O.K. here is my annual "Where in the F*** is it thread"

Several years ago Florida Gun Traders said they sold the rights to "someone" and it would be back in production shortly.

IF it was in production I think they would not be able to keep up with demand, a 72 round drum in a 9mm AR. Think about it with a Slidefire Stock

I can't believe that one of the several hundred AR manufacturers out there won't offer this.










IF I could get my hands on one of the adaptors I could generate a blueprint.

Is that a lightning link?

Yeah, it's a photo I found on Google images.

It's not pretty, but I love the idea of it.

Yep. I have wanted one of these since I got a Suomi and a bunch of drums.
Can't find one anywhere.

How much would you be willing to spend on one?

Saw one of those hanging on the wall at FL Ammo Traders when I worked at Serbu.  I bought a Tommy 15 lower and a bunch of Sten  mags and an Oly upper.

Was always intrigued by the drum fed 9mm AR.

Adaptor or complete lower???

Do they make it in 45?

 

It would have to be built as a complete gun....between the mods to the lower, the bolt, and the upper  to get the feed tower (such as it is) up into the upper receiver to make it able to use an unmodified Soumi drum, it has to be built as a system, and as the bolt will have to be narrowed to clear the single feed  feed lips, it is really the only way to do it.
Bolt mods could be eliminated by using an Olympic upper.....but not sure how it'll affect the Olympic ejector.
It COULD be done as a production set of parts, but the expense to tool for it would be considerable, so it would have to be done as a one off hand crafted gun.
I suspect the reason it never made it to production is the expense of producing all the parts. To do any quantity would require thousands of dollars in just expendable tooling......not to mention a lot of operations on a 4 axis horizontal......would have to have several hundred units sold to make it cost effective to do all the engineering and set up for production.



Don't believe one has been done.....and building one with a Thompson drum presents a whole different batch of issues as it loads in the magwell from the side rather than the bottom like the Soumi or PPSh41 drum.....requiring the bolt to bolt to be locked to the rear to load it into the weapon.....

$650sh for upper/lower & bolt & 9mm fcg parts.
Complete? I dunno. I kind of want to set one up how I want it.

Even for a production unit I don't think that would be feasable.....not because cost couldn't be pulled down through production numbers, I don't think the demand is there to justify the numbers that would have to be made to to get it into that range, plus the dependence on a surplus magazine that is no longer in production. As a one off custom build I'd expect something in the $2000 to $3000 range......I've done a LOT of one offs for myself over the years and it is amazing how much I've spent (cash and time) on something that just begged to be built....................when you start fabricating one offs it gets real time consuming
I't is like gas blocks......making one manually is about 16 seperate operatons and takes about a week to do a run of 40.......where we run 500 on the cnc in the same ammount of time.

It WAS a production weapon. I don't have a clue how many were manufactured.

Olympic Arms did the uppers & lowers for Tommy15. As I understand it it used a standard Olympic 9mm upper EXCEPT for the relief cuts for the drum.

Don't get me wrong....I agree it is a cool as hell toy.......and I have a box of bits and pieces saved up to build one for myself......
But bottom line it WAS a production gun....if it had been profitable it probably still would be. I'll probably spend a couple of weeks of evenings and weekends when I get around to building one for myself....and will do it with some rather creative setups......but you'll hold your breath and do things on the cheap for a one off that you can't do on a production run......I very well could be wrong...but I don't see it as a something that would sell enough to justify the expense of production.If I get flooded with inquiries we'll sure give it a rethink.....

If someone wanted to do a home build I'd suggest starting with one of Jack Squats Soumi Magwells.....  Jack Squat Soumi Magwell
I have one of the original 2XTM magwells in the parts box but I ain't letting it go...

been sitting here pondering it......would be much simplier if the magwell and upper were made as one piece and the lower along the lines of an HK trigger pack....sort of forget the mod of AR receivers and just make the parts as originals.........as long as it will accept AR stocks and forearms and have a flat top railed upper it would still be configurable.......and not like the modded AR parts from the original are usable on anything else..... I'll try and devote a few hours to it in the next couple of weeks.....see if I can come up with a proof of concept model.

I think that there were SEVERAL reasons it's gone...

The adaptor was RIDICULOUS in price ($295.00) that was for JUST the drum holder, not the lower or any other part of it. I also understand it was a relatively weak casting as several members who have one have mentioned they had to have a new adaptor manufactured.

It was not well advertised, you have to also consider the AR market in the early to mid 2000's. It was nowhere near as large as it is now.

Also, during that time frame 9mm AR's were considered "oddballs".

Today its entirely a different ball game.

now thats interesting



 

I have one of the Jack Squat adapters and one of his weld together lower kits too.  One day I'll assemble them and make my own drum fed mag lower.

Looks like a magwell could be fabbed up for an MGI Hydra lower if one were so inclined.

Something along the lines of moving the pivot pin to just behind the lower end of the magwell?   That would allow field stripping to be nearly identical to a standard AR.