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Warner & Swasey Tommy Guns?

Tom1

Stainless
Joined
Jan 28, 2003
Location
Stamford, CT
I was on a web site that was claiming that W&S made the original Thompson Machine guns for Auto Ordnance Corp. Ive never seen another reference to this. These date from the 19 teens. Sometimes these things become of myth and lore in the plant. Ive know some plants that made stuff and even thou long gone, it was still the department that made the thing. So I am curious if its true or maybe, even maybe not.

Auto-Ordnance | History
 
Tommy Guns

I was with Warner & Swasey from 1960 to 1984 as a regular apprentice then a Service/Sales Eng. and never heard that we mfg. guns of any type.
 
FWIW
In my years with W/S I never heard-of or saw any weapons or wearpon parts production. Also never saw any history mentioning production of weapons.
In the early seventies I was assigned some tool design work for a customer that was included as part of a machine and tooling "package" for machining a large bore artillery breech part.

I do know W/S sold Sniper Scopes in the WW 1 era that command high dollars from collectors today:

Warner & Swasey 1903 Springfield Rifle Scope Sniper Rig - eBay (item 250605020301 end time Apr-03-10 07:39:18 PDT)

JJH
 
the first thompsons were developed at W&S heres the scoop
link to the full story below

At the start, Auto Ordnance Corp. was pretty much a corporation in name only. They had no offices, property or machinery. So all prototypes and machine work had to be contracted out. For help, Thompson turned to his friends, W.R. Warner and Ambrose Swasey; whom Thompson had come to know from the contracts that their Cleveland, Ohio based machine tool business, the Warner & Swasey Co. had with the Army Ordnance Dept. Warner & Swasey were very interested in the project and provided Thompson with several of their best engineers and machinists. They also provided a testing room in the basement of their plant at 5809 Carneige Ave. (shown on the map). By 1919, Auto Ordnance Corp. would occupy office space in the Meriam building on Euclid Ave., and move it’s operations to a larger machine shop at the Sabin Machine Company, also on Carneige Ave.
mike

The History of auto-ord
 








 
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