A Unique Review of the MAC 10 Submachine Gun

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Mack Bolan, the Executioner, slowed his gold Pontiac Trans Am to a slow rumble and pulled it around the corner to park in the shade of an expansive oak. Los Angeles was hot this time of year, even this late in the day, so he left the windows rolled down. Bolan twirled a matchstick absentmindedly in his teeth as he watched the humanity come and go from the derelict drug den half a block distant. Twenty minutes later, a massive ghetto sled pulled up in front of the house, and the local drug kingpin, Terrance Bostick, emerged. Bostick wore a massive gaudy fur-trimmed hat, a short purple cape, and platform shoes. He gripped a silver-tipped walking cane in one hand. With the other he pulled a young girl squirming out of the back seat of the car. She looked to be no more than sixteen. Bolan’s hands tightened involuntarily on the steering wheel of his powerful Pontiac. It was time.

Bolan twisted in his seat to ensure that “Big Thunder,” his stainless .44 Auto Mag was positioned on his right hip. He had three 30-round magazines for his submachine gun stuffed into a leather pouch on the left to balance the weight. Smoothly opening the door, Bolan stepped out into the dying California light. He shut the door with his left hand. He had a GI-issue green raincoat draped over his right. Underneath the jacket rode a .45 ACP Ingram submachine gun with a long silencer threaded onto the muzzle. Bolan’s black turtleneck and dark sports jacket helped him melt into the shadows.

The Executioner crossed the half block to the drug den in moments. By the time the enforcer at the door recognized him as a threat and stood up from his lawn chair Bolan had the Ingram stuffed into his belly. He stroked the trigger and dropped the drug soldier with a soft four-round burst. Shoving the man’s cooling corpse aside, Bolan planted his heavy boot against the door and splintered it. At this point a lot of things happened very quickly.

There were five cartel soldiers in the battered old house along with Bostick and the young girl. As Bolan entered the dimly lit living room, he dropped the raincoat and brought the Ingram up and to the ready. Each of the two nearest enforcers got a suppressed burst to the chest that threw them back violently against the dark paneled wall. Bolan stripped the partially-spent magazine out of his stubby little SMG and replaced it with a fresh one from his belt.

The remaining three soldiers fell to Bolan’s violence of action and superlative combat marksmanship. It had only been three years since Bolan had been trudging through Laos with MACV-SOG. Those hard-earned skills now held him in good stead. By the time he reached the master bedroom Terence Bostick was standing in an open closet with his back against the wall.

The drug lord had the squirming girl pinned securely as a human shield, his ropy arm wrapped tightly around her neck. He held a chromed Colt Python to the terrified girl’s head. Bolan, for his part, couldn’t be sure how much ammo remained in the magazine of his SMG so he tossed it nonchalantly on the bed. Bostick relaxed ever so slightly and turned the muzzle of his big magnum toward Bolan. The Executioner let his empty hands drop limply to his sides.

Before Bostick began his monologue, Bolan dropped to one knee, Big Thunder now out and filling his hand. Holding the heavy magnum automatic up in a two-handed stance he triggered off a single round. The explosive report resonated in the enclosed space, but Bostick didn’t care. His face simply registered surprise in response to the gaping half-inch hole in his forehead. As Bostick slid to the floor, the teenager threw her arms around Bolan’s neck and cried.

The Executioner scooped up a gym bag fat with hundreds and draped it over the girl’s shoulder before motioning her toward the front door. Retrieving a handy bottle of Ronsonal from the cupboard, he squirted the accelerant over the furniture and carpet as he retreated. Tossing the now-empty squeeze bottle aside he retrieved his own Zippo engraved with “De Oppresso Liber” from his time in ‘Nam as a Green Beret and thumbed the striker wheel. By the time Bolan got the girl into his car, the old house was nicely involved.

Mack Bolan had the young lady back to her parents within the hour. The girl’s father was a disabled vet with whom Bolan had served at Dak To. The liberated money would make them a fresh home in Montana away from the drugs and the gangs. Bolan accepted a grateful handshake from his wheelchair-bound buddy before climbing back into his Trans Am and disappearing into the night.

1970’s-Era Manliness

I grew up with Don Pendleton’s Mack Bolan, The Executioner (so did Editor-in-Chief of Firearms News Vincent L. DeNiro). Flowing forth from the prolific pen of author Don Pendleton, over the course of 631 serialized novels Bolan’s adventures sold more than 200 million books. Mack Bolan would never fly in Joe Biden’s woke America today.

Bolan was a paragon of American manliness, like Clint Eastwood’s “Man with No Name” except packing a Beretta 93R machine pistol instead of a cowboy gun. Each installment saw Bolan battling terrorists or some organized crime syndicate bringing frontier justice to those most deserving. Along the way, he typically sampled some fresh exotic firearm and bedded some new woman.

Much like James Bond, Bolan only fell for a couple of women for real. Predictably, something evil often befell those closest to him, so Bolan kept his emotional distance out of a sense of self preservation. An angry femme once accused Bolan of liking his women, “Barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen.” The Executioner responded, “No, I like them alive.” First published in 1969, the Executioner franchise spun off several other series to include Able Team, Phoenix Force, and Stony Man. In 2014, it was announced that a movie adaptation was in the works starring Bradley Cooper as Bolan, but that appears to have stalled. That would have been pretty epic.

Throughout it all, Bolan availed himself of state of the art firepower. In the early 1970’s that would have been the Military Armament Corporation M-10 submachine gun. Particularly in its .45 ACP guise, the M-10 was the very definition of firepower. Just what exactly is firepower anyway? Not unlike beauty, happiness, or love, you kind of know it when you see it. From the perspective or pure Newtonian physics, it is tough to beat the .45 ACP M-10.A single .45 ACP FMJ bullet weighs 230 grains. That’s about half an ounce. A .45 ACP M-10 cycles at 1,090 rounds per minute. Emptying a full 30-round magazine throws nearly a pound of metal downrange in less than two seconds. While we might split hairs over the textbook definition of firepower, I suspect that is a good example of it.

Origin Story

The M-10 was the brainchild of one Gordon Ingram. He designed the groundbreaking weapon in 1964 while working for the Military Armament Corporation. The planet has since come to refer to Gordon’s stubby little buzzguns as MAC-10’s, but that particular term was never actually used by the company. Gordon Ingram was born in 1924 in Los Angeles. He served in World War 2 and exhibited a proclivity for firearms design from a young age. His first production weapon was the Ingram Model 6 that launched in 1949.

The Model 6 looked a bit like a Thompson submachine gun in dim light but, unlike the Thompson, was designed for ease of manufacture. The Model 6 was built around a drawn tubular receiver and featured such advanced features as a two-stage fire selector built into the trigger. Like the trigger of the Steyr AUG assault rifle, a partial squeeze produced semiauto fire, while a complete pull was full auto. Ingram sold Model 6 guns to Law Enforcement organizations, prisons, and the like, but the post-war world was dirty with pistol-caliber subguns, so production wrapped after only three years and a few thousand copies.

The M-10 was really Gordon Ingram’s masterwork. While the gun was serviceable enough, it was really designed to be easy and cheap to produce more than anything. The frame, upper receiver, and pistol grip were all formed from steel pressings welded in place. The bolt, trunnion, and fire control parts required a little machining, but, even then, these components were easy to produce in quantity. The end result was legitimately tiny and dirt cheap to build.

Technical Details

The M-10 employs the same telescoping bolt configuration introduced in the Czech vz.23 submachine gun and perfected in the Israeli Uzi. This design allows for an extremely short chassis with minimal bulk. Interestingly, while the design seems revolutionary on its face, most every autoloading handgun to include the Colt M1911, German Luger, and modern Glock utilizes a variation on the same theme.

The round charging handle protrudes out the top of the upper receiver and reciprocates with the bolt. Turing this handle 90 degrees with the bolt forward locks it in place with the action closed. The sights are formed from simple pressed steel. The rear sight is just a hole drilled in the back of the frame, while the front sight is a protected stamped post bent to shape and welded in place.

The folding stock is quite the contraption. Deployment first involves squeezing the buttstock component to pivot it in place. Then simply snatch the stock out to deploy the rails. A discreet button on the rear bottom of the frame releases the stock for stowage. The end result is flimsy and awkward but nonetheless better than nothing.

The magazine release is a centerline button easily accessible with either weak thumb. The safety is a sliding switch located inside the trigger guard that operates in the manner of that of a Garand. The fire selector is a rotating lever philosophically akin to that of the M16 located on the left front of the frame. Pointing forward is semiauto. Pointing backwards is rock and roll.

Variations

The first Model 10 SMGs could be had in either 9mm or .45 ACP. The frame and upper receiver pressings are common between the two chamberings, though the trunnions and magazine housings were unique. There are adaptors available that will convert the .45 ACP gun to fire 9mm, but the magwell of the 9mm gun is inadequate to accommodate the larger .45 ACP mags. 9mm magazines are double column, double feed designs adapted from those of the Walther MPL. The .45 ACP gun feeds from slightly modified double column, single feed Grease Gun mags. 9mm magazines packed 32 rounds, while the .45 ACP sort carried 30.

The 9mm and .45 ACP M-10’s first saw series production in 1970. Two years later, MAC came out with the .380ACP M-11. This miniaturized version of the Ingram fed from a proprietary 32-round magazine and cycled at a blistering 1,600 rounds per minute.

Original MAC guns were held together by a steel cross pin held in place via a spring-loaded detent. Later RPB versions used a two-headed threaded pin to cut down on costs. Guns could be found both with and without the hanger for the front grip strap.

The Sound Suppressor

While the MAC guns were indeed revolutionary for their day, what really set them apart was the associated sound suppressor designed by Mitch WerBell III. WerBell was quite the character. His sound suppressor employed wipes in the far end but was exceptionally effective, even by modern standards. The combination of the stubby little subgun and its sinister-looking silencer struck a visceral chord.

The original MAC suppressors were two-stage designs incorporating a proximal bit filled with shoelace eyelets to slow and cool muzzle gases followed by a series of baffles to gobble up noise. Replaceable synthetic wipes sealed the far end. While these wipes were key to the can’s rarefied performance, they also touched the bullets as they were fired. This meant they had to be replaced fairly frequently. They also could adversely affect accuracy, such as it was. The MAC cans were held in place via coarse threads that made it quick and easy to mount and dismount the suppressors. However, the down side is that attention must be paid lest the can unscrew during firing. I have ruined a couple of end caps on my own cans via inattention and sloth.

Running the Test Gun

The particular gun we used for our evaluation was an early MAC variant with the spring-loaded forward retention pin. Despite its obvious age, this is the most reliable MAC I have ever handled. After several hundred rounds thus far I have yet to have a stoppage through either full-sized 30-round magazines or the stubby 10-round sort. I had never before fired a .45 ACP MAC and feared the worst. I bought my .380 ACP M-11 back nearly twenty years ago, and it came with 1,000 rounds of ammo. I burned that up in about two weeks and pretty much had my fill of the thing. It is a curious novelty, but the blistering rate of fire gets tedious fairly quickly. I figured the larger-caliber version would offer the same stuff only worse.

The actual range experience was a pleasant surprise. Recoil is real without being objectionable and keeping the gun on target at modest ranges, even with generous bursts, was not a terrible chore. Regardless, do keep in mind the physical limitations of the design. Beyond about fifty meters an M-10 becomes an area weapon system. In my opinion, the sights are essentially worthless under any circumstances. The sight picture is constricted and cluttered, while recoil and muzzle jump make them superfluous once the bullets start flying. However, with a little practice just by sighting over the gun it is not an onerous chore to keep the weapon shooting straight. For its intended mission, close-range engagements in an environment bereft of friendlies, the M-10 will absolutely fill a room with pain.

Denouement

The MAC SMGs in all their various forms are the archetypal starter SMGs for most everybody getting into this quirky sport. After the Military Armament Corporation went bankrupt, these little guns were sold by the pallet of 100 for as little as $6 apiece. In the early to mid-1980s, a transferable M-10 or M-11 submachine gun often sold for less than the $200 Tax Stamp. Suffice it to say, they are markedly more expensive than that nowadays. However, they nonetheless remain appreciably cheaper than pretty much any other transferable machine gun available today.

MAC guns saw some active service with US Navy SEALs and the British SAS. A few also saw action in the hands of US Special Forces troops in Vietnam. MAC tried mightily to sell their unique little buzzguns around the globe and indeed hawked a few. However, a State Department prohibition against the exportation of sound suppressors hamstrung their efforts, dooming the original company. The design subsequently passed through several variations and sundry corporations. The eventual semiauto M-11/9 was the most-produced variant starting in the mid-1980s, and the basic design remains in production today.

I once read that a machinegun shoot without a MAC-10 is like a day without sunshine. A little trigger time behind this beefy MAC represents just a taste of what the state of the art circa 1972 really felt like. It was indeed the perfect tool to equip Don Pendleton’s epic Executioner. Be sure to see me in action shooting this M-10, and wearing my Mack Bolan Executioner outfit, at FirearmsNews.com.

INGRAM M-10 SUBMACHINE GUN SPECS

• Caliber: .45 ACP
• Weight: 6.26 lbs.
• Length: 11.6 in. (retracted), 21.45 in. (extended)
• Barrel Length: 5.75 inches
• Action: Blowback Open Bolt
• Feed: 10-, 30-, and 40-round box magazines
• Cyclic Rate of Fire: 1,090 rpm
• Value: $10,000+

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