartridge that was designed for purely military use.  This was designed much latter than the cartridges for the Model 8 Remington were designed. 

[bojan]

Soviets played with .25 Remington with spitzer ammo (Fedorov and Degtarev IIRC) as "almost ideal modern automatic carbine cartridge". IDK if any prototypes firearms were made or it was just ballistic testing.

[Ol Paint]

7 hours ago, Markus Becker said:

Ian from Forgotten Weapons. He has several videos on the various versions of the Thompsons and mentioned that the original batch made by Colt for AO was sold to AO for 50-ish. 

50-ish with the Blish lock, cooling fins, front grip equals to ~42 without? 

Edit to add:  $44.56 in 1921 compared to "50-ish" in 1942.  A post-war/peacetime production run compared to wartime firearms manufacture nearly 20 years later--there might just be differences between the cost of materials, labor, factory floor space, and tooling for the different production runs.

What other costs did Auto Ordnance have to cover besides the cost of buying the guns from Colt?  The cost to Auto Ordnance from Colt didn't include the cost of developing the gun, or anything else beyond manufacture.

Auto Ordnance apparently had about 6 people on staff while designing the gun, which took place over the period of 2-3 years (best guess).  So they need to recover that cost.  Presumably, they had to finance the purchase of the guns from Colt, so they'd owe interest on the loan.  They would've had to  pay for marketing, pay for storage, pay for packing and shipping, pay salaries on an ongoing basis, etc.  They also spent money after the guns were built modifying them from 1921 to 1928 standard, along with some other modifications in attempts to sell to other customers.  Auto Ordnance was also developing the AutoRifle prototypes, so that requires funding, as well.

I've no doubt they were trying to make some good profit, too, but the markup may not be unreasonable. 

According to 5:30 in this video, Colt charged $44.56 per gun.  He also points out the wholesale price was $137-157 at the 6:00 mark.  That section of the video explains, although not as explicitly as above, why Auto Ordnance had other expenditures to recover beyond Colt's invoice.

 

Doug

Edited August 19 by Ol Paint
Added reference to AutoRifle and the paragraph as noted.

[Ivanhoe]

2 hours ago, 17thfabn said:

A quick look up of the cartridges that the Model 8 used, seems like most of them were round nosed? Seems like a pointed nose would have improved ballistics. I guess this was in the era when pointed noses were were becoming the preferred?

When the Model 8 was developed, I believe hunters in the Northeast and South weren't yet trusting of softpoint spitzers.

 

 

[Markus Becker]

13 hours ago, Ol Paint said:

Edit to add:  $44.56 in 1921 compared to "50-ish" in 1942.  A post-war/peacetime production run compared to wartime firearms manufacture nearly 20 years later--there might just be differences between the cost of materials, labor, factory floor space, and tooling for the different production runs.

What other costs did Auto Ordnance have to cover besides the cost of buying the guns from Colt?  The cost to Auto Ordnance from Colt didn't include the cost of developing the gun, or anything else beyond manufacture.

Auto Ordnance apparently had about 6 people on staff while designing the gun, which took place over the period of 2-3 years (best guess).  So they need to recover that cost.  Presumably, they had to finance the purchase of the guns from Colt, so they'd owe interest on the loan.  They would've had to  pay for marketing, pay for storage, pay for packing and shipping, pay salaries on an ongoing basis, etc.  They also spent money after the guns were built modifying them from 1921 to 1928 standard, along with some other modifications in attempts to sell to other customers.  Auto Ordnance was also developing the AutoRifle prototypes, so that requires funding, as well.

I've no doubt they were trying to make some good profit, too, but the markup may not be unreasonable. 

According to 5:30 in this video, Colt charged $44.56 per gun.  He also points out the wholesale price was $137-157 at the 6:00 mark.  That section of the video explains, although not as explicitly as above, why Auto Ordnance had other expenditures to recover beyond Colt's invoice.

 

Doug

 

Good points about the development cost and their rifle project.