Local county selling Colt Thompson

[dee]

http://m.texomashomepage.com/display/12679/story/ef05f58f2049dbd6f7f24fb8e947b172

Wilbarger County Sheriff's Office Selling Rare 1920s Machine Gun

3/4/15 11:34 AM

Gun collectors, pay attention, because the Wilbarger County Sheriff's Office plans to sell a rare, fully automatic machine gun from the 1920s.


Wilbarger County Sheriff Larry Lee says this 1920s Colt Thompson was obtained in the late 1930s by a former sheriff, free of charge, from a U.S. Navy surplus and has been locked up in a vault for 70 years.


Lee says the gun is a rare 1921 model overstamped later with the year 1928 when the company began selling leftover '21 models.


He says the gun is fully functional and has only been fired a few times.


Lee says the gun is valued at more than $30,000 and selling it would benefit the community.


"A gun that's this valuable I can sell and use those proceeds to buy all of my deputies new side arms, new rifles to carry in their patrol units; something that's going to make our officers safer, help protect the citizens and it's not going to cost our citizens one penny," Lee says.*


You can check out the gun for yourself by making an appointment with Hath at Butch's Guns in Vernon.

[Moose242]

Love when this happens.

You would be surprised how many transferable machineguns are sitting in police armories across the US.

[dee]

Agreed. I wish they would do it more often.

The local pd here had a bunch of pre ban mp5's a while back and sold most of them as well. They still have 2 or 3 but don't ever use them. They have a couple other preban rifles as well but are sitting on them too.

[Moose242]

Agreed. I wish they would do it more often.

The local pd here had a bunch of pre ban mp5's a while back and sold most of them as well. They still have 2 or 3 but don't ever use them. They have a couple other preban rifles as well but are sitting on them too.

The problem is that those MP5s would not be transferable because of the '68 GCA. No MP5s made it into US PDs before the GCA.

They could have been title I hk94s thoughs. Lots of agencies used those for some reason.

[dee]

The problem is that those MP5s would not be transferable because of the '68 GCA. No MP5s made it into US PDs before the GCA.

They could have been title I hk94s thoughs. Lots of agencies used those for some reason.

Interesting. The guy over that particular area said they were mp5's but that would not be the first time a cop was wrong. I know whatever it is that they stopped using them because mags were a pain to get and didn't last long.

[kingjason]

My old department had a few of the MP5's just sitting in the armory. Same deal, not allowed to sell them, and really just never used them. Had tons of ammo though so thy would get pulled out at the range every now and again, but really a waste.

[Moose242]

My old department had a few of the MP5's just sitting in the armory. Same deal, not allowed to sell them, and really just never used them. Had tons of ammo though so thy would get pulled out at the range every now and again, but really a waste.

Shame. I was at a police qualification/demo a while back and the guys said the same thing. One of the older guys said back in the day he carried on for SRT and whatnot, but now they wont even let them out of the armory. Strange.

HK seriously made a KILLING selling those damn things in the 80s and 90s. Now they just rot away or occasionally get cut up into parts.

[David]

Most PDs can't get rid of MP5s without taking a huge loss on them. Limited on who to sell to and they're not going to make enough off of them to offset any new expenses toward new guns and optics.

[racrguy]

I'm ignorant on MP5's, but don't they make a really good cqb weapon for the PD's, or do they tend to stick to pistols for that?

[Moose242]

I'm ignorant on MP5's, but don't they make a really good cqb weapon for the PD's, or do they tend to stick to pistols for that?

In a limited capacity. Most jurisdictions will not allow full auto for all but the higher end swat folks, and even that is rare.

The advent of the short, cheap 5.56 rifle has dethroned the MP5 with police.

[dee]

In a limited capacity. Most jurisdictions will not allow full auto for all but the higher end swat folks, and even that is rare.

The advent of the short, cheap 5.56 rifle has dethroned the MP5 with police.

Our swat all carry full auto. The mp5's were common but like you referenced have lost out to full auto 14" barrel ar platforms. There are a couple what I think are HK53 but not sure as a lot of the hk stuff looks alike.

[Moose242]

Nice. I know in the 80s my boss at TFB had an MP5SD on his SRT team but said they never once used full auto in any altercation. It really does have a limited use in law enforcement due to potential collateral damage, etc. but I do think they should still have it for things like the LA bank robbery and whatnot (for specially trained officers).

[Chas_svo]

Any idea what they think the value for one is? Are any of them just semi?

[Moose242]

What the value of this Thompson is?

[kingjason]

Any idea what they think the value for one is? Are any of them just semi?

I think when I looked them up a few years ago they were between 3500 and 5000, but that might have been during the big AR scare. I think the only two options are cut them up, or donate them to another department, IIRC. Geez we had a mound of old ass 9mm that worked about 90 percent of the time thanks to those things. Yes the AR platform won out over the MP5's. Also we went to a regional swat team and the rifles were assigned when we had our own team.