A Brief History of Ingram and MAC

Gordon Bailey Ingram was born in Los Angeles, California on 30 December 1924. Ingram conceived a series of submachine guns that eventually led to his Model 10.

Ingram’s first .45 caliber submachine gun was made in 1946 and was designated the Lightening Model 5. Since there already were M1, M2 and M3 U.S. submachine guns, Ingram started with the designation M5, skipping M4 in case the Ordnance Department was planning to introduce another weapon.

During 1949, the somewhat successful Ingram Model 6 was introduced. Ingram also designed submachine guns, Models 7, 8, and 9, of which few were built. They were all similar in design to his Model 6.

In 1964, Gordon Ingram began to concentrate on a basic inexpensive weapon aimed primarily at the third-world market. While working at the Erquiaga Arms Company in California, Ingram made the first prototype of his Model 10 submachine gun. The M10 was radically different from any of Ingram’s previous designs. The Model 10 was designed to produce a high volume of fire at close range, and does so quite reliably.  

After leaving the Erquiaga Arms Company, Gordon Ingram attempted to find a major arms company to manufacture and market his Model 10 submachine gun. Ingram contacted over twenty domestic and foreign arms companies; all declined his offer.

Mitchell L. WerBell III’s primary business was designing and manufacturing sound suppressors. When WerBell learned of Ingram’s Model 10 submachine gun, he realized the compact weapon, fitted with one of his SIONICS suppressors, would be perfect as a concealable weapon with plenty of firepower.

After a deal was struck between WerBell and Ingram, the name of the company was changed from SIONICS to the Military Armament Corporation. In order to expand business operations further, the under-financed MAC organization was taken over by Quantum Ordnance Bankers Inc. Quantum was a group of investors that pumped millions of dollars into the company.

Shortly after the Quantum takeover of MAC, a bitter struggle broke out over policies, procedures, and operations. WerBell and Ingram were both forced out of the company. Quantum management then permanently changed the name of the Ingram submachine gun, to which they held all rights, to the MAC submachine gun (Military Armament Corporation). The Model 10 and Model 11 (renamed as “M10” and “M11”) receivers with Ingram’s name on them were pulled from the production line and placed in storage. Receiver production continued without the Ingram name, which was replaced by the name “MAC” on all M10 and M11 submachine guns. All weapon manuals, literature and advertising had the Ingram name replaced with MAC.

Company mismanagement and proposed government contracts that never materialized eventually forced the Military Armament Corporation into bankruptcy during 1975. The assets of MAC were auctioned off in June of 1976. Gordon Ingram passed away on November 4, 2004, with little personal or financial success from his submachine gun efforts.

The MAC Lives On…

Today, the Ingram Model 10, or MAC-10 as it’s more popularly called, is a very well-known submachine gun. The Model 10 and its variants have been produced under a number of names including the original Military Armament Corporation (Georgia), RPB Industries, Inc. SWD Incorporated, Military Armament Corporation (Texas), Jersey Arms Works and by Section Five LTD of Great Britain.

The MAC Models 10 and 11, and SWD’s M11/Nine, had always been at the lower end of the popularity scale with NFA enthusiasts. Their fast cyclic rate, while exhilarating, resulted in poor accuracy and tedious magazine loading. Over the years there have been several attempts by companies and individuals to tame the MAC’s cyclic rate and make them more ergonomic.   

The Inspiration

Organized submachine gun competitions, originated around the 1970s. Early contests were largely dominated by those wielding Thompsons, which soon gave way when HK 94 to MP5 submachine gun conversions became available. The MP5 soon became the submachine gun of choice for serious competitors. One disadvantage to the MP5 was their high price.

As in many endeavors, those with the best (read ‘expensive’) equipment usually prevail. However, Americans love an underdog, which what the MAC-type series of guns would certainly qualify as when attempting to compete with MP5 submachine guns in a contest environment. This is probably the mindset that began the evolution of MAC-type guns to be competitive. The first known transformation into a competition weapon was of an SWD M11/Nine, and was by individuals from the Triad Action Shooter’s Klub or TASK. Their earliest modifications included a wooden buttstock, a muzzle brake, and a red-dot sight.

The original TASK M11/Nine design continued to evolve becoming more ergonomic and reducing the cyclic rate to approximately 500-550 rounds per minute. In capable hands, with these modifications, the underdog M11/Nine was able to record times that could compete with, and often beat, the MP5, M16/9mm and UZIs in the Modern and Open division events. The (relatively) inexpensive MAC-type submachine guns modified for competition opened up participation in the matches for those who could not afford an expensive weapon to be competitive.      

Enter Lage Manufacturing LLC

Richard Lage bought his first machine gun, a SWD M11/Nine in 2000. After shooting it for less than a year, the novelty wore off and he wanted to find a way to slow it down. It wasn’t long until Mr. Lage decided to convert his M11/Nine to the very popular TASK Slow Fire configuration, he made some improvements and created the Lage MAX-11/9 for the TASK conversion. There were only 22 of the MAX-11/9 upper receivers produced.

Mr. Lage’s efforts continued, resulting in a very successful line of upper receivers and accessories under the Lage Manufacturing brand, all designed to reduce the M10, M11 and SWD’s M11/Nine submachine gun’s cyclic rate and improve their ergonomics, some models were configured to use the 71-round Suomi drum magazines.

The Latest and Greatest

After the success of his line of upper receivers, Richard Lage had a number of requests for a rifle caliber upper receiver for the MACs. Retaining the recoil of the .223/5.56 round in a short MAC receiver was a challenge. Such a conversion had been attempted before by Alliance Armament with their 556 S.A.B.R.E. The unit was heavy, bulky and it did not sell very well. Before long the S.A.B.R.E. upper was dropped from production.

Lage was hesitant to embark on such a project, believing that after a labor-intensive development process there was a possibility that the BATF would not approve it. In addition, Richard was basically a subgun guy and wasn’t excited about a rifle caliber MAC. A customer and MAC enthusiast by the name of Mike Burrows had designed a .223 upper receiver for the M11/Nine. He offered it to Lage to develop and put in production, in exchange for four production upper receivers. With the initial groundwork done by Mr. Burrows, Richard submitted the prototype to BATF for approval, if approved, he could start refining the upper for production. BATF approved the upper receiver for the M11/Nine in 90 days. However, the MAX-11A1/15 and MAX-10/15 was submitted in July of 2019 and wasn’t approved until December 2021!

Initially, an AR spring and buffer in the buttstock of the conversion was used to handle the recoil of the 5.56mm cartridge. This was called the external AR Recoil Mechanism (ARRM). This required drilling a hole in the back of the receiver to allow a rod from the bolt carrier to push on the buffer and spring assembly in the stock. Many potential customers were reluctant to modify an expensive registered receiver, thus the concept was not well received and dropped from production. Lage also developed an upper with a completely self-contained recoil mechanism inside of the receiver. This Internal Recoil Mechanism (IRM) did not require any alterations to the receiver. Both have features that are covered in U.S. Patent 10,794,647 B2.

The Lage .223/5.56 conversions are designated as; the MAX-11/15 for the M11/Nine, MAX-M11A1/15 for the M11/.380, and the MAX-10/15 for the 9mm and .45 Model 10. The handguard of the upper receiver conversion is made of 7075 black anodized aluminum 20-inches in length, with a Picatinny rail on top for mounting optics, and M-LOK mounting points on the sides. The system uses standard AR magazines. The barrel is 10.5-inches in length, chambered for 5.56 x 45mm/.223 ammunition. Rifling twist is 1:7, muzzle threads are 1/2-28 with a M16A1 style flash suppressor. An Odin Works adjustable gas block is installed on the barrel to allow the gas system to be tuned for specific ammunition. A non-reciprocating charging handle is located on the left side. A shell deflector is provided for left-handed shooters. At the rear of the upper is a rubber gas seal to keep blowback gas away from the operator’s face when firing with a sound suppressor. The Lage system fires from an open-bolt and allows both full-auto and semi-auto operation. The cyclic rate is approximately 790-950 RPM. Weight of a MAX-10/15 mounted on a MAC 10 receiver with buttstock and loaded 30-round magazine is 9 pounds, 7 ounces.

The upper is not considered a firearm, so no license is required to purchase one. They are for submachine guns only and will not convert a semi-auto MAC to full-auto.

What would Gordon Ingram think of Lage’s conversions? I think he would be impressed.

Resources

• “The MAC Man: Gordon B. Ingram and His Submachine Guns” available from Chipotle Publishing LLC.
• Lage Manufacturing, LLC
• Special thanks to Richard Lage for his contributions to this article.

In my last article, Early Bolt-Action Rifle Conversions – Automatic Service Rifles on a Budget, I began exploring the world of bolt-action rifle conversions into self-loading ones. However, as this story continues on after the end of World War I, the SAR team gracefully allowed me to continue on our journey. To recap, semi-automatic rifles were conceptualized in the late 1800s, mainly in Austria-Hungary (Mannlicher & Karel Krnka) and Italy (Cei-Rigotti). Other European powers of the time were also interested in the concept, although military doctrine at the time hindered the progress of this new invention. Nevertheless, trials and tests were carried out. Denmark, being one of those countries, was in the process of renovating their sea fortifications. At the same time, partners Julius Rasmussen & Vilhelm Oluf Madsen presented the Danish military a self-loading rifle of their design. The commission found that it was not suitable for army adoption, however, they saw a potential in arming their newly recommissioned forts with Madsens’ rifles, making the M1896 Rekylgevær the first self-loader to be ever adopted by a military power.

Skipping a few years to World War I, the French encountered themselves in a war of attrition and stagnation, where the machine guns of the German Army prevented any kind of frontal assault by allied troops. It was then that a portable, automatic rifle to suppress German machine guns whenever troops would infiltrate the enemy trench was requested by the French army. Chauchat, Paul Ribeyrolles, and Sutter quickly responded with a conversion kit for the old, obsolete stock of Lebel rifles that was permeating French stocks, although not many parts were re-used from the old rifles, the RSC rifle was still a success. After the end of the Great War, most co-belligerent countries were war-weary and therefore not interested in spending or giving attention to new matters and technologies developed during the conflict.

The Sleeping Giant Awakens

Colonel Isaac Lewis, of Lewis Gun fame, reported to the Board of US Ordnance that the United States was behind all the European powers by at least 10 years. During the World War I, the United States certainly came to realize that Lewis’s statement was correct. The U.S. Army lacked both machine guns and rifles when it declared war on the Central Powers in 1917, which led to a push for rearmament after the end of the war. Around 1919, the Army set out requirements for this new rifle which included manufacture using Springfield 1903 machinery, it should fire .30-06, and have a maximum weight of 4.3 kilograms (9.5 pounds). Even though the Springfield Arsenal and others considered that the conversion of the 1903 was a moot point, other inventors still threw their hat in the ring for the trials which would soon follow.

Thompson and Garand, both well-known names nowadays, submitted rifles for trials in the early 1920s, other designers, however, like Franklin Knowles Young (previously discussed in part I) were still attempting to save costs by converting stocks of Springfields which would soon be obsolete. He founded his own firearms company named “Young Gun Company” and got a patent in 1921 which described a gasiInertia operating system applied to a Springfield M1903 rifle. No records of it have surfaced, however, Franklin did not give up. He made one last attempt in a patent filed in 1929, a primer-actuated system that mostly used 1903 parts and a BAR magazine. One example surfaced in 2016 when it was sold by a popular firearm auction website.

At the same time as Young’s first patent, two others were also patenting their conversion systems for the Springfield 1903, Creedy Sheppard, mentioned in the last part, and John Pedersen, of Pedersen device and rifle fame. Pedersen’s patent was an underbarrel secondary firearm, closely resembling his 1918 device that allowed the soldier to have both short-range, semi-automatic fire, or 30.06 as a normal Springfield. In 1929, the final competition of semi-automatic rifles for the army would take place, and as its victor, the famous M1 Garand. The cost of tooling and manufacturing of this new rifle would heavily weigh against adopting another rifle, as it happened with the Johnson rifle controversy. However, one last attempt by Halvor Olsen Eiane would be patented in 1938 (. It described an M1903 rifle with two gas pistons attached to both sides of the receiver.

Also of note, a mystery M1903 conversion with a slanted bolt was sold in February of 2021, It’s my opinion that said rifle might be the work of either Edmund Browning or David Marshall Williams.

From the Ashes of Empires

After the Great War, many nations, like Poland and Czechoslovakia, were carved out of the German Empire and Austria-Hungary. These new countries had to muster new armies from the remnants left behind by their old overlords, including weaponry and personnel. Lieutenant General Tadeusz Rozwadowski was a distinguished officer in the Austro-Hungarian army during the first world war and in 1918 was made commanding officer of the newly formed Polish Army. In 1920, he recommended the creation of a new self-loading rifle based on old stocks of Mannlicher straight pull rifles, mainly the model of 1890 to be completed by the major state arsenals in Poland, being praised for this endeavor by the then Minister of military affairs, General Kazimierz Sosnkowski. This new rifle was named the Wz. 1921 and nicknamed the DOG after the General Region Command “Lwów” (Dowództwo Okręgu Generalnego “Lwów”) who manufactured this prototype, operated with a very simple gas piston attached to the right of the receiver which operated the bolt directly, which could be turned off to return the rifle to manual fire. A wireframe pistol grip was added to make handling better while retaining the 5-round magazine which still used Mannlicher clips.

Czechoslovakia, also gaining independence from the Austro-Hungarian empire, had the same problem as Poland, with large quantities of outdated Mannlicher rifles which they tried to replace as soon as they became a state in 1918. Following trials of rifles submitted by Josef Netsch and Rudolf Jelen, a reserve lieutenant by the name of Josef Holub presented a Mannlicher M1888 operated by a gas piston on the right side of the receiver, with a front grip and a pistol grip attached to the magazine which retained the old five en-bloc clip design but now sported a cartridge counter mechanism. The rifle could be operated either as semi-automatic or fully automatic, hampered, of course, by the lackluster capacity of the Mannlicher clips. It was tested in 1921 but rejected in 1923 by the Minister of National Defense František Udržal.

A Hungarian inventor by the name of C. Bessemer offered a conversion system for the later Mannlicher rifle, the model 1895. However, the Czech army at that point was less interested in adopting a self-loader. Also in Hungary, a patent in 1939 by Karolý Wolff consisted of a conversion system similar to the Holub rifle, however, applied to an M1895 rather than the older M1888.

The Italian Job

Italy, being one of the few countries which recognized the importance of submachine guns as a way to give more firepower to their assault troops, decided to experiment with the predecessor of the assault rifle concept in 1921. Another article written for this same magazine has gone more in-depth about these guns, however, they are important for our subject today because Marco Morin, one of the most important authors about Italian firearms, described the Terni model 1921 automatic rifle as being a Mannlicher-Carcano conversion. It’s my opinion that this is a very far-fetched claim, however, Morin examined an example of this rifle closely and came to this conclusion, so it is difficult to determine the veracity of this claim.

Nevertheless, other rifles are worth talking about within this subject, those being the Scotti, the Castelli rifle, and Maefassi carbine.

Alfredo Scotti-Douglas, a descendant of Scottish and Italian nobility, was a firearms inventor in the interwar period. He designed machine guns, aircraft-mounted cannons, and, most importantly, self-loading rifles. His Model T.S. Carbine, dated to the tenth year of Mussolini’s fascist regime, was developed as a response to Italian requirements for a 6.5mm semi-automatic rifle that used as many Carcano parts as possible; utilizing the barrel, sights, and magazine housing of a standard Carcano bolt-action but with the caveat of having the bolt, receiver, trigger mechanism, and stock being all brand-new parts. He followed his carbine with the Scotti Model X, which also tried using as many common parts as possible with the Carcano. Outside of Italy, Alfredo would offer to three other countries his rifle system as a means of the conversion of their bolt-action rifles, those being Germany in 1934, the United Kingdom in 1938, and Switzerland at an unknown date. Recently, more information has surfaced about another conversion, as well. A Swiss archival report describing the Scotti system mentions some rifles that were worked on by Scotti, including the previously mentioned Mauser and Mannlicher, but also a previously unknown Arisaka conversion.

The Maefassi and the Castelli rifles are less documented. Carlo Maefassi was an Italian officer stationed in Addis Ababa after the Second Italo-Ethiopian war. While being posted there, he and a few colleagues designed the Maefassi self-loading rifle, which was a simple modification of the Mannlicher M1895, which now had a gas tube under the barrel. Vittorio Castelli, of Brescia, allegedly presented, in 1930, a rifle of his design to the semi-automatic trials that were happening in Italy. I was not able to locate any drawings or patents of this gun, however, I do have a decent guess on what it might’ve been. There is a patent under Breda, which Castelli worked for, that contains a possible conversion system.

Intermission & Addendums

A fellow researcher, Bas Martens, contacted me about a visit to the St. Petersburg Arsenal Museum in the 1990s where he photographed many unknown rifles, even some conversion systems! Seemingly of German origin, since they use Gewehr 98 parts. Next time, we’ll be looking into the emergency conversions developed due to the outbreak of the World War II and other posterior designs.

Click here for Part III of this series.

Hiram Percy Maxim (1869-1936) was the offspring of the inventor of the world’s first modern machine gun, Hiram Stevens Maxim. H. P. Maxim started developing one of the world’s first modern metallic firearm silencers, shortly after the dawn of the 20th century.

The nature of supersonic (beyond the speed of sound) gas flow from a firearm’s discharge was not totally understood by scientists in the early 1900s. They did not have ultra high-speed photography available back then, and they did not understand how a flow of supersonic propellant gas would create a loud gunshot noise. Regardless of this, Maxim did understand that the sudden and violent exit of high velocity propellant gas from the muzzle of a firearm was directly responsible for the loud noise associated with gunshot discharges.

We in a more contemporary world now realize that most physical objects moving through our atmosphere at a rate of speed beyond 1,100 feet per second (fps) will create the phenomenon known to the world as sonic crack. The tip of a leather whip, when snapped rapidly, moves at a rate of speed beyond 1,100 fps, creating its own sonic crack. A bullet moving beyond 1,100 fps creates two similar sounds, one from the front and one from the rear. Surprisingly, human ears can hear both sounds and discern them, one from the other, if the mind concentrates hard enough.

In today’s world, a common U.S. military M16 rifle discharges a 62-grain bullet at a velocity close to 3,000 fps. The mass of propellant gas, being much lighter and extremely elastic, leaves the muzzle of that same firearm at roughly 16,000 fps – many times beyond the speed of sound. It is not widely known, but the energy of exiting propellant gas from a high-powered rifle constitutes roughly 90% of the force available, while the bullet represents but 10%.

A mass of exiting propellant gas forms or gathers into a hardened front resembling a curiously rounded, elongated disc – known to ballistic scientists as a Mach disc. With a .308 rifle, that Mach disc is close to 5 inches in diameter, and it actually turns into a solid state for a fleeting moment. The supersonic disc projects a very loud noise in all directions, like an extremely loud speaker. That violent impulse of sound is so loud and so powerful that it can and will cause permanent hearing damage to any unprotected individual in close proximity.

Most firearm discharges form Mach discs. With a .22 LR rimfire pistol the exiting gas (only about a grain in weight) forms a smaller, elongated Mach disc well under an inch in diameter. Even though the smaller Mach disc is very temporary (less than 6/1,000 of a second in many cases), it causes an impulse sound that is so loud that it too will also cause permanent hearing damage to those unprotected ears in close proximity.

It is extremely unlikely that Maxim knew what a Mach disc was in the early 1900s, but he soon figured out that he had to first capture and then slow exiting propellant gas from a firearm in order to silence its report. Maxim used soft, malleable iron to form gas shearing baffles of various shapes, using stamping procedures and stepped metal forming technology. A brilliant engineering graduate of The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (at age 16) Maxim experimented with different techniques and baffle designs for capturing the violent blast of gas discharge – thus confining the (still unknown) Mach disc and slowing the velocity of the remaining gases below the speed of sound in air before they exited. His vision and hard work were eventually rewarded. At the age of 40, Maxim was awarded U.S. Patent No. 916,885 for his Silent Firearm, on March 30, 1909.

Maxim’s patent and deceptively simple baffle design resulted in a silencer about 1.35 inches in diameter by a touch under 5 inches long. Because all firearms of the day used relatively low, open sights, he developed his silencer with an unusual eccentric design that didn’t occlude the view of iron sights on rifles and pistols.

The Maxim Model 1909 silencer worked extremely well on .22 rimfire rifles, since they achieved a fair (but subsonic) bullet velocity with relatively low terminal gas pressure. The .22 caliber lead bullets of the day were covered with beeswax mixed with animal fat, which tended to protect a rifle’s bore. Highly corrosive materials in the priming and propellant gas required that a Maxim silencer be removed and boiled in soapy water after each and every use. It then had to be drained, dried and re-oiled to prevent destructive corrosion. Most of the early Maxim silencers have been ruined over the years because they lacked this high level of care. Almost all ammunition in the 21st century is now loaded with non-corrosive priming compounds and propellants, which currently negates the need for extreme care. Crud will continue to build up in .22 caliber silencers, but it will at least be non-corrosive crud.

The use of the 1.35 x 4.5-inch Model 1909 Maxim silencer on .22 rimfire rifles was very successful, but there must have been problems with rotation (clocking) of the narrow part of the can so that it could be nearest the top side of the weapon to which it was fitted. A silencer gets most of its axial alignment from mating with a shoulder at the base of threads on a barrel, with rotational alignment being almost an afterthought, initially. Rotational alignment is a real problem with an eccentric silencer, however, and thread wear (or QD coupling wear) eventually causes more and more rotation to occur. Thus a can that was properly affixed when new would eventually have the thicker side of its body intruding into the sight plane as threads and seat wore with use. Maxim provided an adaptor of hardened steel, with interrupted threads. This allowed the silencer to be easily attached and removed.

A perceived need for a thinner silencer design soon led to the adoption of the 1910 Model, which was about an inch longer in the body, smaller in diameter and considerably less effective. The longer, thinner 1910 Model silencer worked fairly well on both pistols and rifles, but it is not considered as desirable as the earlier 1909 model by suppressor cognoscenti. Again, the longer 1910 Model is much louder than the shorter, fatter, eccentric 1909 Model. An open space (containing no baffles) at the rear of the 1909 Model makes it more effective on a .22-rimfire rifle, but it still performs very well on a pistol.

Both models of silencers were sold by mail order, for about $5, a considerable sum back then. They shipped directly in a sturdy cardboard mailing tube with a metal screw cap, and with a U.S. postage stamp pasted directly on said cardboard tube. While the silencers were easily obtained, they required careful threading on a gunsmith’s lathe to prevent destructive baffle strikes by bullets. Major firearm manufacturers of the day sold weapons with factory-threaded barrels to accommodate Maxim silencers. Maxim also made hardened, interrupted thread couplings with shims that could be driven onto the ends of non-threaded barrels with a mallet. These fittings sometimes lacked accuracy because most barrels were not of standard and true dimension, but they did help with the difficult problem of rotational alignment. In truth, the fitting and installation of threads or a coupling by a gunsmith probably took a lot more time than it took the Maxim factory to actually manufacture the silencer itself. Few gun barrels are truly straight and concentric, especially those built in the early 1900s.

As the silencer industry progressed, quiet shooting became widely accepted. One was considered rude if he did not silence his firearm to avoid annoying family and neighbors during target practice. Finely crafted, stained and varnished Maxim boxes were filled with sand and used as indoor target backstops, so that target practice could be held indoors on special occasions and during festivities. The two-chambered boxes contained sand in the rear chamber to stop bullets. Densely packed rags in the front chamber kept the sand from leaking out. A replaceable wood panel in front kept the rags in place, and also provided a surface for mounting a target face.

Maxim and his silencers had a pretty good run for about 25 years. In the early 1930s, during the depths of the Great Depression, the U.S. Congress suddenly took it upon itself to ban all pistols in the country. This gun-grabbing act led to citizen anger and a massive public outcry. It resulted in a widespread and massive political correction during following congressional elections. The pistol ban was struck down in federal court, and quickly reversed a couple of years later. Unfortunately, some of the guilty legislators had another few years to run before their terms were up, and in 1934 they passed the National Firearms Act, which placed a restrictive tax on machine guns, shortened long firearms and a few related items.

This sudden legislative move in 1934 proved to be a devastating blow to the Maxim Silent Firearm Company. Fortunately for the survival of the company, it had already moved into the area of silencing internal combustion engines for motor-driven vehicles. Hiram Percy Maxim died a little more than a year later, from a very sudden illness.

Very few of the original, fragile, 1909 Maxim silencers exist today, most having been destroyed through loss, mishap, ATF confiscation or corrosion. Even though the Maxim silencer technology is over 100 years old today, it is still very good technology, and surprisingly effective in our contemporary world. It is interesting to occasionally use the historic Maxim 1909 silencers and compare them with what we have available today, since they are still quite competitive when used with subsonic rimfire ammunition and moderately long barrels.

The Maxim 1909 Model Silencer and Related Notes:

According to respected silencer expert Al Paulson, all of the original Maxim papers, patent drawings and original inked drawings remained in the hands of Maxim’s New York City attorney, who died many years ago. These were put into sealed storage in cardboard boxes in an attic of a law office in NYC, and only came to light about 10 years ago. At that time they were offered for sale for a handsome sum. I have not followed up on what became of them. I believe that they still exist, somewhere, and that the collection was not broken up. There is another collection of Maxim papers residing in a State Museum in Hartford, CT.

The original Maxim 1909 .22 LR silencer was said to have been the most effective of all of those built by the Maxim Company. It is easily the equal of many of those built during the 20th and 21st centuries. According to Al Paulson, the 1909 measured 4.88 inches in overall length by 1.35 inches in diameter. The main tube is a scant 4.55 inches in length. There is a 3.77-inch long groove pressed into the bottom of the dead soft tube, as a sort of key used to hold the baffles upright. The rear thread size is typically 1/2-20, RH. It weighs 6.8 ounces. In the past I have been able to examine an original Model 1909 that was attached to what apparently was at one time a Quackenbush .22 LR rifle, turned into a pistol and used for many years in a slaughterhouse. According to Al Paulson, the unit turned in a respectable 118 dB sound level when tested with 40-grain subsonic .22 LR ammunition on a pistol. The Model 1910 tested at 126 dB.

The Maxim 1909 used flat baffles with a deceptively simple, tiny scoop stamped into the rear face of each baffle with a punch. When used in combination with the eccentric design, the tiny scoops forced incoming propellant gas into the lower section of the eccentric can between each baffle. The 1909 Model was and still is remarkably effective. The two proximal (rearmost) baffles are of a thicker material and are about 3/8-inch apart. The rest of the baffles are about 1/4-inch apart, quite thin, and they go all the way up to the front end cap.

While brilliant in design, authentic Maxim construction is fragile. Maxim silencer construction was crimped, and it was definitely not solid. The dead soft metal in the main tube or body has very low tensile strength and little resiliency. Dropping the can on a hard surface could definitely injure alignment.

I am indebted to Al Paulson for clarification of a number of conflicting issues and information relating to the Maxim Silent Firearm Company. Because of the 100-year elapsed period of time there have been more than a few facts and events that took knowledge and research to reconfirm.

The first U.S. machine gun patent was issued to Samuel L. Farries of Middleton, Ohio in 1829. Eli Whitney progressed from his cotton gin invention, Samuel Colt started thinking full auto from the deck of a ship in international waters, John Browning (and his father) from a small workshop, and David (Carbine) Williams did it from a prison cell. All in the great American tradition of rugged individualism….

Once upon a time there were a handful of licensed firearms manufacturers (Class 02 SOT) who never reached the heights of Colt, Winchester, Remington, etc. Nor did they particularly aspire to. However, they played by the same rules, paid the same fees and taxes, held the same licenses, did the same paperwork and complied with the same baffling array of Federal, state and local laws. They were self-financed, self-employed, and self-driven. This cadre started a revolution in the early 1980s within the firearms community and some made a mark for themselves and their wares. They were a testimony to the classic American entrepreneur trying to build a better mousetrap. They daringly offered custom services to a marketplace that was closeted, secretive, largely ignorant and very, very small. That marketplace was what we call the NFA Community, or the Class 03 community. Good and bad, glad and sad, full of passion and insight, they climbed a mountain only to fall to the sea.

What these Knights did was full auto conversions on semiautomatic firearms. Specifically, they applied their own individual hands-on re-engineering techniques customized to a selection of firearms – some which have even escaped the most recent media-induced misnomer of “semiautomatic assault weapons.” Going where few had publicly dared go before; each had his unique handle on firearms technology. Each Knight figured out a conversion technique and refined it as best as a small production machine shop equipment would take them. Most had no training, or manuals, instructions or factory parts to work with. It was frequently seat-of-the-pants work.

Collectively we might call them “custom conversion military weapons experts,” which would be an over-simplification. Some may have been gunsmiths or armorers. Most were inventors. Some had military experience. Most had few real world credentials as firearms designers. But in reality, most could actually take a block of raw steel and cut away everything that didn’t look like a gun and it would shoot when they were done. Every conversion was an adventure and a new challenge. Largely, they had to re-invent the wheel. If parts were needed, they made them, often carving out the bits and pieces by hand. Later, molds were made to cast perfected sear designs or other pieces of their conversion techniques. Every customer had to be educated because they had forever been told, “All machine guns are illegal,” and all believed it. Everyone knew it was very, very, expensive. Except what our Knights were offering wasn’t.

Almost every collector and shooter could now have affordable rock n’ roll. What a concept – be still my heart! The start of my instructional talk to potential customers who were almost always misinformed went something like this: “If you don’t run dope, horses, or women, if you pay your taxes and back alimony, have been a good boy all your life and are not a known ne’er-do-well in your neck of the woods, you too can own one of these fine machine guns!”

Back in The Day, if you could sign a yellow (then) sheet Form 4473 and not lie to any of the questions and could get the local sheriff or police chief to sign the law enforcement section (not a certainty at all), could paste a photo on the Form 4 which didn’t make you look like a miscreant and could acquire a gun and the money to get it converted to full auto by one of the aforementioned Knights, then Yes! You could come to the party and bring your own fast gun and put out a heart-thumping, flame-spewing, put-hair-on-your-chest, singe your eyebrows and bloody your nose glorious exhibition of firepower.

These little no-name Knights had to be ferreted out. You had to know someone who knew someone who heard it from a guy at work, etc. When you finally stumbled across the threshold of their machine shops, usually hidden discreetly in out-of-the-way places, you were beside yourself with glee. You had entered the domain of genius, daring-do, and joyful noise.

Greeted by a test-firing rat-a-tat-tat staccato of 9mm or .223, you paused for breath and prayed you could get past the gnarly security barrier. Rarely did you encounter anyone other than The Man Himself. This fellow likely greeted you from across his lathe or from behind his milling machine hollering he’d “be with you in a minute.” Wiping his brow and hands on a greasy shop rag, he would shake your hand and ask what he could do for you. Oh, My! (Breathe slowly, please.)

In due course, you would hand over your AR-15, your sleek H&K, or maybe an Uzi or an AK type. Any one of three-dozen or so likely conversion candidates. Your investment was in steps: buy a gun, pay for the conversion, pay the tax stamp, and buy ammo & accessories. Workable money for most people. After months of anticipation and frequent high anxiety attacks, you would receive The Call. Your gun is ready, your paperwork has cleared, and yes, a case of ammo is being held for you. You had attained the headiest of all firearms acquisitions – your first NFA firearm.

Yes, there was almost always a second and a third, ad infinitum. Potato chips have nothing on these goodies for not being able to have just one. It wasn’t about addiction. It was the unending thrills …of the hunt, of successfully negotiating the morass of lawful acquisition, the expenditure of significant monies from a working man’s budget, the lawful ownership of that which many people aspire to and would never obtain, and the lawful and necessary commitment to becoming the ultimate gun owner. Thrill-seekers abound, because you got to shoot it!

Our motley Knights did not have the support of the firearms industry, nor of the proclaimed “traditional” gun owning public. (Yes, you surely detect my aggrieved sneer at the memory of those who looked away with distain. They didn’t “get it” about how important it is for Americans to own military firearms… Bless their hearts.) Many Americans including “traditional” gun owners just refuse to understand that the Second Amendment outlines that Americans have a citizenship duty to come to the defense of the nation, bearing the arms of the day (i.e. military weapons being used by the military of our times. See: M1, M14, M16.). Furthermore, we are to be fully equipped to take care of business and be fully trained. That’s not something you do after 3 days at boot camp with the first real gun you ever saw. Our Freedoms in the First Amendment stand on the shoulders of the Second. Without adherence and exercise of the Second, we got diddily, friends. Our American Republic becomes a toothless on-paper-only tiger and we can only cower under our beds and hope nobody wants a piece of us. While the idea of making these conversions and owning them in the early 1980s is discussed as “fun,” the fact is that martial enthusiasts have always coincided with free, strong populations.

The Knights weren’t schlepping hunting guns, or shiny engraved collectibles, or respectable vintage 6-shooters. What they worked on had mostly black finishes, often less than perfectly manufactured (to the point of ugly); and were the semi-auto civilian versions of business guns. Not even that mighty behemoth, the NRA, acknowledged either the converted guns or the Knights’ existence, until much later when forced to acknowledge their contributions …both good and bad.

In May 1986, the infamous statute 922(o) of the McClure-Volkmer Firearms Owners Protection Act took all the fun out of it. The door that was slammed closed hit the collective noses of future NFA would-be owners. (And undermined, desecrated and negated the Second Amendment for what has seemed like an eternity.)

The Knights of the Black ‘N Ugly Armories created some of BATF’s worst nightmares. They managed to “paper” some of the oddest items… as there were few rulings on what made each particular firearm an NFA weapon. BATF had to make it up as things rolled along as new techniques reared their ugly heads. Mired in a morass of arcane and hard to understand laws created by our elected representatives, filtered through decades of regulatory rulings and assorted confusing muck, the BATF and the NFA manufacturers were frequently adrift in uncharted waters. Various Class 02s declared everything from a shoelace used to convert a Mini-14 to buckets of unfinished FA sears as “machine guns.” There were few firearms experts at BATF and frequently they had to accept the word of the 02 manufacturers as to what made a particular gun a machine gun. Some items were papered simply to protect the 02 from possible BATF adverse action. If an 02 deigned to declare a gum wrapper or piece of tin foil as an NFA weapon, BATF had to accept it as such. This was not the free ride it sounds like. Conversely, if it could be used to do the deed, you had to paper it or risk the consequences of committing an illegal act. There was bickering, squabbling, hassles and the occasional integrity issue to be dealt with. No industry support and no free legal backup protection or rights organization protecting Class 03 were available. Some Knights knew what they were doing, some were wily, some were very good at their inventiveness, and some were butchers.

Collectively, our Knights produced tens of thousands of affordable, shootable, NFA Class 03 guns and hardware. Class 03’s will never be boring, same-same, or cheap to shoot. Once upon a time, these were cheap(er) to own. Now, alas, it is a rich man’s hobby. Due to the unholy aberration in 1986: Pioneering… MIA. Expertise… aging. Availability… mostly gone into some collector’s “Black Hole” – that’s “where guns go in and don’t come out.” Affordability… get serious. This is the laugh that hurts.

From our Knights came forth ingenuity and invention, progress and new design. They did everything the hard way. They sacrificed and they pioneered. Nobody financed the R&D. Projects gone awry, mistakes, false starts, dead ends, and losses were absorbed by them, not some giant conglomerate owned by foreign investors. They got their hands dirty and rarely made any real money for themselves. They crossed the lines drawn in the sand. They stood against the tide. Each Knight was on his own. As independent thinkers and doers, it should make it hard to throw stones at them now, yet people do.

I am no sideline observer to all of this. I can claim to be an eyewitness, a participant, a supporter, and a partner. I have labored on the Class 02/03 line since 1982. From the firing line, I occasionally still dance with the one that brung me, an RPB SMG M-1l/.380 ACP. I have shot more than my share of all kinds of guns. Trust me; cold dead fingers are not very useful with any of them. However, I submit to you that if it’s not black n’ ugly, 850 RPM or more with an 8 pound trigger pull, it’s not real shooting!

So if you own an NFA firearm or even its semi-auto counterpart, you likely need to thank the small, mostly unknown and unlauded, Class 02 Licensee. These are folks who carry the American Warrior Spirit within and forward. I applaud our modern Knights who are responsible for keeping faith with the Second Amendment and using their expertise, skills and talents to progress forward firearms technology, our military might and our civilian readiness. They are indeed the real traditionalists.

(Linda and the late J. D. Farmer, Jr. worked together as Hard Times Armory, Inc. now in Kennesaw, GA. Converting a considerable selection of semi-autos to NFA select-fires and producing suppressor and silencer designs, Mr. Farmer was the plaintiff in Farmer vs. Higgins seeking to overturn the 1986 ban. Linda remains in the business and continues to be infamous for her opinions.)