Open Bolt explained

[LANTIRN]

Yeah, all of the modern day "thompsons", "uzis", and "sten/sterlings" only resemble those weapons externally and are entirely different functionally.

IMO, do not trust a closed bolt weapon that was originally designed as an open bolt gun. In my experience they are unreliable.

Man I never would have thought about that; I just assumed they would be built like their original designers intended. That is fucking unfortunate because I want a Thompson like you wouldn't fucking believe. I can't afford a fully auto one, which sucks since they were designed to be fully auto, but even still would have been content with a semi auto. But now that you've informed me it's a complete redesign to fire differently, it makes me completely reconsider buying one. You may have just saved me some money and disappointment.

[ceyko]

OP appreciate the post - educated me on yet another design I was not familiar with.

[David]

IMO, do not trust a closed bolt weapon that was originally designed as an open bolt gun. In my experience they are unreliable.

Like a lot of things I think a bunch boils down to who made it.

[David]

Man I never would have thought about that; I just assumed they would be built like their original designers intended. That is fucking unfortunate because I want a Thompson like you wouldn't fucking believe. I can't afford a fully auto one, which sucks since they were designed to be fully auto, but even still would have been content with a semi auto. But now that you've informed me it's a complete redesign to fire differently, it makes me completely reconsider buying one. You may have just saved me some money and disappointment.

The older west Hurley Thompsons are pretty reliable. The newer ones can be finicky just because of some poor quality control but can be worked out. They've been making semi closed bolt thompsons for 30+ years now so it's not new by any means.