Firearm Factory of the Month: Auto Ordnance

The story of Auto-Ordnance and the factories in which they were built has to start with the man who started it all: John Taliaferro Thompson.

John Taliaferro Thompson had a huge impact on American small arms. He was born into a military family in Newport, Kentucky on December 31st, 1860 to Lt Col James Thompson and Maria Thompson (Taliaferro).
His Father was a career Military Man and Thompson grew up an "Army Brat", living on various military bases. 
He graduated from the United States Military Academy-West Point in 1882. After a attending engineering and ordnance schools he was appointed to the Ordnance Department in 1890.
He served as the Chief Ordnance Officer for the Cuban Campaign during the Spanish-American War.
In addition it was Thompson who was responsible for forming the Gatling Gun unit that proved effective in the famous battle of San Juan Hill.

An ordnance approval stamp by John T Thompson on a Colt Philippine model of 1902 

Thompson's contributions to the world of firearms was just beginning. After the 4 month war, Thompson was appointed Chief of the Small Arms Division of the Ordnance Department. There he supervised the development of the M1903 Springfield rifle.

As a member of the Ordnance Board he witnessed the trials for the military sidearm and voted to approve the M1911 pistol.

In the summer of 1914 World War I broke out in Europe. While the U.S. Government refrained from entering, they were supporting their allies with weapons.
Thompson saw an opportunity for a machine gun he had been envisioning. He retired from the Army in November of 1914 and began working for Remington as Chief Engineer. There he oversaw the construction of the Arsenal plant at the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Eddystone, PA. When complete it was the largest small arms plant in the world.
It was during the early days of the War that Thompson began experimenting with automatic weapon design.
Thompson rejoined the Army when the U.S. entered the Great War in 1917. He was promoted to Brigadier General and supervised small arms production.
When the guns fell silent, he again retired from the Army (Dec 1918). Thompson immediately began working on a concept that he felt would dominate the trench warfare that was seen in the Great War, little did he know that WWII would be nothing like WWI.

His experimenting led him to believe a submachine gun, chambered in the M1911's 45 ACP cartridge, would be just the ticket. He called it the "Trench Broom".
Thompson decided on a delayed recoil operated design using the Blish system. A deal was struck with John Blish which included shares in the new company he was starting. 

With the help of some investors (including magnate Thomas Fortune Ryan) Thompson incorporated the Auto-Ordnance Corporation in 1916 with its headquarters in New York City. 

On December 1st, 1920 Thompson applied for a patent for his new rifle, it was awarded patent #1,425,808 on the 15th of August, 1922.

The new rifle was dubbed the Thompson Submachine Gun model of 1921.

Thompson, nor Blish had the means to produce the rifle and so Thompson entered into a contract with Colt's Patent Firearms Co. We can assume Colt was hungry for work, with the war and lucrative contracts having come to an end.

In addition to being shown to Government Ordnance personnel the gun was marketed to Law Enforcement both at home and abroad. It saw some success, but not really enough to keep the company afloat.

In March of 1932 Thompson finally got the U.S. Army to adopt the Tommy Gun as a "non-essential, limited procurement" basis. By this time the gun had undergone some design changes.

It also got much unwanted attention from the organized crime syndicates that were created as a result of prohibition. It seems the Tommy Gun was popular with the lawless men like John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson. One particularly ugly event happened on Valentines Day, 1929 in Chicago, but that is a whole story unto itself.
These events earned the gun one of its many nicknames: "The Chicago Typewriter".

The lawlessness led misguided politicians to deal another blow to the company when it passed  the National Firearms Act of 1934. Although Thompson had designed a semi-automatic version of the Tommy Gun, their biggest seller was the full auto unit. The act regulated and taxed fully automatic weapons to the point of obscurity.
Back at the Army, 1936 brought a new hope for the Tommy Gun as the military changed its procurement status to "standard". In September of 1938 the gun received it's official designation as the "Submachine Gun Caliber .45, M1928A1". Still the orders from the Army were few and far between, somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 Tommy Guns were purchased by the Army before WWII.

Meanwhile inside Auto-Ordnance, there was a power struggle. One of the investors, Thomas Fortune Ryan, had passed and his heirs had been trying to liquidate the company to get at their inheritance. After years of bickering the majority of shareholders agreed to a buy out funded by a Texas oil-man named (John) Russell Maguire.
The next year things started to change for the company, war had broken out in Europe again and the French Government placed an order for 3000 Tommy Guns, an order worth $750,000. Soon the British placed orders for additional Tommy Guns.

With the control of the company in the hands of others, Thompson could only watch.....John Taliaferro Thompson died at the age of 79 on June 21st 1940.

By this time the entire inventory of Colt produced Tommy Guns had been sold (some 15,000 units) and Auto-Ordnance needed to build more. They went to Colt, contracts in hand and were turned down. Colt was also swimming in European contracts and was at or near capacity.

The Auto-Ordnance team then went to Savage in Utica, NY. Savage agreed to the contract but was not sure if they could meet the demand. So a search was made for a factory in which to build the guns. We have seen this same story with other manufacturers of weapons, wars just don't provide enough notice.

The company purchased a campus of 5 buildings on Railroad Avenue in Bridgeport, CT.
The building was formally used as a brake relining facility by the Raybestos-Manhattan Company. The campus was on the same street, just a couple of doors down, from where the Sharps Rifle Company produced guns in the 1870s. 

The new factory would build the upper and lower receivers and other components with Savage and other small subcontractors supplying the balance. The guns were assembled in Bridgeport.

In August of 1941 the first of the Bridgeport guns were ready for shipment.
By February of 1942, the U.S. was engaged in WWII and the Auto-Ordnance had shipped its 500,000th gun.
In April of 1942 the redesigned Tommy Gun (redesigned to speed up production and lower the cost) was re-designated "US Submachinegun, Caliber 45, M1". 
More orders came in and soon 90,000 Tommy Guns came off the assembly line each month.
Things seemed rosy at Auto-Ordnance, but there was trouble on the horizon....... 

U.S. Army Ordnance personnel had been inspecting captured German submachine guns like the MP38 and MP40

The construction techniques used to build the MP 38 included stamped steel parts. The gun was cheaper, easier and faster to build than the Tommy gun which required a lot of machining in addition to being much heavier.
In October of 1942 the US Army began experimenting with a similar design, rather than 9mm Parabellum, these were chambered in the .45 ACP cartridge.

This new submachine gun could be built for about $15, where as the Thompson cost more than $100. The weight was also reduced from 10.8 lbs to 8.15 lbs.

After testing it was approved for adoption as the "US Submachinegun Caliber .45 M3". It became known as the "Grease Gun" due to it's receiver matching the size and shape of a tool used to pump grease into zerk fittings.

By the end of 1944, the M3 Grease Gun had replaced the Thompson, no more Thompsons were made in Bridgeport after 1944.

After the war, Auto-Ordnance became a subsidiary of Maguire Industries. The Bridgeport factory was retro-fitted to produce radios, record players and other consumer goods.
The remaining guns, parts and tools were crated up and put into storage.
In 1945 the assets of the Auto-Ordnance Company were sold, then sold again, finally ending up in the hands of newly formed Numrich Arms Company. 
Numrich Arms was located in West Hurley, NY. They specialized in gun parts. They sold used parts, surplus parts and even manufactured some parts. 
Using the leftover parts from storage Numrich assembled and sold a dozen or two Thompsons per year until 1961 when they ran out of receivers.

In 1975 Numrich Arms re-incorporated the Auto-Ordnance name and received approval from government channels to begin producing the Thompson guns in both semi and fully automatic configurations.
Production ended in 1986, presumably due to lack of sales, driven by its high cost. It seems the Thompson was still expensive to produce.
In 1999 Kahr Arms purchased the rights, designs, names and parts from Numrich Arms. By this time machining technology had advanced and much of the labor could be performed by computer controlled machines. In 1921 what used to cost $200 ($2,880 in 2020 dollars) now costs about 1/2 that ($1500 +/-).


What Remains


Kahr Arms continues to produce the M1927A1 version of the Tommy Gun. They produce several variants in different finishes, see the line up here.

Of the 4 or 5 buildings on Railroad Ave, only one still stands. One was removed for the construction of I-95 and the others were destroyed by fire in the 1990's.

The triangle shaped building below is all that remains, it sits on the corner of Railroad Ave and Bostick Ave at 1437 Railroad Ave in Bridgeport.

Numrich Arms changed their name to Gun Parts Corp (although they hold onto the Numrich name) and continues in the gun parts business today

Gun Parts is still in West Hurley, occupying the buildings scene in the satellite image below

Sources:
Bridgeport Library
Small Arms Review
NFA Toys
CT Post
Gun Parts Corp
Auto Ordnance
Wikipedia