Auto-Ordnance 1927 A-1C Lightweight Deluxe Thompson Hits Market

Looking for a Tommy gun, but you don’t have the cash to buy an original? Auto-Ordnance has a solution—they’ve just announced their new 1927 A-1C Lightweight Deluxe Thompson carbine, although, technically speaking, it’s not exactly an all-new idea.

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Auto-Ordnance Guns In 2025

Auto-Ordnance was founded all the way back in 1916 by retired Army colonel John Taliaferro Thompson as he began development, then production of the original Thompson submachine gun run. Those easily portable full-auto weapons revolutionized combat in the decades between the World Wars. To be clear, the Thompson submachine guns came with many drawbacks, but they offered a lot of firepower in a package easily carried by a man on the move. Global militaries moved to develop their own SMGs before and during World War II, and then assault rifles through the Cold War, but the full-auto Thompson was the gun that proved the idea worked.

But as the American law books evolved, so did Auto-Ordnance. Automatic weapons were increasingly restricted over the 21st century, and now, Auto-Ordnance finds it easier to produce and sell semi-auto Thompson replicas to the public, which fire from a closed bolt.

Auto-Ordnance 1927 A-1C Lightweight Deluxe

The new Lightweight Deluxe rifle is chambered in .45 ACP and looks an awful lot like the SMGs that Marines used in the Banana Wars, and Prohibition-era gangsters wielded in the mean streets of the Chicago bootlegging wars. However, it has one major advantage over the original Thompson submachine gun—it’s a lot lighter.

MSRP depends on which magazine package you want, with prices starting at $1,558 for one of these carbines with a single 20-round stick mag. Adding a 50-round drum mag to that package will run the price up to $1,970. Opting for a 100-round drum mag and a 20-round stick mag means a $2,140 MSRP. Find more details at the Auto-Ordnance website here.