I have seen a few times where AR15 members have called the Mac junk.
I know a lot of guys just like bashing anything to look cool or knowledgeable and have never seen a real gun but it got me thinking. Sure Mac's are inexpensive machine guns but that is because there are many more of them than other machine guns, not because they are inferior.  Is this why people get the idea they are junk?

I can honestly say that a Mac10 is the most durable gun I know of. The simple blowback operation combined with the way the one piece carrier spring system works makes it very reliable as well.  How anyone who has actually shot a Mac could call it junk just makes no sense to me. I am not saying it is a precision rifle with a 4 pound trigger and high tech sights I am just saying it is a simple, extremely tough gun that works.

* All moving parts besides the cocking handle are encased in the receiver.
*The solid steel receivers are 1/10'' thick!
*The upper actually slides into the lower and is not just held together by pins, the front pin basically just stops the upper from sliding forward.  
*The sights are thick steel welded directly to the receiver.
*The barrel threads directly into the steel receiver and is about an inch thick on the exterior of the receiver besides the muzzle threads.
*The pistol grip is steel welded directly to the lower receiver.
*The trigger guard is also 1/10'' steel welded to the receiver and pistol grip adding strength to both.
If any gun could be ran over by a tank or dropped from a 5 story building onto concrete and still work it would be a Mac.

If anyone knows of a gun more durable than a Mac please let me know what it is and why.

I agree with your points. All are valid.

Yet how many agencies and countries adopted and fielded the MAC?

Not because it is not robustly built, but perhaps reliably hitting intended targets?

There is that....it seems robust, but most other designs are easier to get hits with.

UZI had the clandestine game sewn up. That left the civilian market for Cobray. If I remember correctly.

Agreed. I think it's original intent was to spray rounds in close combat. With fairness though, a Mac with a Lage upper is likely on par with any sub gun ''even the most modern designs'' in that respect.

You remember wrong!

There was sales to central and south America.  Some not necessarily authorized.

For a period in the late 1970s to early 1980s the Ingram M10 with suppressor was the issue SMG for the U.S. Marshals Service.

When the DUSMs asked how they became an issue SMG the answer was as follows.

"They were seized by U.S. Customs on the way to "vote" in a South American election. Once seized, the USMS requisitioned them for official use!"



Our Man in Powder Springs: Mitch WerBell


http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=2359


History of the Ingram MAC 10

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC-10


History of Cobray

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobray_Company

How much does a MAC10 go for these days?

Thanks for the links.



 

There was a very uncomplimentary review of the M10 and M11 in Soldier of Fortune magazine back in the day. Problems with reliability, the stock collapsing itself, etc. Given what an influential publication it was back then, it would not surprise me if this colored popular perception for a long time to come.

When I was working with the 1st Special Operations School at Hurlburt Field, we had a couple MAC-10s we used in demonstrations.  One developed a cracked receiver and was for table display only. The other one worked alright and we used it for firing at water filled barrels at 10 meters for rate of fire demonstrations and suppressed vs. unsuppressed fire.  It was fun and fast to empty a magazine but there were only three of us authorized to fire it.  The folding portion of the stock had a nasty habit of occasionally collapsing from recoil that made it a dangerous weapon to fire. When the stock collapsed, the rails would shoot back under your arm and there was the potential of shooting yourself in the face if you weren't Johnny on the spot getting off that trigger quick!  
Does that actually happen?  I can say first hand that yes, it does, because it happened to me!  It collapsed while during a familiarization shooting day (yeah, burning up govie ammo for fun and some level of training....but mainly fun) and while I was quick at getting off the trigger without injury from a 9 mil pill to my dome piece, I was not able to dodge the rail that came back and busted up my lip! LOL  We later developed a safer way to use it by hooking the buttstock under our armpit, hooking it behind our shoulder and push forward when firing to provide some measure of control while not having the stock collapsing back on us.  
Like I said, it was fast and it was fun but I don't think I would bother spending money on one when there are far better SMGs out there like the Swedish K (my favorite) for example but that story's for another day.

Continuing to use a weapon that is broke or malfunctioning is simply unsafe.  If no one knew how to fix it and no gun smith was available the guns should have been put away until they were fixed.  Whoever was in charge that allowed a machine gun with a known problem to continue to be used should be fired.
A cracked Mac receiver is something I have never heard of and it being part of the 2 guns makes it sound to me like these guns were meant to be taken from use or repaired at an armory but ended up at this Operations school instead.

That's just it though, the stocks weren't broken but it's just a flaw of the design.  IIRC, they locked open with a pin that would pop out into a hole on a plate attached to the arm struts.  In order to fold it back up, you squeeze the wires together popping the pin out of that hole and then it would fold up.  Now combine the recoil from that bullet hose jarring the stock around and if your body pressed on it at the right spot at the wrong time, it disengages that pin out of the detent and up it folds as you're firing.  Other SMG designs like the Sterling, MP5, UZI, M12, Swedish K and M3 didn't have this problem, just the MACs we had.  Both of them had this same problem including the one that finally broke the receiver.  Hell, even the Czech Scorpion we had didn't have this problem and I never considered that stock to be exactly heavy duty either.  One might have been a sign of a broken gun but when the same thing happens on other guns, (not to mention other shooters that have had this same thing happen)  it begins to be a design flaw.  In it's day, it was one of the most compact SMGs available and it is still considered a very compact gun even today but there's a reason it has never seen general issue and usage on the scale of other designs.

I would never use a wire stock because they are all crap anyway but they come on the gun and get use by someone so they should work.  I do not have personal experience with the Mac stock collapsing but I looked into it and this is what I figured out.  The stock collapsing on the Macs happen from the locking pin and the lock up channel on the stock becoming worn and not fitting tight, also the tension spring on the stock loosing strength over time.   So this is partly a design flaw for not making the stock more durable and partly  poor maintenance for not replacing the worn parts when they happen.
I feel like a gun should last forever but in reality parts wear out and need replaced eventually.  So the stock collapsing is not just a design flaw, it is from wear and age.

1.  Yes, the stocks were malfunctioning and should have been repaired.  The notches on the arms my become become rounded from being worn in.  That can -- and should have been checked and/or replaced.  Stocks are the "weak point" in the MAC design.

2.  It is possible (and likely) that the spring on the stock retaining plate was worn and weakened.  It should have been replaced.  It does become weak.

3.  The only real way that a MAC will break the welds in its receiver is either A.) it is a spot-welded Texas MAC that was created when they were just trying to register as many as possible before the cut-off. Those should be properly welded before shooting.  Or B.) some moron fired the MAC without a buffer or with a worn buffer.  The MAC design REQUIRES a buffer, or it will damage the receiver.


You cannot fault a firearm for not being properly maintained or repaired.  And ALL MGs require maintenance and occasional repair.  The last time I was at my Class III dealer, he had half of the HK MP5SDs of the local police department in doing routine maintenance on them.

Depending on the manufacture, condition, accessories, you are looking at anywhere between $4,500 to $5,500.  If it has a Lage MkII upper, you'll pay in the $6K range.

You'll pay a little more for a M11/9mm due to more aftermarket accessories and the fact that many prefer its compactness over the M10.  The M-11 .380 is the cheapest of the MACs-- mainly due to caliber and lack of aftermarket parts.

I paid $5,000 for my RPB/Powder Springs Double Stamp M10/9mm a year ago.

The Mac series where designed to be cheap and disposable.  They where not a milled Thompson or a high end MP5 or Sterling.  The stock was a known design flaw, another was the pistol grip was tac welded at the rear.  When (not if) this weld eventually broke, the grip would pull away from the frame causing miss feeds.   It is what it is.  In civilian use, the Mac is babied and cared for.  In professional use, as i said, they are disposable.

ka